Arizona republican., 1908-04-01
Arizona's Great Mineral Resources



 subsistence the valley can supply. We can sell them s36. 800, 900 worth of food stuff every year.
 A PRosPEcToR's PARADISE.
 Get it clear in you mind that the Arizona Copper Belt (which produces gold and silver as well as copper) is the most extensive mineral belt. so far as known. on earth, and its vast re- sources are as yet scarcely tapped. From corner to corner of the territory it is still a prospector's Paradise to which Opportunity with eager hand beckGns the bold and the hopeful who will risk a chance to win a fortune. But come early and avoid the rush. Come while the land Is cheap and make little money on the rise in values. Arizona to day has a popula- tion of only 200.000 with an acreage a little greater than New York. New Jersey. Pennsylvania. Delaware Rhode Island and Connecticut combin- ed. which have a population of about twenty millions. Can any social stu hen doubt that Arizona is able. in spite of it's aridity. to support, by agri- culture alone. a population of a mil lion. We have 72.000,000 acres of land in the territory and 5,000,0 GOO acres would not only support 1,00O,000 people but would enable them if in- telligent. energetic and industrious, to become opulent in a short time,-in a very short time.-within a quarter of a century. We have the land-no ques- ton about that. We have the water too. no question about that. The only economic question is can we af- ford to bring the water to the land, by the system of reservoirs. tunnels. fumes and ditches necessary? Of course we can afford it and this is not to be questioned by any one capable of if the cost is not greater than the land and such land in such a climate.
 l think the cost of safely and per- redeeming 100000 acres of land below the frost line in Arizona by a system of empounding and distribut- ing water would fall well within S100,- 100000 or s20 an acre. It appears therefore that if the land will be &C., tually worth $20 an acre when SUD- piled with 21 inches of water a year. precisely at the time the water is needed, we can afford to put in the irrigation system.
 l only wish at this time to raise a candid and intelligent discussion of the whole proposition-so overwhelm- ingly important to the future dignity and prosperity of Arizona-through the very intelligent and energetic press of the territory. and 1 urge them to lay the proposition in their own way be- fore their readers from time to time.
 I have opened the discussion in this light way the better to enlist if pos sible general attention to the sub ject
 l am a reader of signs, particularly of signs that effect the social and in dustrial life of the wide. bold. hust- ling west. I have for years been stu dying and interpreting them all the way from our southern frontier to the artic circle. from Mexico to Alaska. from the Pacific to the Mississippi, and if I know anything l know the west and the signs of the greater i'm pulses that stir her generous breast, and as an interpreter of those signs say to you that Arizona stands to- lay on the threshold of a new era with her face to the morning and her count enance radiant and resolute with the Hush of hope and the flash of determ- nation, with the hand of welcome stretched to the industrial hosts far md wide. who are gazing hitherward md beginning to set forth.
 Within three years the tide will be 1t its flood and will not turn until l million people greet our Arizona as heir stronger mother and put their hands to the hoe and the blow. and to he drill of the miner, in the up-build- ng of her commonwealth.
 FTTZ-M MAC.