Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1908-10-01
DR.. iSHAM RANDOLPH DISCUSSES
CONTRIBUTION OF
ENGINEER
Madison Sept. 80.

uSlu, DOtD III punt Vi dLISIludICS dnu
also in the high quality of the speak
ers. The idea of making Madison the
annual meeting place of the congress
did not come to a vote because of a,
constitutional provision providing for
a. different Headquarters every year.
At the morning session, Miss Edith
G. Charlton of the domestic science
department of Iowa state agricultural
college, Ames, spoke to the women
of the congress on the value of diff
ferent kinds of food, while Professor
George c. Humphrey lectuTed 10 the
men on the Different Types of Dairy
Cattle.
In the afternoon DR.. fsham Ran
dolph, who was scheduled for the
evening session, spoke on the value
of the engineer to the world in gen
eral and the farmer in particular.
Engineer Renefactor.
Nobody has contributed more to
the wealth of the world or has helped
the farmer class as much as the sci
Isham Randolph's address. The rail
roads, said, Mr. Randolph, have pro
badly been The most important mani
festation of the engineers labOrS,
creating a market for the great crops
of the northwest, and thereby raising
the price of grain so that farming
could be profitable. Mr.. Randolph
also told how the railroads had raised
the price of land and had been the
only means of developing and settling
new countries. He instanced the
rapid rise in population and wealth
of the great Mississippi valley, which
is now recognized as the dominant
agricultural region in the world
Without the engineer these railroads
could not have been built, and with
cut the railroads this country would
now be a wilderness, was the speak
ers argument. Not only in the United
States had the influence OF the rail-
roads been the means of developing
agricultural lands and national wealth.
South America among other nations
had become a factor in world com
merce by their aid
The transportation facilities offered
by rivers, lakes and oceanic waters
had only assumed their greatest I'M
portance when the technical skill OF
the modern engineer came into evil
dence, said Dr. Randolph. Commune
cation by water because of its greater
economy should be used much more
in the future than it has in the past
was another of the speakers ideas.
Inland waterways, he said, had not
been given sufficient Importance in
years Immediately past but were now
coming to be carefully considered by
far-sighted economists and statesmen,
The value of waterways for engin-
eering purposes besides those OF
transportation was another of the
, ideas considered.
Reclamation of arid western lands
for farming purposes was the third
benefit of the engineer to present day
! civilization, said DR.. Randolph. Mil
lions of acres of such land, formerly
barely able to support the fleet
winged buzzards and a small guam
tity of understood sage brush, have
now become veritable gardens, yield
ing immense crops of grain and fruit.
California, the speaker said, was a
good example of this, for there some
of the formerly worthless lands can
not be bought now for 1000 an acre.
Surely if the desert blossoms like a
rose, the flowers are golden. So i'm
portant did the work of reclamation
seem that the government is now
pushing that kind of work most sue
cessfully and energetically.
The lecture was doubly interesting
because of the prominence of the
speaker. DR.. Randolph was engineer
in charge of the Chicago drainage
canal. consulting engineer on the
first Panama canal board and also
engineer supervising the construction
of the Niagara Falls power dam.
Word from Secretary Wilson.
4 letter from Secretary of Agri-
culture Wilson was read by Secretary
of the Congress George NJ. Whitaker,
in which the veteran agriculturalist
regretted his inability TO address the
delegates in Madison and Iauded their
work.
Chair for Treasurer.
costly chair uuhoISf cred in