The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1909-04-13
IRRIGATION AND AGRICULTURE.

Nowhere i'm the world is agriculture
so intelligent as in the irrigated re-
gions; nowhere is it so productive, and
nowhere else have the problems of
poverty, isolation and failure been so
effectually attacked"
If the people were interested in
events in proportion to their impor-
lance the irrigation congress next Au-
gust would plunge the whole country
into wild excitement. One imagines,
however. that our national equanimity
will not be greatly perturbed by it.
Although the subject to be dis
cussed relates vitality TO human happi-
ness, although the way we finally ans
wer the questions which the eminent
speakers at the congress will raise may
decide whether 500 years from now the
United States shall be a f1ourishing
empire or a desert solitude, neverthe-
less it will not be easy to arouse more
than a perfunctionary public interest.
The great names of the orators, the
pomp of civic festivity, the display Of
governmental science will all be need
ed to hold the languid ear of the indif-
ferent farmer, whom nothing short of
an earthquake will compel to think or
study. Irrigation would rain gold into
his tubs if he would set them out, but
he won't until he is harried and hound
ed into doing it.
But the farmer is no worse than
other men. Few of us take more than
a feeble and spasmodic interest in the
things that concern us most deeply.
Consider how speedily an audience
vanishes whenever a speaker touches
on education, subject whose import
is even weightier than irrigation.
1t is only by fits and starts that
we can be induced to think of the
salvation of our immortal souls. says
the Oregonian. Some sporadic Billy
Sunday can turn our attention to these
precious entities once in a while but
how long does it stay fixed? Salome
dancing a frivolous hornpipe makes us
forget time and eternity
If man We're a truly rational being
the minute he learned that irrigation
would double the produce of his farm
even in such a favored region as the
Willamette valley, he would rush tC
build dams and dig bitches. but he
doesn't. He waits until somebody has
pushed and prodded. him.
Think how long it has taken some OF
the rural brethren to begin spraying
their apple trees. They know that a
few doses of lead arsenate would save
their fruit from ruin and line their
pockets with dollars, but not a drop die
they spray until a paternal govern
ment stepped in and gave them nc
choice. AS a race we are just as lazy
and shortsighted as we dare be, and
most of Us would far prefer to swing
heavy sledge hammer 10 hours rath-
err than think for 10 minutes.
Such congresses as the one which
will meet in Spokane next August are
more valuable for reiterating old truths
than for revealing new ones. Iteration
is all that saves the world from a re-
lapse into barbaric squalor. Hearing
the truth about irrigation or anything
else once only does us not the slight
est good. We must hear it a thousand
times and in every possible key.
The Massachusetts savings bank in
surance scheme was based on the sup
position that when life insurance was
made cheap and easy every person
who needed it would step up and buy
1t. No madden dream was ever dream