The Parker post. (Parker, Ariz.) 1910-1918, 1911-10-21
WEST HAS HOMES
FOR MILLIONS
irrigation Now Making Possible the
Cultivation Of Vast Spaces of Wa.
terless Desert-CalI of the West Is
the Call to Fortune.

AhO SoAA vi IuS WoSt COu0S 10 US
today insistent and inviting. For
merly it was the Call of the Wild,
voice from out a vast wilderness of
mountains, desert and plains.
The iron horse has conquered dis
tance and the barriers long inter-
posed by vast spaces of waterless
desert have been thrown down. r.
rigation canals long enough to girdle
the globe with triple bands have
spread wide GASES of green in the
arid places. Cheerful, prosperous
communities dot a landscape once
vacant and voiceless.
The great plains invite the scien-
tific farmer to overcome the lack of
rain by intelligent methods of cul-
tivation and wisdom in seed selec-
ton.
The unsurveyed and unexp1ored
mountains await the prospector to
disclose mineral riches untold.
Countless streams rushing downward
from snowy SUBMITS, unchecked and
uncontrolled, lure the engineer to
harness and utilize for the needs of
commerce the power now wasted.
The desert-mysterious, silent, ex-
pectant, quivering under cloudless
skies-holds promise Of freedom
and independence to the careworn
and discouraged. It offers the uplift
of unmeasured distances and the in
di-'idual home with that broader free
dom of action which comes with life
in the open.
Cradle of Civilization.
May not the influence of its far
flung horizons and its blue perspec-
i've be potential in character mould
ing and building? The cradle of our
civilization was rocked in the desert.
Plato and Socrates dreamed their
dreams, imbibed their splendid i'm
agery and stately rhetoric in a rain
A~So ACsA0' way AOI Jul OWA 0O0O4I
develop new system Of ethics and
morals to lead us back from the ma
terial % the spiritual, into ways of
gentleness and simple living.
Untouched by plow, unleached by
cain, the desert holds fast the accu-
mulatcd fertility of ages. It awaits
the quickening kiss of canalborne
water to yield abundant harvests
and to provide homes for millions of
our people.
Ma national work is Of more impor-
tance today than of reclaiming for
home-builders an empire which in
its present state is uninhabited and
worthless. To those who dwell on
the Atlantic coast it seems a far
cry to the great American desert in
which the work is going forward.
Our country is of such vast extent
and the deser. is so little known,
that the average easterner gives but
slight heed to this particular phase
of our industrial development, dis
missing the subject as of no per-
sonal moment. A more careful con-
of all factors involved in
national reclamation makes it ap-
parent that in many essential par
ticulars the creation of a new COM
in the arid west pos
sesses features of interest to every
manufacturing city in the east. The
completion of each engineering work
initiates agricultural development.
Compact farming communities are
quickly established in the zones of
villages, towns and cities
follow. Railroads extend their branch
es to the remotest limits of the new
country, bringing the commerce of
the world to new markets. In fl
nancial way every large manufact-
urer in the east Is interested in the
development which is thus promoted.
For many years to come the hun
dredS of thousands. Of settlers must
look to the east for what they wear,
for machinery of all kinds, for many
of the necessaries and most of the
luxuries they require.
Homes for One Million Families.
Viewed from other than the COM
mercial aspect, the work of recla-
nation Is of national interest, be-
cause it will tend in some measure
to relieve the over-crowding and con-
sesting of older portions of the coun-
try. A conservative estimate is that
30, 100000 acres of land will be re-
claimed in the arid west. On this
basis there will be homes on the
land for more than million fami-
lies. Each family on the farm will
support another family in the urban