page_title: National Irrigation Congress
section_title: Twentieth century
hierarchical_section_title: National Irrigation Congress / Twentieth century
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of the Elephant Butte Dam under construction circa 1914
context_page_description: The National Irrigation Congress was held periodically in the Western United States beginning in 1891 and ending in 1916, by which time the organization had changed its name to International Irrigation Congress. It was a "powerful pressure group."
context_section_description: 1903
  The eleventh congress was held in Ogden, Utah, in September 1903, with Senator William A. Clark of Montana as chairman. The agenda included "Practical irrigation and forestry lessons; reports of experts; application of provisions of the Reclamation act; State progress under the National act; views on settlement of legal complications, and the theme of colonization." 
  Commander Frederick Booth-Tucker of the Salvation Army made the principal address, arguing on behalf of the a plan to "colonize the irrigated lands of the West with poor people from the cities." He said some 3,000 acres of land had been settled in such a way in Colorado, California and Ohio.
  1905
  The 1905 meeting of the congress, held in Portland, Oregon, in conjunction with the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, attracted 1,200 delegates. A plan to hold "sectional meetings" was deemed a failure because most of the delegates preferred to attend the fair instead, a New York Times reporter said.
  1906
  The congress was held at Boise, Idaho and took a stand against any "legislative concessions in favor of Philippine sugar," a nation recently conquered by the United States, so that sugar-beet production "may be fully developed in the arid regions of America." The delegates also rescinded a resolution that the 11th conference had adopted in 1903 endorsing Zea Maize as the "national floral emblem."
  1907
  The congress was opened in Sacramento, California, in September, held in conjunction with a colorful Interstate Exposition of Irrigated Land and Forest Products. The "four great objects of the congress" were "To save the forests, store the floods, reclaim the deserts, and make homes on the land." Agronomist Luther Burbank, the "Wizard of the Plant Industry," told the delegates he had developed a "thornless cactus" that would "become the great fodder of arid regions."
  1908
  For the 12-day conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, beginning September 29, the federal government appropriated $50,000 to underwrite an exposition exhibiting the products of agriculture. Territorial Governor George Curry moved his office from the state capital at Santa Fe so he could be on hand to greet the 4,000 people who eventually arrived. New Mexicans used the event to drum up support for statehood, which was granted four years later, in 1912. A reporter reviewing the event said that:
  The toniclike effect of the entire affair buoyed spirits of Albuquerque's many boosters and reinforced in them the conviction that their city, in the century stretching ahead, was marked for bright and wondrous things.
  1909Gifford Pinchot, who had been appointed by President William McKinley to head the government's Division of Forestry in 1898, and who had run the U.S. Forest Service since it had taken over management of forest reserves from the General Land Office in 1905, became convinced that U.S. Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger intended to "stop the conservation movement". In August, speaking at the annual meeting of the National Irrigation Congress in Spokane, Washington, he accused Ballinger of siding with private trusts in his handling of water power issues.
  In his opening speech at the congress, chairman George E. Barstow urged the government to find work for (overseas) immigrants "out West", to provide them with transportation and to lend them money to establish homes.
  1910
  The 1910 conference in Pueblo, Colorado, was highlighted by a dispute over whether water policy should be in the hands of the federal government or, as sought by congress chairman Frank C. Goudy of Denver, "larger private and State holdings in irrigation projects." The congress endorsed federal control of interstate water "by a substantial majority."
  1911
  At the Chicago, Illinois meeting, a move was afoot to change the name of the organization to National Reclamation Congress and "make the reclaiming of the swamp and lowlands of the South the primary object and the irrigation of the Southwest and the West a secondary matter." The attempt was not carried out. At one session, Gifford Pinchot, "President Roosev
caption: Elephant Butte Dam under construction
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