The conquest of arid America

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THE

CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

BY

WILLIAM E. SMYTHE

ILLUSTRATED

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

1900

Copyright, 1900, by WILT.IAM E. SMYTJIK.

All rigkt* rtterved.

TO

MY WIFE

CONTENTS

PART FIRST

CHAPTER COLONIAL EXPANSION AT HOME PAGK

I. GREATNESS BY CONTINENTAL CONQUEST 3

II. THE HOME - BUILDING INSTINCT OF THE AMERICAN

PEOPLE 12

III. THE BETTER HALF OF THE UNITED STATES .... 19

IV. THE BLESSING OF ARIDITY 30

V. THE MIRACLE OF IRRIGATION 41

PART SECOND

REAL UTOPIAS OF THE ARID WEST

I. THE MORMON COMMONWEALTH . . 51

II. THE GREELEY COLONY OF COLORADO 77

III. THE EVOLUTION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA .... 92

IV. THE REVOLUTION ON THE PLAINS . 106

PART THIRD

UNDEVELOPED AMERICA

I. THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA. ..." 121

II. THE NEW DAY IN COLORADO 150

III. THE PLEASANT LAND OF UTAH 164

IV. THE CRUDE STRENGTH OF IDAHO 174

V. ARID WASHINGTON AND OREGON 185

VI. THE POTENTIAL GREATNESS OF NEVADA 194

CONTENTS

CHAPTKR PAGE

VII. WYOMING, LAW-GIVER OF THE ARID REGION . . . 207

VIII. THE PROSPERITY OF MONTANA 222

IX. THE AWAKENING OF NEW MEXICO 228

X. THE BUDDING CIVILIZATION OF ARIZONA 237

PART FOURTH

THE ARMY OF THE HALF-EMPLOYED

I. THE SURPLUS PEOPLE 247

II. WHY THE PEOPLE Do NOT Go TO THE LAND . . . 253

III. COLONIZATION WITH CO-OPERATIVE CAPITAL . . . 2GO

IV. COLONY PLANS AND INSTITUTIONS 276

V. THE ADMINISTRATION OF CO-OPERATIVE SETTLEMENT 285

VI. ADJUSTING OLD IDEALS TO NEW CONDITIONS . . . 298

VII. LOOKING FORWARD TO THE GREATER REPUBLIC . 308

APPENDIX

NOTE AS TO METHODS OF IRRIGATION . ,311

INDEX .321

ILLUSTEATIONS

A TYPICAL MOUNTAIN STREAM IN THE ARID REGION
— MOUTH OP ECHO CANYON, UTAH, SHOWING
WEBER RIVER Frontispiece

CALIFORNIA CONTRAST— PICKING FLOWERS AT PASA-
DENA, WITH THE SNOW SEVEN FEET DEEP ON
MOUNT WILSON Facing p. 94

IRRIGATING SEVEN HUNDRED ACRES OF LEMON-TREES

AT SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA " 138

ARTESIAN WELL AT ZILLAH, WASHINGTON .... " 188

FURROW IRRIGATION FOR VEGETABLES AT EXPERI-
MENT STATION, WYOMING " 214

DIVISION BOX AT BOZEMAN, MONTANA, SHOWING
METHOD OF TURNING WATER INTO LATERALS
FOR IRRIGATING THE FIELD . "224

MAPS

ARID AMERICA Facing p. 24

ARID AMERICA (THE STRIKING SIMILARITY BETWEEN

PALESTINE AND SALT LAKE VALLEY, UTAH) . . " 54

LOCATION OF CO-OPERATIVE INDUSTRIES IN IRELAND " 292

PKEFACE

THE man who removes from a crowded neighbor-
hood in New England to a sparsely settled locality
in the Far West will be struck with the immensity
of the country which awaits settlement and develop-
ment. He will not be long in discovering that the
new land possesses certain advantages of climate,
soil, and other natural resources over the place
whence he came. If he has the slightest interest in
social and economic things, he will find himself specu-
lating on the anomaly of surplus people in one place
and surplus land in another — on the stern fact of a
region of landless man and a region of manless land,
and both under the same flag. Such was the author's
experience ; hence this book.

The materials for this sketch have been gathered
by ten years of life, work, and study in various parts
of the West. During that period the writer's oppor-
tunities to observe resources and institutions were
unusually favorable, since his work as editor of The
Irrigation Age and an officer of the National Irriga-
tion Congress took him repeatedly to all the States

ix

PREFACE

and Territories of the arid region and to nearly every
valley or settlement of special interest. These oppor-
tunities were utilized to the fullest extent. The his-
tory of colonies has more often been learned from
the lips of pioneers than from books or documents.
The causes of successes and failures in settlement,
and the merits of various social and industrial plans
suggested in these pages as best adapted to future
colonization effort, have been discussed at many a
western fireside with the men and women who are
dealing practically with such problems. If this por-
tion of the book has any value, it consists in the fact
that on every possible occasion it has been discussed
with the earnest people who are themselves engaged
in making homes in western valleys.

A list of those who have been helpful to the author
in assembling the facts used in these pages would in-
clude nearly all the men prominent in the irrigation
work of the western States. It is not unfair, how-
ever, to make especial mention of the author's obliga-
tions to Frederick *H. Newell, of the United States
Geological Survey; to Elwood Mead, State Engineer
of Wyoming ; to A. Milton Musser, historian of the
Mormon Church, and to David Boyd, historian of
the Greeley Colony, Colorado.

Of the books which have been most useful in fur-
nishing light for the larger aspects of the subject, Mr.
Douglas Campbell's The Puritan in England, Hol-
land, and America, Mr. Theodore Koosevelt's The
Winning of the West, Mr. Andrew Carnegie's Tri-

PREFACE

umphant Democracy, and M. Edmond Demolins's
Anglo-Saxon Superiority, are gratefully mentioned.

Certain chapters of the book first appeared as
contributions to The Century Magazine, The Atlan-
tic Monthly, The Forum, and The North American
Review, and the author is indebted to the courtesy
of the editors of those magazines for the right to re-
produce them here.

The acceptance which the author's work on similar
lines has found in American periodicals, and the fact
of a wider interest evidenced by translations into three
foreign languages, is one reason for the publication of
this book. But a better one is the author's convic-
tion that the time is ripe for the occupation of the
great West by the masses of our people, and his
earnest hope that this book will be of some value in
throwing light upon their pathway to homes and
independence.

WILLIAM E. SMYTUE.

STANDISH, CALIFORNIA, August, 1899.

IKTKODUCTION

THE TWENTIETH -CENTURY OPPORTUNITY

THE true opportunity of the American people lies
not in the tropical islands of the Pacific and Carib-
bean, but in the vast unsettled regions of their own
country. Their true mission is not to impose their
dominion upon distant lands and alien peoples, but to
work out the highest forms of civilization for their
own race and nationality.

The advocates of colonial expansion abroad argue
that hitherto we have been engaged in the conquest
of this continent, and declare that this work is now
done. But it is not done. There is room for one
hundred million people in the States and Territories
between the Missouri river and the Pacific Ocean. In
that vast region there is a population of but three to
the square mile, while in the Philippine Islands there
are sixty, a density of settlement twenty times as
great.

But the material opportunity is neither the single
nor the most urgent claim of Arid America to the

xiii

INTRODUCTION

nation's attention. It offers the best field in all the
world for the expansion of ideas and the development
of institutions. This is no less important to mankind
than the expansion of trade and the development of
natural resources.

Under the policy of continental solidarity and of
holding aloof from the political entanglements of
Europe and Asia, the American people have grown
rich and populous beyond any other nation in history.
If they now choose to abandon the course which led
them to greatness by the shortest and easiest path, it
is not because they are compelled by physical limita-
tions to seek another field for expansion. Or if they
abandon republican for imperialistic ideals it is not
because the former lacks favorable soil in which to
plant and nurture new growths suited to the changed
conditions of the times.

"We shall see in the following pages how the nation-
al prosperity of the past came as the rich reward of
developing the material resources of the continent,
and how the inspiration for three remarkable eras of
colonization — along the Atlantic seaboard, through
the interior from Lakes to Gulf, and in the valley of
the Mississippi — sprang not from lust of power or of
trade, but from home -building instincts peculiar to
our race and people. We shall then observe what
vast resources yet remain to be used, and how the
physical conditions of the vacant half-continent in the
West mark its future civilization as inevitably differ-
ent, in important respects, from that of the East.

xiv

INTRODUCTION

In our study of typical communities which have
grown up among western plains and mountains dur-
ing the past half -century, we shall see how the pi-
oneers unconsciously shaped their institutions to suit
an environment hitherto unknown to men of English
speech, and how these institutions, with the tenden-
cies they set in motion, fortunately conform to new
economic conditions in which machinery and large
capital play so important a part.

In our review of the States and Territories which
compose Undeveloped America, we shall behold their
material achievement and the state of their civiliza-
tion at the close of the present century, and the wide
opportunities which wait upon the future.

We shall then seek to find the relation between the
crowded population and superabundant capital which
have accumulated in the old States, and the sur-
plus resources of lands, forests, minerals, and water-
power lying unused in the West. We shall consider
how surplus men and money may be brought to sur-
plus resources, and applied, under sound business prin-
ciples, to the making of homes, industries, and insti-
tutions in consonance with the traditions of our race
and the genius of our people.

Whatever may be the nation's ultimate policy in
the Pacific — whether to rule or to emancipate — the
new impulse now clearly apparent in the intellectual
and industrial life of that part of the world will ma-
terially assist the settlement of the Far West, and
indefinitely widen the market for its products. The

XV

CHAPTER I
GREATNESS BY CONTINENTAL CONQUEST

THE economic greatness of the United States is the
fruit of a policy of peaceful conquest over the resources
of a virgin continent. Without this great item of raw
material, the finished product which the world acknowl-
edges in the industrial America of to-day would have
been impossible.

The true career of the American people as a race of
empire-builders dates not from the founding of James-
town, New Amsterdam, and Plymouth, but from the
surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown and the subsequent
inauguration of George Washington as the first President
of the United States. The early settlers were merely
European sentinels standing guard over a treasure of
continental magnitude which they neither compre-
hended nor appreciated. The tobacco-raisers of Vir-
ginia, the fur-traders of New York, and the religious
enthusiasts of New England had no conception of a
national destiny or mission. They looked backward to
the civilization whence they had come, rather than for-
ward to the conquest and subjugation of the mightier
empire on whose eastern shores they had set their reluc-
tant feet.

Only at the close of the successful war for indepen-

3

INTRODUCTION

development of all the lands around the borders of
the Pacific, the rise of Alaska and the North, the
opening of Russia's new highway from Europe across
Siberia to Asiatic shores, the building of the Isthmian
Canal, with the cheap and ready access it will give to
both the American and European coasts of the Atlan-
tic— these great events all prophesy the rapid settle-
ment of western America during the twentieth cen-
tury. It lies there now a clean, blank page, awaiting
the makers of history — the goodly heritage of our
people.

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

£>art 3Fir0t
COLONIAL EXPANSION AT HOME

" In 1850 she [the United States] passed Austria. In 1860 it was
her motherland to whom she held out her hand lovingly as she
swept by. In 1870 she overtook and passed France. In 1880 she
had outstripped the German Empire ; and now, in 1890, she is left
without a competitor to contend with except giant Russia. All the
others she has left behind. Another decade, and the sound of the
rushing Republic close behind will astonish even Russia, with its
eighty-six millions in Europe. Yet another decade, and it, too,
like all the rest, will fall behind to watch for a time the new nation
in advance, until it forges so far forward as to pass beyond her ken,
when five hundred millions, every one an American, and all boast-
ing a common citizenship, will dominate the world— for the world's
good."— ANDREW CARNEGIE, Triumphant Democracy.

CHAPTER I
GREATNESS BY CONTINENTAL CONQUEST

THE economic greatness of the United States is the
fruit of a policy of peaceful conquest over the resources
of a virgin continent. Without this great item of raw
material, the finished product which the world acknowl-
edges in the industrial America of to-day would have
been impossible.

The true career of the American people as a race of
empire-builders dates not from the founding of James-
town, New Amsterdam, and Plymouth, but from the
surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown and the subsequent
inauguration of George Washington as the first President
of the United States. The early settlers were merely
European sentinels standing guard over a treasure of
continental magnitude which they neither compre-
hended nor appreciated. The tobacco-raisers of Vir-
ginia, the fur-traders of New York, and the religious
enthusiasts of New England had no conception of a
national destiny or mission. They looked backward to
the civilization whence they had come, rather than for-
ward to the conquest and subjugation of the mightier
empire on whose eastern shores they had set their reluc-
tant feet.

Only at the close of the successful war for indepen-

3

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

dence did the world begin to realize that the American
was to be the master of the new continent for all time,
and that his rule must move westward as naturally and
inevitably as the sun in its course. Only when the new
government, hewn out with the sword and cemented
with the blood of its citizens, had been finally and firmly
established, did the heterogeneous elements in the
sparsely settled original States crystallize into a national
spirit and a national character. From that hour the
material development of the New World began in earnest.
The people labored as with the vim and courage of him
who works for himself. Men began to dream of an
America which should be richer and more populous and
powerful than even Europe.

The war was over — the war was begun ! England had
been shaken off by force of arms, and the other Euro-
pean ties would be loosed by the arts of diplomacy ; but
it remained to wage war on the forest, the plain, the
desert, and the mountain, and to create a better civil-
ization than the world had seen. What millions of men
and billions of dollars were employed and rewarded in
the process — what workshops, and railroads, and farming
districts were created in the wilderness — what cities,
with swarming thousands of inhabitants, with homes
and colleges and hospitals, were erected in the midst of
the primeval silence — what States were carved from the
woods and prairies — what unexpected commerce, borne
in undreamed-of steamships, was sent to whiten the un-
explored inland seas !

It is in the answer to these questions rather than in
the poet's paean to democracy that the true explanation
of the economic progress of the nation will be found.

4

CONTINENTAL CONQUEST

It is not to be denied that the fact that the United
States was heralded throughout the world as a "free
country" attracted millions of immigrants, nor that
popular government and complete immunity from the
demands of royal tribute left enterprise unhampered to
a degree hitherto unknown. But a vast commerce can
no more find sustenance solely in the written constitu-
tion of a country than a starving prospector in the
mountains can satisfy his appetite with scenery.

It seems worth while to lay strong emphasis upon this
point, because the somewhat general acceptance of the
notion that America is the product of its institutions,
rather than that its institutions are the product of
America, has obscured the causes of past prosperity and
belittled the importance of our undeveloped resources.
Not until this fact is understood and acknowledged
is it possible to comprehend, even vaguely, the incal-
culable importance of the undeveloped regions in the
western half of the United States.

At the close of the Revolution the United States con-
sisted of a fringe of settlements mostly confined to the
Atlantic coast and the banks of important rivers on the
eastern slope of the Alleghanies. Nominally, the nation-
al domain extended westward to the Mississippi river,
but practically there was no development beyond the
thirteen original States. Even there the natural resour-
ces of the country had scarcely been touched. Boston
had a population of about eighteen thousand, New York
of about thirty thousand, Philadelphia of about thirty-
five thousand, Baltimore of about fifteen thousand.
Richmond, Charleston, and Savannah, though of some
importance politically, were mere straggling hamlets.

5

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

Detroit, St. Louis, aud New Orleans were French out-
posts in the wilderness. Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland,
and Chicago; Omaha, Kansas City, Denver, Salt Lake,
and San Francisco — these and scores of other cities now
populous and powerful — were hidden in the womb of
time. Of the country between the Alleghanies and the
Mississippi far less was known than the world now knows
of Africa. The vast domain lying between the Father
of Waters and the Pacific Ocean was neither as well ex-
plored nor as perfectly comprehended as the Arctic
region is to-day.

When the men of the new Republic turned their backs
on the Old World, in the double sense of politics and in-
dustry, and faced the continental opportunity which
awaited them, they entered upon the fiercest war of con-
quest in all history. And the spoils of that war were to
be in proportion to the magnificence of the task.

The first effort at the subjugation of the wilderness
was directed to the fields and the streams. The forest
clearings were extended that agriculture might find room
for expansion. The trees felled in the process were float-
ed in the rivers to saw-mills driven by the current. The
logs, transformed to lumber, supplied the material for
millions of comfortable homes. In the mean time, the
new farms fed the growing population of the towns,
while a myriad of workshops, improved by inventions of
which a robust necessity was the prolific mother, con-
sumed and manufactured thp textile materials from field
and pasture.

The step from the crude employments of the frontier
to the manifold occupations of a modern industrial life
was easy and natural. Fostered by a generous policy of

6

CONTINENTAL CONQUEST

protection, and blessed by long years of peace, the work
of development went on from generation to generation.
In New England the raw material on which the workmen
labored in fashioning a civilization was poorer than else-
where. And yet it was on that sterile soil, in the midst
of those rocks and hills, that industrial pre-eminence was
first to be achieved. A citizen of Massachusetts once
made the just boast that " not one drop of water flows
from our hills to the sea until its power has been three
times multiplied by the mill wheels." Every stream was
lined with factories, nearly every town had its peculiar
industries and its growing crowds of skilled laborers,
supporting the stores and shops with their trade, and
filling the schools with their children.

Not only in New England, which owed its serious en-
ergy to the example and character of its founders, and
its fierce industrial enthusiasm to a system of free labor,
but equally in New York, in New Jersey, in Delaware,
in Pennsylvania, and southward to the Floridian penin-
sula, the army of labor marched on with irresistible ad-
vance. It scaled the crests of the Alleghanies and opened
yet greater valleys to the energy of men. It tunnelled
into the earth and brought up the hidden stores of coal
and iron ore. It tapped the subterranean reservoirs of
natural gas and oil.

With the rapid growth of a many-sided economic life
the need of improved facilities for internal transportation
arose and grew yearly more urgent. The natural water-
courses, navigated by rafts and sailing craft, did not long
suffice. The army of labor was set at work in building
great highways and digging canals. Then came the
steamboat, and, finally, the railroad with its iron horse.

7

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

Thus it was that the work of taming the wilderness
went on with increasing fervor. Thus it was that thirty-
two new States were added to the original thirteen.
Thus it was that the national population was increased
fourteen-fold, and that cities rivalling the greatest urban
centres in the Old World, in size and wealth and power,
were developed on the site of the colonial villages of the
early days. Thus it was that the Republic was able to
welcome, and to absorb into its apparently insatiable in-
dustrial system, the millions of immigrants who flocked
to its shores.

During these days of rapid material expansion over
new areas, Uncle Sam was the proprietor of the most gigan-
tic employment bureau on earth. He had enough work
for his own prodigious family of sons, and for the over-
flow of all the families across the sea. He offered the
highest wages in the world-wide market. He distribu-
ted his abounding prosperity through all channels of
trade, all classes of industry, all grades of society. He
made men and communities rich first by employing
their energies in the conversion of the wilderness into a
civilization, and paying them roundly for the work ;
then by the rise in values, or " unearned increment,"
which comes with population and development ; finally,
by the premium, or interest, upon capital thus acquired.
All this was the logical fruit of a policy of continental
conquest bravely undertaken, magnificently achieved.

Behold the story of national prosperity in the form of
a few clear-cut figures, divested of all rhetorical cloth-
ing : In a little more than one hundred years the area of
farms increased from sixty-five thousand square miles to
over one million square miles. The number of persons

8

CONTINENTAL CONQUEST

engaged in the agricultural industry in 1890 was ten
million seven hundred thousand — more than two and a
half times the entire population in 1790. In acres the
total amount of land classed as farms by the last census
was nearly six hundred million, of which nearly four
hundred million was under actual cultivation, the rest
being woodlands. The number of individual farms was
four million six hundred and fifty thousand. The annual
product was worth four billion dollars. " In ten years,"
says Mr. Andrew Carnegie, in his inspiring book, Tri-
umphant Democracy, "a territory larger than Britain, and
almost equal in extent to the entire area of France and
Germany, was added to the farm area of America."

Marvellous as this statement is, it exhibits but one
item in the record of continental conquest which con-
ferred such phenomenal prosperity upon the American
people in the past. Agriculture is the basis of civiliza-
tion, and upon the foundation so quickly and thorough-
ly laid, the new nation hastened to erect the superstruct-
ure of a complex industrial life. The existence of an
enormous population on the farms furnished a great field
for manufactures. This industry now employs between
four and five million workmen, who annually receive and
expend nearly two billion dollars in wages, and create an
annual product worth nearly nine billion dollars.

Agriculture and manufactures — both finished products
wrought by millions of workmen from the raw materials
of the new continent — combined in demanding the most
extensive arrangements for internal transportation ever
provided on the face of the earth. The total railroad
mileage at the last census was one hundred and sixty-
three thousand five hundred miles, which is more than

9

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

that of all European countries combined. Of this vast
mileage almost one-half was built between 1880 and
1890. When it is remembered that each of these miles
stands for about fifty thousand dollars expenditure — the
cost of construction and equipment — and that the work
employed an army of laborers and skilled artisans, who
in turn consumed great quantities of agricultural and
manufactured products, it is not difficult to realize that
the railroad development contributed largely to the na-
tional prosperity in the past. It was, of course, the di-
rect result of the great process of material conquest
which was going on.

To the same cause was due the employment of
nearly three million people in trade and transportation ;
of nearly five million in professional services, of three-
quarters of a million in mining. The grand result is
seen in the fact that the national population grew from
less than four millions in 1790 to more than sixty-two
millions in 1890, while the total wealth mounted to the
incomprehensible sum of sixty-five billion dollars.

Such are the stupendous results of the labors of a
great people applied to the resources of a virgin con-
tinent. Other people have possessed energy and genius,
and two of the European nations have enjoyed the bless-
ings of self-government. If republican institutions
would alone guarantee such results in the future, it is
hardly to be imagined that the sternest monarchy could
withstand the demand for their adoption. But the
transcendent factor in the result was the continental
expanse of marvellous resources awaiting the labor and
genius of man.

Can there be any question that the abounding pros-

10

CONTINENTAL CONQUEST

perity of the American people during the first century
of their national life was due to this luminous fact ?
Can there be any reasonable doubt that if the policy of
material conquest over new areas can find another field
on which to operate, and that if it be entered upon with
the old vigor and faith, it will confer another century of
prosperity upon the nation so fortunately endowed ?

CHAPTER II
THE HOME-BUILDING INSTINCT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

SPEAKING in broad terms, there have been three great
eras of colonization in the United States. All of these
eras have been well defined, intelligible, and eventful.
They peopled successively the Atlantic coast, the trans-
Alleghany region from Lakes to Gulf, and the valley of
the Mississippi. Taken together, they made virtually
complete the conquest of Eastern America, and in Eastern
America over ninety per cent, of the national population
dwells to-day.

A study of these historic movements reveals a striking
fact. It is a fact which throws a flood of light on the
American character, explaining much that has occurred
in the past and furnishing secure ground upon which
to base predictions of much that is to happen in the
future. The American colonist, from Plymouth in
Massachusetts to Plymouth in Idaho, has fixed his eyes
on one star, which has shone out serene and steady
through the clouds of religious persecution, of war, and
of economic strife. That star stood for home. To build
a home for himself and his children, to live there at
peace with his neighbors and the world, to make better
institutions for average humanity — this, when the sub-
ject is viewed as a whole, is seen to have been the con-

13

THE HOME-BUILDING INSTINCT

sistent aim of American colonization from the begin-
ning.

There are a few exceptions to be noted, but they are
not of sufficient importance to affect the general result.
Such exceptions are the settlement of California, and of
certain localities in the Rocky Mountains, during periods
of excitement following the discovery of gold. Another
instance was the settlement of Kansas as a means of
preserving the equilibrium between the free and the slave
States. But these are isolated instances, of far more
moment in an historical than in a numerical sense. The
settlers of the United States have been moved by very
different instincts and motives than those which im-
pelled the Romans, the Normans, and Danes to settle at
different periods in Britain. The great movements of
population in the Middle Ages were armed conquests
for spoils, and power, and martial glory. Those, indeed,
were the ruling motives among Europeans and Asiatics
until comparatively recent times. When these motives
ceased to operate, they were succeeded by another which
was equally sordid, even if more humane. This was the
lust for trade or for sudden riches. This it was which
impelled the settlement of Australasia by the English,
of the Spice Islands by the Dutch, of South America by
the Portuguese, of Cuba by the Spanish, of Africa by all
of these and by the French and Germans as well. Thus
the hosts which swarmed out of Europe to make new
settlements all over the earth were principally marshalled
under the flag of avarice. It was far different with the
men who, at various periods during the last three hundred
years, conquered the soil of the United States and ex-
tended the frontiers of its civilization.

13

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

The settlement of the New World was largely inaugu-
rated by those who fled from religious persecution. But
it cannot be said on that account that their ruling mo-
tive was not the desire to enjoy the security of a home.
Religious sentiment lies very close to the hearth-stone.
Upon its human side, at least, it has nothing in common
with politics. Still less is it related to the struggle for
gain. It was because they could not live at peace in
Europe, because they could not be certain of life or
tenancy in any one place, and therefore could not ac-
cumulate a competence for their children, that the relig-
ious enthusiasts fled over the sea. The Puritan in Mass-
achusetts, the Baptist in Rhode Island, the Quaker in
Pennsylvania, and the Catholic in Maryland, looked less
passionately upon their spires and crosses than upon the
babies in their cradles, the vegetables in their gardens,
and the smoke which curled from their chimneys.

It is true that there were many fanatics in the sev-
enteenth and previous centuries to whom religion was
dearer [than home ; but it was not the axes of these
fanatics that felled the American forests. Their devoted
spirits were freed at the stake, or at the block, or their
poor bodies festered in foul prisons. It was the element
whose love of home and kindred was too powerful to
permit them to suffer martyrdom, even though their
convictions forbade them to eschew their religious prac-
tices, who inaugurated the first era of colonization on
these shores. Theirs are the first footprints in our his-
tory, and they lead straight to the home and the fire-
side.

The second real era of colonization came with the
end of the Revolution. Previous to that event the

14

THE HOME-BUILDING INSTINCT

trans-Alleghany country was but vaguely known as a
whole. Daniel Boone had, indeed, built his cabin in the
wilds of Kentucky, and adventurous spirits had begun
to follow him from Virginia and the Caroliuas. James
Robertson and John Sevier, leading the hardy back-
woodsmen of the Scotch Presbyterian faith, had begun
the making of Tennessee. The French Creoles had
lived for three generations in the slumberous repose of
widely scattered villages in the Ohio Valley, and had
gathered in some numbers at New Orleans. But the
hour for the real movement of population to the west-
ward of the mountains had not struck. When it did
strike, it found the home-building instinct of the Amer-
ican people instantly and passionately responsive to its
summons. It was the returning veterans from the War
of Independence who lent the first great impulse to the
new emigration. Hardened by years of out-door life,
thoroughly weaned from the atmosphere of the town and
the shop, finding their places on the farms largely filled
by boys who, during their absence, had grown to self-
reliance, if not to manhood, these war-worn veterans
were not unwilling to transfer their battle-ground from
the sea-coast to the wilderness, and to fight for homes
as ardently as they had struggled for political indepen-
dence.

During the next thirty years the population of Ken-
tucky leaped from about seventy thousand to over half a
million, and that of Tennessee from thirty thousand to
over four hundred thousand. Ohio, Indiana and Illi-
nois, which had no place in the census of 1790, were
credited, respectively, with nearly six hundred thousand,
one hundred and forty-seven thousand, and fifty-five

15

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

thousand, in 1820. The movement went on without
pause until the outbreak of the great rebellion. It was
even more plainly marked with the home-seeking char-
acter than the earlier settlement of the seaboard States.
We need not in this instance seek the home-loving in-
stinct under the religious motive. The circumstances
and the methods of the new army of settlers revealed
the supreme object of their emigration.

The lands along the coast and in the rich valleys of
tidal rivers had been well occupied by a people who en-
joyed substantial prosperity, not only as the reward of
their industry, but also as the result of their priority
of settlement. The country had grown. It was plainly
upon the verge of a larger and more rapid expansion.
These circumstances enhanced the value of property
and laid the foundation of many family fortunes, espe-
cially where the colonial hamlets had grown to be towns,
and promised to become populous cities. The early-
comers and their descendants were being steadily en-
riched by the unearned increment. Those who were
thus established had no occasion to move, but their less
fortunate neighbors longed for homes of their own, and
were ready to take quick advantage of the opportunity
which the war and the Ordinance of 1787 had opened
for them in the "West. These people were almost uni-
versally poor in a worldly sense, but rich in courage and
intelligence and full of the spirit of empire-builders.
They were no more a class of greedy speculators than
were the pioneers of New England. They emigrated
in order that they might improve their condition. They
were home-seekers pure and simple. Placed completely
beyond the influence of Europe, and acting under a new

16

THE HOME-BUILDING INSTINCT

spirit of nationality, the people concerned in our second
era of colonization developed a rugged Americanism be-
fore unknown. This spirit was typified in the character
of Abraham Lincoln, who was one of its products.

The third era of colonization followed the War of the
Eebellion, as the second had followed the War of the Kevo-
lution, and largely for the same reason. The cessation
of hostilities and the disbandment of the armies turned
back into the paths of peace hundreds of thousands of
veterans. They were filled with an over-mastering desire
for homes. They longed for a chance to work for them-
selves, as their fathers and forefathers had done. Uncle
Sam was still proprietor of a vast estate of virgin and
fertile soil. The homestead law beckoned to the return-
ing hosts like the finger of fate. The result was the
phenomenal settlement of the Upper Mississippi Valley
and the creation of States where the old soldier reigned
all but supreme. In a period of twenty years after the
war Nebraska jumped from a population of twenty-eight
thousand to nearly half a million ; Kansas from one
hundred thousand to a round million; Iowa from six
hundred thousand to a million and six hundred thousand;
Dakota from five thousand to one hundred and forty
thousand, while Minnesota also added more than half a
million to her total.

The movement never paused until it encountered an
obstacle beyond the power of the individual settler to
overcome. This obstacle was aridity — the failure of
rainfall to meet the demands of agriculture. The im-
petus of the movement carried its vanguard across the
danger-line and into the territory where existence could
not be maintained without resource to methods then lit-
B 17

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

tie understood, and indeed not fully developed. Upon
this strange boundary of prosperity, which nature had
marked with indelible lines, the hosts engaged in the
third colonization era trembled and hesitated for several
years, then fell back baffled and disappointed.

The first act in the drama of American settlement
ended in the eastern foothills of the Alleghany moun-
tains about 1770; the second, in the neighborhood of
the Mississippi river about 1860 ; the third, midway
on the plains of Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas
about 1890. Por each of these historic periods we
might find a fit and speaking emblem in its character-
istic means of transportation. The emblem of the first
would be the little Mayflower,, tossing on the billows of
the Atlantic ; that of the second, the heavily laden pack-
horse, threading his tortuous way through the tangle of
the untrodden forest; that of the third, the prairie
schooner, steering for the setting sun across the trackless
sea of the plains.

The wonderful drama of American colonization has re-
served a fourth and crowning act, for which the scenery
is arranged and the actors ready.

CHAPTER III

THE BETTER HALF OF THE UNITED STATES

THE ninety-seventh meridian divides the United States
almost exactly into halves. East of that line dwell sixty-
four million people. Here are overgrown cities and
over-crowded industries. Here is surplus capital, as idle
and burdensome as the surplus population. West of that
line dwell four or five millions — less than the population
of Pennsylvania, and scarcely more than that of Greater
New York. And yet the vast territory to the West — so
little known, so lightly esteemed, so sparsely peopled — •
is distinctly the better half of the United States.

The West and East are different sections, not merely
in name and geographical location, but in physical en-
dowments and fundamental elements of economic life.
Nature wrote upon them, in her own indelible charac-
ters, the story of their wide contrasts and the prophecy
of their varying civilizations. To the one were given the
advantages of earlier development, but for the other were
reserved the opportunities of a riper time. It was the
destiny of the one to blossom and fruit in an epoch dis-
tinguished for the accumulation of wealth, with its vast
possibilities of evil and of good. It was the destiny of
the other to lie fallow until humanity should feel a
nobler impulse ; then to nurse, in the shadow of its ever-

19

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

lasting mountains and the warmth of its unfailing sun-
shine, new dreams of liberty and equality for men.

That this is not the popular conception of the mission
of the Far West may be frankly acknowledged. The
region is little known to the great middle - classes in
American life. It has been demonstrated by actual stat-
istics that only three per cent, of our people travel more
than fifty miles from their homes in the course of a year.
Those who make extended pleasure tours gravitate not
unnaturally to Europe, drawn by the fascination of
quaint foreign scenes and the fame of historic places.
But the comparatively few whose business or fancy has
taken them across the continent fail, as a rule, to grasp
the true significance of the wide empire which stretches
from the middle of the great plains to the shores of the
Western sea.

It is a common human instinct to regard unfamiliar
conditions with distrust. The first settlers in Iowa en-
gaged in desperate rivalry for possession of the wooded
lands, thinking that no soil was fit for agricultural pur-
poses unless it furnished the pioneer an opportunity to
cut down trees and pull up stumps. "Land that won't
grow trees won't grow anything/' was the maxim of the
knowing ones. Their fathers had cleared the forests on
the slopes of the Alleghanies to make way for the plough
and the field, and the new generation could not conceive
that land which bore rich crops of wild grasses and lay
plastic and level for the husbandman to begin his labors,
could have any value. A great deal of hard work was
wasted before it was discovered that nature had provided
new and superior conditions in the land beyond the
Mississippi.

20

BETTER HALF OF THE UNITED STATES

So it generally happens that the casual Western trav-
eller, looking at the country from car-windows in the in-
tervals between his daily paper, brings back more con-
tempt than admiration for the economic possibilities of
the country. One must live in the Far West to begin
to comprehend it. Not only so, but he must come with
eager eyes from an older civilization, and he must study
the beginnings of industrial and social institutions
throughout the region as a whole, to have any adequate
appreciation of the real potentialities of that half of the
United States which has been reserved for the theatre of
twentieth-century developments. To all other observers
the new West is a sealed book.

The West is divided from the East by a boundary-line
which is not imaginary. It is a plain mark on the face
of the earth, and no man made it. It is the place where
the region of assured rainfall ends and the arid region
begins. There have formerly been some costly doubts
about the precise location of this line, but these have
been dispelled by experience, and the lesson learned in
hardship and impressed by disaster is learned for all
time. The momentous boundary - line is that of the
ninety-seventh meridian, which cleaves in twain the
Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. East
of this line there is a rainfall which is accepted as re-
liable, though there are alternate disasters of drought
and flood, varying in their effects from short crops to
total failures.

Even in humid regions nothing is so uncertain as the
time and amount of the rainfall. In the whole range of
modern industry nothing is so crude, tincalculating, and
unscientific as the childlike dependence on the mood of

21

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

the clouds for the moisture essential to the production
of the staple necessities of life.

The distinguishing characteristic of the vast region
west of the ninety-seventh meridian is, then, its aridity —
the lack of rainfall sufficient to insure the success of
agriculture. The new empire includes, in whole or in
part, seventeen States and Territories. It is a region of
magnificent dimensions. From north to south it meas-
ures as far as from Montreal to Mobile. From east to
west the distance is greater than from Boston to Omaha.
"Within these wide boundaries there are great diversities of
climate and soil, of altitude and other physical conditions.

The arid region was the latest acquisition of national
territory, except Alaska, until the late war with Spain.
It was unknown and undisputed as late as the Revolu-
tion. It was the fruit of James Monroe's negotiations
with Napoleon I., resulting in the Louisiana purchase ; of
the forcible conquest from Mexico ; of the annexation of
Texas, and of the Gadsden purchase in 1853. Unlike
the rich and well-watered lands in the valley and around
the mouth of the Mississippi, the acquisition of the arid
region was not compelled by the irresistible pressure of
the frontiersmen. It came as a perquisite with the pur-
chase of Louisiana, and as a concession to manifest des-
tiny. Between the day of its acquisition by the United
States and the dawn of its peculiar and enduring civili-
zation, the country was destined to pass through three
distinct eras. The first was that of the hunter and
trapper ; the second, that of the cowboy and the rude
miner ; the third, that of the railroad, the land-boomer,
and the speculative farmer, with mining reduced to a
stable industry.

22

BETTER HALF OF THE UNITED STATES

The first exploration of the strange new land of the
mysterious West owed its initiative to the public spirit
of President Jefferson. He had, indeed, but the vaguest
conception of the possible utility of the country, and
realized that its development would come long after he
should have passed from the stage of events. But he
was a patron of science, and felt, moreover, a patriotic
curiosity to learn what sort of a property the nation had
acquired. Congress cheerfully authorized the expedition
which Jefferson proposed. The result was the journey
of the famous explorers Lewis and Clark, begun in
May, 1804. Starting from St. Louis, they ascended the
Missouri river to its sources, crossed the Rocky Moun-
tains in Montana, and followed the Columbia river to its
outlet in the Pacific Ocean. When they returned and
presented their report, the public obtained its first glim-
mering of knowledge concerning the geology, climate,
and animal and human life of the Far West. The subject
was then one of remote interest to the nation, which had
scarcely acquired its foothold, through actual settlement,
on the northwestern Territories between the Alleghanies
and the Mississippi.

The second notable explorations were those of Zebulon
Pike, which developed a superficial knowledge of Colo-
rado and Mexico. Then came Bonneville, Fremont, and
their contemporaries and successors, with adventurous
settlers and hardy gold-hunters treading close upon their
heels, and effecting little substantial development for
decades. Francis Parkman, fresh from college, roamed
through the country as far as the Black Hills and old Fort
Laramie in 1847-8, and left a lively account of the savage
wilderness in The Oregon Trail.

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

Thus gradually, and attended by many misrepresenta-
tions and strange misconceptions, which inevitably scat-
tered wide the seeds of prejudice, the arid region emerged
from absolute obscurity and stood partially revealed to
men. It was not, however, until a few pioneer settle-
ments had demonstrated undreamed-of results, nor until
Major John W. Powell, by utterances as daring as his
explorations, had furnished a scientific basis for a brood
of new hopes, that the real character of Arid America
began to glow, like the belated sun through a morning
fog, upon the popular imagination.

The superiority of the western half-continent over its
eastern counterpart may not be expressed in a word. It
is, rather, a matter for patient unfolding through a study
of natural conditions over wide areas, and a scrutiny of
the human institutions which are the inevitable product
of this environment. Aridity, in the elementary sense,
is purely an affair of climate. That it is also the germ of
new industrial and social systems, with far-reaching
possibilities in the fields of ethics and politics, will be
demonstrated further on in these pages. But the first
item of importance in the assets of the new West is
climate.

When an inhabitant of the Atlantic seaboard, or of
the shores of the Great Lakes, or of the lowlands of the
South, can no longer withstand the penetration of cold,
damp winds, or the malarious breath of swamps, his
family physician sends him to the arid West. Through-
out its length and breadth it is one vast sanitarium.
Its pure, sweet air and sunny skies are instinct with the
breath of life. They put new heart into the drooping
invalid, prolonging his life, and, if he be not too far

24

I I

BETTER HALF OF THE UNITED STATES

gone at the outset, restoring the old vigor to the shat-
tered body. The faces of the permanent sojourners
within their influence they paint with the brown badge
of health. It is too early as yet to observe the full effect
of the climate on the population of the arid West, but
sufficient results are apparent to warrant the assertion
that these influences will breed a great race.

The element of aridity not only fosters health, but
moderates and makes more readily bearable the sum-
mer's heat and winter's cold. It is the damp cold that
penetrates to the marrow. It is the humid heat that
prostrates. To say that a cold of thirty degrees below
zero at Helena, in Montana, is felt less than ten degrees
above zero in Chicago or New York ; or to say that
eighty-five degrees above zero in the East is more dan-
gerous to the laborer than one hundred and fifteen de-
grees at Indio, in the Colorado desert, is to put a severe
tax on popular credulity. Nevertheless, both state-
ments are literally true, as all who have experienced the
conditions testify.

Science corroborates the story. The United States
Weather Bureau has perfected in recent years an in-
strument to measure the difference between apparent
and sensible temperature, which is determined by hu-
midity, or lack of it. The instrument, which consists
of a dry and of a wet thermometer, has been in opera-
tion at Yuma, in southwestern Arizona, since 1888. Mr.
A. Ashenberger, the official observer, reports that the
hottest day in that period was July 20, 1892. On that day
the dry thermometer registered one hundred and four-
teen degrees of apparent heat, and the wet thermometer
sixty-nine degrees of sensible heat — a difference of forty-

35

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

three degrees. The scientific findings are borne out by
the every -day testimony of individuals. Sun-strokes in
the arid region are practically unknown. The rainless air
that sweeps over the arid lands of western America is
necessarily dry. It neither breeds diseases nor carries
their germs. It is the very breath of health. The lack
of moisture, combined with the configuration, forbids
the presence of tornadoes, and the Weather Bureau has
absolutely no record of such a calamity west of the
ninety-seventh meridian.

The superior climate of the arid West is due to funda-
mental conditions which differ widely from those of east-
ern America. Viewed from the stand-point of the broader
climatic effects, the eastern half of the United States is
one wide plain. The moisture-laden winds from lakes
and gulf, as from the great ocean itself, meet none but
insignificant barriers. But in the Far West the moun-
tains are the supreme factor in the making of the cli-
mate. The coast range stands eternal guard along the
margin of the sea, while a little farther inland the Sierra
Nevada lifts its giant peaks to intercept the clouds which
escape the outer barrier and to condense their moisture
into snow. Down the centre of the continent, from
Canada to Mexico, the Rocky Mountains tower far into
the sky, repeating upon the eastern edge of the arid
region the process of condensing and storing the winter's
rain and holding it against the summer's need. Between
the three great primary ranges scores of shorter ones, or
isolated mountain groups, reach their long arms into the
desert. The dryness, purity, and lightness of the at-
mosphere are due to this mountain topography, and to
the high average altitude throughout the region. It is,

26

BETTER HALF OF THE UNITED STATES

then, in the striking character of its climate, springing
from these fixed and fundamental conditions, that the
great West scores its first superiority over the well-settled
states east of the Mississippi river.

But the nation's sanitarium is also the nation's treas-
ure-house. Without the store of precious metals which
sleeps in the bosom of the western mountains the Ameri-
can people would be practically dependent on foreign
lands for their supply of gold and silver. From this
pitiable plight the nation was saved by the wise states-
manship and the great good fortune which brought into
the Union the States of Colorado, Utah, and California,
of Idaho, Montana, and Nevada, of Washington, Oregon,
and Wyoming, and the Territories of New Mexico and
Arizona. European nations testify their appreciation
of such resources by struggling for the possession of
South Africa, a mineral field scarcely worthy to be
mentioned in comparison with that of our own great
West.

The western half-continent is rich not merely in the
precious metals, but in all the raw materials of economic
greatness. Its supreme advantage consists in the ex-
traordinary diversity of its resources. In sketching the
peculiarities of the several Western States, further on in
these pages, the facts will be stated with more detail. In
directing attention to the general superiority of these
States over their sisters of the East, it is sufficient now to
say that they have more water-power than New England ;
more coal, iron, and oil than Pennsylvania ; larger and
better forests than Maine and Michigan ; and produce
better wheat and corn than Illinois and Indiana. The
time is rapidly coming when they will produce more and

27

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

better sugar than Louisiana, and will revolutionize the
tanning industry by supplanting oak and hemlock bark
with canaigre. With beef and mutton, wool and hides,
they already feed and clothe the East. They have finer
harbors than Boston and New York, and a sea-coast
which faces a greater foreign world.

There is no Eastern State that compares with almost
any one of these giant commonwealths of the compara-
tively unknown "West in anything save present develop-
ment, which includes, of course, population, wealth, and
political influence. So emphatic and unmistakable is the
superiority with which nature endowed the Far "West
that it may be said in all seriousness that if the Pilgrim
Fathers had landed at San Diego rather than at Ply.
mouth, that half of the country which now contains over
ninety per cent, of the total population would be regarded
as comparatively worthless. It would have been difficult
to settle it to the best advantage. To illustrate : imagine
the excitement which would occur if the people of New
England should awaken some morning to find themselves
in possession of the climate and diversified resources of
Colorado, Washington, or California ! Even the sane
brain which rules the land of steady habits would grow
dizzy in the presence of such vast possibilities. And yet
Colorado, Washington, and California represent but a
small proportion of the country which rests under the
wide arch of our western sky.

In briefly reviewing the salient points of difference be-
tween the old section and the new, the feature which
constitutes at once the most characteristic and the most
fundamental advantage of the West has been left for
separate treatment. Not until this feature has been con-

BETTER HALF OF THE UNITED STATES

sidered is it possible to appreciate the striking character
of the new civilization which will rule the destinies of
the western half of the continent, and, very probably,
project new and potent influences into the social and
political life of the United States as a whole.

CHAPTER IV

THE BLESSING OF ARIDITY

FORTUNATE beyond all other parts of the United States
in its climate and in the surpassing wealth of its forests,
its quarries and its mines, western America is yet more
favored in another element of its physical foundation.
This is the substantial aridity which prevails throughout
its vast proportions.

The anomaly that its foremost blessing should consist
in the fact which gave it a wide-spread reputation for
worthlessness is interesting, but unimportant. Nature
frequently conceals her raw materials of greatness, alike
in men and in countries, until time and opportunity are
ripe. In the aridity of the West we shall find the true
key to its future institutions. Climate may produce a
healthy race, and mineral resources may enrich it, but
the natural conditions which determine the character of
social and industrial organization, and mould the habits
and customs of men, are the potent influences which
shape civilization. Hence we shall see that in any just
estimate of the relative worth of western resources the
fact of aridity must be rated as high above the value
of forests and mines as human progress is dearer than
money, and as the fate of the race is more momentous
than the prosperity of individuals.

SO

THE BLESSING OF ARIDITY

The influence of the new environment may readily be
illustrated by comparing the conditions which confronted
the early settlers of the New England forests and the Illi-
nois prairie, on one hand, and, upon the other, those
which the settler met in the deserts around Salt Lake.
Except for the temporary need of defence against the
Indians, eastern settlers were able to locate their homes
without reference to neighbors. They cleared the forest
or turned the prairie sod, and were ready to begin.
They generally took all the land they could claim under
the law, and held much of it out of use for speculation.
The greed for land resulted in large farms, and this in-
volved social isolation. The individual acted alone and
exclusively for his own benefit. The conditions not only
favored, but practically compelled it. Out of this primal
germ of our eastern citizenship grew the plant of indi-
vidual enterprise, which is the conspicuous product of
the time. The fruit which it bore was competition, and
this has latterly tended towards monopoly.

The conditions which confronted the settler in the
deserts of Utah were widely different. There he could
not build his home and make his living regardless of his
neighbor. Without water to irrigate the rich but arid
soil he could not raise a spear of grass nor an ear of
corn. Water for irrigation could only be obtained by
turning the course of a stream and building canals which
must sometimes be cut into the solid walls of the canyon
or conducted across chasms in flumes. All this lay be-
yond the reach of the individual. Thus it was found
that the association and organization of men were the
price of life and prosperity in the arid West. The alter-
native was starvation. The plant which grew from this

81

THE CONQUEST OF AKID AMERICA

new seed was associative enterprise, and we shall pres-
ently see what flower it bore in Utah and other States of
the arid region. But it is interesting to first observe
that we have encountered in these underlying conditions
of the western half-continent principles that are as old
as history and as wide as humanity.

The founders of the wonderful civilization of the
Netherlands were compelled to deal with conditions
which brought into action the same forces as those
which are working out interesting results in the arid
region of the United States. The Dutch combined and
organized their efforts in order to keep the water off
their lands, as the Westerners combine and organize to
bring the water on. "Writing of this aspect of his sub-
ject in that enlightening book, The Puritan in Holland,
England, and America, Mr. Douglass Campbell says :

" The constant struggle for existence, as in all cases
when the rewards are great enough to raise men above
biting, sordid penury, strengthens the whole race, men-
tally, morally, and physically. Labor here has never been
selfish and individual. To be effective, it requires organ-
ization and direction. Men learn to work in a body and
under leaders. A single man laboring on a dike would
accomplish nothing; the whole population must turn
out and act together."

Even more interesting and significant is Mr. Campbell's
statement of the far-reaching influence, upon the whole
economic fabric of the nation, of the co-operative meth-
ods taught the founders of Holland by the necessities of
their situation and transmitted to their descendants. He
says :

"The habits thus engendered extend in all directions.

32

THE BLESSING OF ARIDITY

Everything is done in corporations" [co-operations ?].
"Each trade has its guild, elects its own officers, and
manages its own affairs. The people are a vast civic
army, subdivided into brigades, regiments, and com-
panies, all accustomed to discipline, learning the first
great lesson of life — obedience."

Professor E. W. Hilgard, the distinguished director of
the agricultural department of the University of Cali-
fornia, has brought this line of reasoning from physical
causes to industrial effects into direct application to our
subject. In a notable contribution to the Popular
Science, Monthly he says :

" As irrigation means heavy investments of capital or
labor, hence the co-operation of many and the construc-
tion of permanent works : it necessarily implies the cor-
relative existence of a stable social organization, with
protection for property rights, and (in view of the
complexity of the problem of proper and equitable dis-
tribution of water) a rather advanced appreciation of
the need and advantages of co-operative organization."

It was in the course of an effort to account for the
singular preference of the founders of the most ancient
civilizations for arid lands, rather than for the forested
areas which have been the scenes of later development,
that Professor Hilgard made this expression of the
obvious effects of irrigation on industrial polity. A
little further on we shall see other interesting results of
his inquiry in this field.

The quality of aridity is thus the most significant
among many striking contrasts which mark the western
half of the United States — the field for future settle-
ment and development — as fundamentally different
c 33

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

from the eastern half. Its relation to agriculture is im-
portant and interesting, but its relation to a future civil-
ization in a broader sense will be momentous. It is,
indeed, a fateful crop, trembling with the hopes of hu-
manity, that is beginning to sprout from the arid soil of
the far- western deserts.

The blessing of aridity is again conspicuously illus-
trated in its remarkable effect upon the soil. The land
which the casual traveller, speaking out of the splendid
depths of his ignorance and prejudice, condemns as
"worthless" and fit only "to hold the earth together,"
is in reality rich and durable beyond the most favored
districts in the humid regions. It is the marvel of every
eastern farmer who comes in contact with it. Professor
Hilgard sees in this phenomenal fertility the most rea-
sonable explanation of the choice of arid lands by the
people foremost in ancient civilization.

It has puzzled the historian to account for the fact
that the glories of antiquity sprang from the heart of
the desert. The fact itself is, of course, beyond dispute.
Egypt, Asia Minor, and Syria, with Palestine, "the land
of milk and honey" ; Persia, Arabia, and the classic lands
of northern India, as well as the countries of the Car-
thaginians and the Moors, were arid regions. So also
were the chosen homes of the Incas in South America,
and of the Aztecs and Toltecs in Mexico and our own
Southwest, the fame of whose vanished civilizations is
reflected in the pages of Prescott and Baldwin. For
aught we know to the contrary, these departed nations
may have been perfect types of the co-operative com-
monwealth, and the knack of governing them for the
equal benefit of all may be the most precious of the lost

34

T1IE BLESSING OF ARIDITY

arts. Among the silent witnesses which have survived
the centuries to testify to the engineering skill and
the perfection of social organization of those who were
swept into oblivion by nameless calamities, are great
irrigation canals, portions of which are even yet so true
and substantial as to serve the uses of to-day in con-
junction with modern works. There are such instances
in Arizona.

The accepted explanation of the choice of the arid
land by the ancient races is that they sought security
against savage enemies, both animal and human, which
infested the forest. The theory is purely sentimental
and quite inconsistent with the slight but conclusive
evidences of their superior intelligence and courage
which yet survive. The reasonable explanation of the
mystery of ancient civilization is that the arid lands
were chosen because they were infinitely better than the
humid lands, and because they presented conditions
much better suited to the industrial polity of the people
and the age.

In searching for the clue of this mystery Professor
Ililgard has developed facts which tend to upset other
accepted theories. It has long been conceded that cer-
tain arid districts are the richest spots on the surface of
the globe. ' ' The valley of the Nile/' for instance, is a
phrase which is everywhere taken as a synonym of ex-
traordinary fertility. The richness and durability of
the Nile lands, which have supported for centuries an
average population of little more than one and one-half
persons to each acre of cultivated soil (a density of set-
tlement which would give Texas a population of over
one hundred and sixty millions), has been ascribed to

35

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

the fertilizing quality of the annual deposit of river sedi-
ment. The partisans of irrigation have made much of
this aspect of the matter, asserting that the artificial
application of water is itself a means of fertilization.
They have asserted the claim not only where the source
of supply, as in the cases of the Rio Grande and the Rio
Colorado, is obviously heavily charged with silt held
in suspension, but with almost equal ardor in cases
where the water flows, a stream of limpid crystal, di-
rectly from the mountain-side, or gushes impetuously
from the earth in artesian outpourings.

That the famous river Nile does, indeed, leave a thin
deposit of rich soil upon each subsidence of its annual
flood our California scientist does not, of course, deny.
He proves, however, that this layer of new soil is only of
the thickness of common cardboard — one-twenty-fifth of
an inch — and is equal to only about two good two-horse
loads per acre. Three times as much stable manure is
the usaal dressing for an acre. He truly observes that
as the sediment is merely rich soil, thousands of farmers
could readily haul and spread such fertilizer upon their
land, and would doubtless do so if they could thereby
duplicate the phenomenal fertility of the Nile country.
He clinches his argument by showing that the neighbor-
ing province of Fayoom, in the Libyan Desert, shares
the perpetual fertility of the Nile district, though irri-
gated only with the clear waters of Lake Moeris ; that
the regur lands of the Deccan, in south-central In-
dia, have been phenomenally productive for thousands
of years, and that the loess region of China, drained
by the headwaters of the Yellow river, have been the
granary of China for ages. Like the famous Egyptian

36

THE BLESSING OF ARIDITY

provinces, the lands referred to in India and China are
arid or semi-arid, and, unlike the Nile Valley, they have
not been enriched by sedimentry deposits or fertilized
by irrigation.

Hence, Professor Hilgard reaches the somewhat sensa-
tional conclusion that the extraordinary fertility which,
by world-wide acknowledgment, marks the valley of the
Nile, is a quality inherent in aridity itself. And he main-
tains his contention thus :

" Soils are formed from rocks by the physical and
chemical agencies commonly comprehended in the term
weatlwring, which includes both their pulverization and
chemical decomposition by atmospheric action. Both
actions, but more especially the chemical one, continue
in the soil itself; the last named in an accelerated meas-
ure, so as to give rise to the farmer's practice of ' fallow-
ing ' — that is, leaving the land exposed to the action of
the air in a well-tilled but implanted condition, with a
view to increasing the succeeding year's crop by the ad-
ditional amount of plant-food rendered available, during
the fallow, from the soil itself.

" This weathering process is accompanied by the
formation of new compounds out of the minerals origin-
ally composing the rock. Some of these, such as zeolites
and clay, are insoluble in water, and therefore remain in
the soil, forming a reserve of plant-food that may be
drawn upon gradually by plants ; while another portion,
containing especially the compounds of the alkalies — pot-
ash and soda — are easily soluble in water. Where the
rainfall is abundant these soluble substances are current-
ly carried into the country drainage, and through the
rivers into the ocean. Among these are potash, lime,

37 •

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

magnesia, sulphuric and a trifle of phosphoric acids.
Where, on the contrary, the rainfall is insufficient to
carry the soluble compounds formed in the weathering
of the soil-mass into the country drainage, those com-
pounds must of necessity remain and accumulate in the
soil."

All this is perfectly comprehensible, even to the lay
mind. The valuable ingredients of the soil which are
soluble have been washed out of the land in humid re-
gions, like our eastern States, by the rains of centuries.
On the other hand, these elements have been accumu-
lating in the arid soil of the West during the same cen-
turies. They lie there now like an inexhaustible bank
account on which the plant-life of the future may draw
at will without danger of protest. The process which
created this rich soil goes on repeating itself — recreating
the soil season after season. The same is true, of course,
in the arid and semi-arid regions of Egypt, India, China,
and all other localities that enjoy the inestimable bless-
ing of aridity.

Professor Hilgard's conclusions are the result of pa-
tient investigation. They are based on more than one
thousand analyses of the soils of the arid and the hu-
mid regions of the United -States — of the AVest and the
East. These analyses demonstrated the following as-
tounding fact : That the soils of the arid regions lying
west of the one hundredth meridian, when compared
with the soils of the humid region lying east of the
Mississippi river, contain on the average three times as
much potash, six times as much magnesia, and fourteen
times as much lime. This is the scientific explanation
of the superior productiveness of the arid regions of tho

88

THE BLESSING OF ARIDITY

West, which every intelligent observer has noted and
marvelled to behold.

The people of the Blue Grass Region of Kentucky
and of other favored localities have repeated from gen-
eration to generation the boast that " a limestone coun-
try is always a rich country." Professor Ililgard has
demonstrated that the average arid soil is equal to the
most phenomenal soil of the East, while the soil of the
arid West as a whole is beyond comparison with that
of the humid East as a whole, lie coins the maxim,
" Arid countries are always rich countries when irri-
gated," and the phrase does scant justice to the subject.
It only remains to add that Professor Hilgard is recog-
nized as the foremost expert on soils in the AVest, and
one of the first men in his profession in the United
States. No one will question the weight of his views,
for they coincide alike with common-sense and with
world-wide experience through the centuries. It cannot,
therefore, be doubted that the agricultural foundation
of the Far West, as it relates to the soil, is incompar-
ably better than any other part of the continent.

While science has thus furnished a lucid explanation
of the universal fertility of arid lands, it would bo un-
fair to draw the conclusion that the claims which have
been made concerning the rare fertilizing qualities of
certain western rivers are entirely unfounded. Nearly
all of the rivers in the West carry more or less rich silt,
due to the fact that they flow through treeless regions,
where the soil is swept into the stream by winds and
sudden torrents. Eastern rivers are, as a rule, much
clearer, because they flow through forests and cultivated
fields. The waters of the Colorado river gather an

39

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

enormous quantity of fertilizing matter in their long
journey from the mountains of Wyoming to the Gulf of
California. There is no guesswork in this instance.
The scientific men of the University of Arizona, at Tuc-
son, have made patient experiments, extending over
many months of time, to determine the actual commer-
cial value ofthe fertilizer contained in these waters and
precipitated on the land in the process of irrigation.
Basing their computation upon the use of thirty-six
acre-inches of this water, they find that the fertilizing
material so applied would cost, if purchased in the mar-
ket, the sum of nine dollars and seven cents per acre.
Where such conditions prevail cultivation can never im-
poverish, but actually enriches, the fortunate soil. But
we have yet to mention the chief blessing of aridity.
This is the fact that it compels the use of irrigation.
And irrigation is a miracle !

CHAPTER V

THE MIRACLE OF IRRIGATION

THE beanty of Damascus is the theme of poets. Speak-
ing of this ancient capital an anonymous writer remarks
that "the cause of its importance as a city in all the ages
is easily seen as you approach it from the south. Miles
before you see the mosques of the modern city the foun-
tains of a copious and perennial stream spring from among
the rocks and brushwood at the base of the Anti-Leba-
non, creating a wide area about them, rich with prolific
vegetation." He continues:

" These are the ' streams of Lebanon/ which are poeti-
cally spoken of in the Songs of Solomon, and the * rivers
of Damascus/ which Naaman, not unnaturally, preferred
to all the 'waters of Israel.' This stream, with its many
branches, is the inestimable treasure of Damascus. While
the desert is a fortification round Damascus, the river,
where the habitations of men must always have been
gathered, as along the Nile, is its life.

"The city, which is situated in a wilderness of gardens
of flowers and fruits, has rushing through its streets the
limpid and refreshing current ; nearly every dwelling has
its fountain, and at night the lights are seen flashing on
the waters that dash along from their mountain home.
As you first view the city from one of the overhanging

41

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

ridges you are prepared to excuse the Mohammedans for
calling it the earthly paradise. Around the marble
minarets, the glittering domes, and the white buildings,
shining with ivory softness, a maze of bloom and fruit-
age— where olive and pomegranate, orange and apricot,
plum and walnut, mingle their varied tints of green — is
presented to the sight, in striking contrast to the miles
of barren desert over which you have just ridden."

This is the miracle of irrigation in the Syrian desert.
It is no more miraculous in that far-eastern country than
in our own West. Nor is Damascus more beautiful than
Denver, Salt Lake City, or than any one of a score of
modern towns in California. But because Damascus is
ancient and historic, and looks down on mankind from
the biblical past, it possesses a degree of interest with
which it is difficult to invest much better and more im-
portant places of our own country and our own time. It
is well, then, to remember that not only the beauty of
Damascus, but the glories of the Garden of Eden itself,
were products of irrigation. ' ' A river went out of Eden
to water the Garden," says the Bible story.

No consideration of the subject can be appreciative
when it starts with the narrow view that irrigation is
merely an adjunct to agriculture. It is a social and in-
dustrial factor, in a much broader sense. It not only
makes it possible for a civilization to rise and flourish in
the midst of desolate wastes ; it shapes and colors that
civilization after its own peculiar design. It is not
merely the life-blood of the field, but the source of in-
stitutions. These wider and more subtle influences are
difficult to define in abstract terms, but we may trace
them clearly through the history of various commu-

42

THE MIRACLE OF IRRIGATION

nities which have grown up in conformity with these
conditions.

The essence of the industrial life which springs from
irrigation is its democracy. The first great law which
irrigation lays down is this : There shall be no monopoly
of land. This edict it enforces by the remorseless opera-
tion of its own economy. Canals must be built before
water can be conducted upon the land. This entails ex-
pense, either of money or of labor. What is expensive
cannot be had for naught. Where water is the founda-
tion of prosperity it becomes a precious thing, to be
neither cheaply acquired not wantonly wasted. Like a
city's provisions in a siege, it is a thing to be carefully
husbanded, to be fairly distributed according to men's
needs, to be wisely expended by those who receive it.
For these reasons men cannot acquire as much irrigated
land, even from the public domain, as they could acquire
where irrigation was unnecessary. It is not only more
difficult to acquire in large bodies, but yet more difficult
to retain. A large farm under irrigation is a misfortune;
a great farm, a calamity. Only the small farm pays.
But this small farm blesses its proprietor with industrial
independence and crowns him with social equality. That
is democracy.

Industrial independence is, in simplest terms, the guar-
antee of subsistence from one's own labors. It is the
ability to earn a living under conditions which admit of
the smallest possible element of doubt with the least
possible dependence upon others. Irrigation fully satis-
fies this definition.

The canal is an insurance policy against loss of crops
by drought, while aridity is a substantial guarantee

43

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

against injury by flood. Of all the advantages of irriga-
tion, this is the most obvious. Scarcely less so, how-
ever, is its compelling power in the matter of produc-
tion. Probably there is no spot of land in the United
States where the average crop raised by dependence upon
rainfall might not be doubled by intelligent irrigation.
The rich soils of the arid region produce from four to
ten times as largely with irrigation as the soil of the
humid region without it. As the measure of value is
not area, but productive capacity, twenty acres in the Far
West should equal one hundred acres elsewhere. Such
is the actual fact.

A little further on we shall see that not merely the
quantity of crops, but their quality as well, responds to
the influence of irrigation. We shall see how this art
favors the production of the wide diversity of products
required for a generous living. Certainty, abundance,
variety — all this upon an area so small as to be within
the control of a single family through its own labor —
are the elements which compose industrial independence
under irrigation. The conditions which prevail where
irrigation is not necessary — large farms, hired labor, a
strong tendency to the single crop — are here reversed.
Intensive cultivation and diversified production are in-
separably related to irrigation. These constitute a sys-
tem of industry the fruit of which is a class of small
landed proprietors resting upon a foundation of eco-
nomic independence.

This is the miracle of irrigation on its industrial side.

As a factor in the social life of the civilization it cre-
ates, irrigation is no less influential and beneficent.
Compared with the familiar conditions of country life

44

THE MIRACLE OF IRRIGATION

which we have known in the East and central West, the
change which irrigation brings amounts to a revolution.
The bane of rural life is its loneliness. Even food,
shelter, and provision for old age do not furnish protec-
tion against social discontent where the conditions deny
the advantages which flow from human association.
Better a servant in the town than a proprietor in the
country ! — such has been the verdict of -recent genera-
tions who have grown up on the farm and left it to seek
satisfaction for their social instincts in the life of the
town. The starvation of the soul is almost as real as
the starvation of the body.

Irrigation compels the adoption of the small-farm
unit. This is the germ of new social possibilities, and
we shall see to what extent they have already been real-
ized as we proceed. During the first and second eras of
colonization in this country the favorite size for a farm
was about four hundred acres, of which from a fourth
to a half was gradually cleared and the rest retained in
woodland. The Mississippi Valley was settled mostly in
quarter-sections, containing one hundred and sixty acres
each. The productive capacity of land is so largely in-
creased by irrigation, and the amount which one family
can cultivate by its own labor consequently so much re-
duced, that the small-farm unit is a practical necessity
in the arid region.

Where settlement has been carried out upon the
most enlightened lines irrigated farms range from five
to twenty acres upon the average, rarely exceeding forty
acres at the maximum. It is perfectly obvious, of
course, that a twenty-acre unit means that neighbors
will be eight times as numerous as in a country settled

45

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

up in quarter-sections— that where farms are ten acres
in size neighbors will be multiplied by sixteen. Thus
in its most elementary aspect the society of the arid re-
gion differs materially from that of a country of large
farms. Eight or sixteen families upon a quarter-section
are much better than no neighbors at all, but irrigation
goes further than this in revolutionizing the social side
of rural life.

A very-small-farm unit makes it possible for those who
till the soil to live in the town. The farm village, or
home centre, is a well-established feature of life in Arid
America, and a feature which is destined to enjoy wido
and rapid extension. Each four or five thousand acres
of cultivated land will sustain a thrifty and beautiful
hamlet, where all the people may live close together
and enjoy most of the social and educational advantages
within the reach of the best eastern town. Their chil-
dren will have kindergartens as well as schools, and pub-
lic libraries and reading-rooms as well as churches. The
farm village, lighted by electricity, furnished with domes-
tic water through pipes, served with free postal delivery,
and supplied with its own daily newspapers at morning
and evening, has already been realized in Arid America.
The great cities of the western valleys will not be cities
in the old sense, but a long series of beautiful villages,
connected by lines of electric motors, which will move
their products and people from place to place. In this
scene of intensely cultivated land, rich with its bloom
and fruitage, with its spires and roofs, and with its car-
pets of green and gold stretching away to the mountains,
it will be difficult for the beholder to say where the town
ends and the country begins.

46

THE MIRACLE OF IRRIGATION

This is the miracle of irrigation upon its social side.

Irrigation is the foundation of truly scientific agricult-
ure. Tilling the soil by dependence upon rainfall is, by
comparison, like a stage-coach to the railroad, like the
tallow dip to the electric light. The perfect conditions
for scientific agriculture would be presented by a place
where it never rained, but where a system of irrigation
furnished a never-failing water supply which could be
adjusted to the varying needs of different plants. It is
difficult for those who have been in the habit of thinking
of irrigation as merely a substitute for rain to grasp the
truth that precisely the contrary is the case. Rain is the
poor dependence of those who cannot obtain the advan-
tages of irrigation. The western farmer who has learned
to irrigate thinks it would be quite as illogical for him
to leave the watering of his potato-patch to the caprice
of the clouds as for the housewife to defer her wash-day
until she could catch rain-water in her tubs.

The supreme advantage of irrigation consists not more
in the fact that it assures moisture regardless of the
weather than in the fact that it makes it possible to ap-
ply that moisture just when and just where it is needed.
For instance, on some cloudless day the strawberry-patch
looks thirsty and cries for water through the unmistak-
able language of its leaves. In the Atlantic States it
probably would not rain that day, such is the perversity
of nature, but if it did it would rain alike on the just
and unjust — on the strawberries, which would be bene-
fited by it, and on the sugar-beets, which crave only the
uninterrupted sunshine that they may pack their tiny
cells with saccharine matter. In the arid region there is
practically no rain during the growing season. Thus the

47

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

scientific farmer sends the water from his canal through
the little furrows which divide the lines of strawberry
plants, but permits the water to go singing past his field
of beets.

Plants and trees require moisture as well as sunshine
and soil, and for three reasons : first, that the tiny roots
may extract the chemical qualities from the soil; then,
that there may be sap and juice; finally, that there may
be moisture to evaporate or transpire from the leaves.
But while all plant-life requires moisture, all kinds of it
do not require the same amount, nor do they desire to
receive it at the same time and in the same manner.
Just as the skilful teacher studies the individualities of
fifty different boys, endeavoring to discover how he may
most wisely vary his methods to obtain the best results
from each, so the scientific farmer studies his fifty differ-
ent plants or trees and adjusts his artificial "rainfall"
in the way which will produce the highest outcome.
With the aid of colleges, experimental farms, and county
institutes, wonderful progress has been made along these
lines in recent years. This progress will continue until
the agriculture and horticulture practised on the little
farms of Arid America shall match the marvellous re-
sults won by research and inventive genius in every other
field of human endeavor.

This is the miracle of irrigation upon its scientific
side.*

*For full explanation of practical methods of irrigation, see
Appendix.

fcart Second
REAL UTOPIAS OF THE ARID WEST

"At every new stage of the history of the American settlement,
we are afresh reminded that colonies are planted by the uneasy.
The discontent that comes from poverty and financial reverse, that
which is born of political unrest, and that which has no other cause
than feverish thirst for novelty and hazardous adventure, had each
a share in impelling Englishmen to emigrate. But in the seven-
teenth century religion was the dominant concern— one might al-
most say the dominant passion — of the English race, and it supplied
much the most efficient motive to colonization. Not only did it
propel men to America, but it acted as a distributing force on this
side of the sea, producing secondary colonies by expelling from a
new plantation the discontented and the persecuted to make fresh
breaks in the wilderness for new settlements." — EDWARD EGGLE-
STON, Beginners of a Nation.

CHAPTER I

THE MORMON COMMONWEALTH

To stndy the human side of things in the arid region
of the Far West, we must begin with the Mormon Com-
monwealth of Utah. This is true for a number of excel-
lent reasons. We find here the earliest development of
any consequence. Although irrigation is older than his-
tory, it was never practised upon any considerable scale
by Anglo-Saxons until the Mormon pioneers turned the
waters of City Creek upon the alkaline soil of Salt Lake
Valley in the summer of 1847.

In Utah, almost alone of the far-western States, settle-
ment began with home-making pure and simple. Irriga-
tion was the primal and single industry until a common-
wealth had been established. In California, in Colorado,
in Nevada, in Idaho, and in Montana, mining, rather
than agriculture, was the motive which induced the or-
iginal settlement by Americans, and irrigation grew up
only as an adjunct to the mining camp. In Wyoming,
and in a less degree elsewhere, stock-raising was the first
pursuit and irrigation was used merely to flood the bot-
tom land and grow crops of coarse, wild hay for the win-
ter feeding of cattle. In Washington and Oregon the
first settlements were made along the humid coast re-
gion, and the arid parts of those States were settled, in

51

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

such measure as they have been settled at all, by the
overflow of those original currents of population. But
in Utah the motive was home-building, and the pursuit
was agriculture for its own sake.

Furthermore, we find in Utah, and nowhere else, an
entire and distinct people, who have grown up under one
strong and simple industrial system, and have brought
that system to its logical results. This experience covers
half a century, and cannot be objected to on the ground
that it is an experiment, the results of which remain to
be demonstrated.

Finally, partly because of these several reasons and
partly because the Mormon fugitives possessed no capital
except their leader's brains and their own hard hands,
the economic institutions of Utah are the natural out-
growth of the conditions of an arid land. Utah is the
product of its environment. As we study it we shall
see the economic tendencies underlying and shaping the
industrial life of all communities which find their life-
current in the irrigation canal and are surrounded by
the rich and varied, but wholly undeveloped, resources
of our far-western country. It is for these reasons that
the Mormon Commonwealth suggests itself irresistibly
as the starting-point of any proper study of our subject.

What did the pioneers have to start with ? What have
they accomplished in fifty years ? How did they do it ?
In the answers to these questions we may find a flood of
light for the future of the West, but only upon condition
that the answers be sought in a spirit of perfect candor
and without prejudice either in favor of or against the
interesting people of the Utah mountains.

On July 24, 1847, the Mormon caravan emerged from

THE MORMON COMMONWEALTH

the mouth of Emigration Canyon into the valley of the
Great Salt Lake. It was a beautiful picture that greeted
the eyes of the fugitives as they rested here to enjoy the
shade of the cottonwoods and listen to the music of the
mountain torrent and the birds. Out of the chill air of
the higher altitudes, out of the dark shadows of the
picturesque chasm, they had come by a sudden turn
face to face with a broad, sunlit valley, which sloped
gently away to the shore of an inland sea. On the east,
the Wasatch mountains reared their brown and rifted bar-
riers until their summits were lost in a crown of eternal
snows. To the south and west the Oquirrhs marshalled
their peaks into the waters of the lake. Below them,
valley and lake ; around them on every side, mountains
and more mountains ; over them, the impalpable sky —
this was the vision which burst suddenly upon the tired
eyes of the pilgrims.

When they had proceeded a little farther they caught
sight of a large fresh lake some miles to the south, emp-
tying its surplus waters into an inland sea through a
slender river, which shone like a ribbon of silver. The
comparison suggested by these strange conditions might
have occurred to a duller mind than that of Brigham
Young, who felt that he was a Moses leading a new tribe
of Israel to a new promised land. The fresh lake was
the sea of Tiberius ; the salt one, the Dead Sea ; the
river was, of course, the Jordan. This, then, was the
new Palestine, and here the leader and his followers
would build the new Jerusalem ! Advancing a few
miles into the valley, and halting near the banks of a
roaring brook, Brigham Young struck his staff upon the
ground and exclaimed, " Here we will rear our temple in

53

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

holiness to the Lord." It is above this spot that Sculp-
ftor Dallin's graceful figure of the Angel Moroni now
looks down from a stately pile of Utah granite, reared
at a cost of forty years' labor and six million dollars.

The pioneers possessed very little cash capital when
they arrived in the valley which was to be the heart of a
future commonwealth. This was not a serious misfort-
une, since there was little that money would buy in
Utah at that time, or anywhere within one thousand
miles east, west, north, or south. They had located at
almost the exact geographical centre of that great arid
region whose modern agricultural era they were destined
to inaugurate. Surrounded by extraordinary wealth,
there was but one thing which could pass current as a
medium of exchange in this primeval wilderness. This
one thing was labor, and the free and unlimited coinage
of labor has been the cardinal doctrine in Utah's econom-
ic faith from the beginning down to the present hour.
Besides their willing industry, the Mormons had brought
with them the contents of seventy-two wagons, about
one hundred horses, less than half as many mules and
oxen, nineteen cows and a few chicken. It was with this
capital that they began the making of Utah. But at the
very threshold of their life in a new country they were
confronted by something utterly strange to them in the
conditions of agriculture.

First of the Anglo-Saxon race, the Mormons encount-
ered the problem of aridity, and discovered that its suc-
cessful solution was the price of existence. Brigham
Young had lived in Vermont, Ohio, Missouri, and Il-
linois. Neither he nor any of his followers had ever
seen a country where the rainfall did not suffice for agri-

54

MAP SHOWING THE STRIKING SIMILARITY BETWEEN PALESTINE
AND SALT LAKE VALLEY, UTAH

(By courtesy of the Rio Grande Western R. R.)

THE MORMON COMMONWEALTH

culture, nor ever read of one save in the Bible. But
they quickly learned that they had staked their whole
future upon a region which could not produce a spear of
tame grass, an ear of corn, nor a kernel of wheat with-
out skilful irrigation. Of the art of irrigation they
were utterly ignorant. But the need of beginning a
planting was urgent and pressing, for their slender stock
of provisions would not long protect them from starva-
tion.

It was this emergency which produced the first irriga-
tion canal ever built by white men in the United States.
Mormons are prone to believe that the suggestion of this
work was a revelation from God to the head of the
Church. Other traditions ascribe it to the advice of
friendly Indians ; to the example of the Mexicans ; to
the shrewd intuition with which the leader had met all
the trials encountered in the course of his adventurous
pilgrimage. Whatever the source of the inspiration, he
quickly set his men at work to divert the waters of City
Creek through a rude ditch and to prepare the ground
for Utah's first farm. These crystal waters now furnish
the domestic supply for a city of sixty thousand inhabi-
tants. The late President Wilford Woodruff, who was
one of the party assigned to the work of digging the first
canal, related that when the water was turned out upon
the desert the soil was so hard that the point of a plough
would scarcely penetrate it. There was also much white
alkali on the surface. It was, therefore, with no absolute
conviction of success that the pioneers planted the very
last of their stock of potatoes and awaited the result of
the experiment. The crop prospered in spite of all ob-
stacles, and demonstrated that a living could be wrung

55

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

from the forbidding soil of the desert when men should
learn to adapt their industry to the conditions.

Such was the humble beginning of modern agriculture
in Arid America. The success of this desperate expedi-
ent to preserve the existence of a fugitive people in the
vast solitude has made Utah our classic land of irrigation,
and given the Mormons their just claim as the pioneer
irrigators of the United States. It was not, however,
until they survived other hardships, including the devas-
tation of their first crops by swarms of crickets, that the
hardy settlers were able to celebrate a genuine harvest-
home, and to feel that the ground was at last firm be-
neath their feet. Then began that long era of material
prosperity which will never cease until the people depart
from the industrial system established by Brigham
Young.

It is this industrial system which makes the Mormons
well worthy of study at this time. Nothing just like it
exists elsewhere upon any considerable scale, yet its
leading principles are certainly capable of general appli-
cation. Good Mormons regard the system, like all their
blessings, as a direct revelation of God. Many others
consider it the intellectual product of a great man's
brain. But when it is studied in connection with Mor-
mon colonization, it is plain that the system was born of
the necessities of the place and time — that it is the legit-
imate product of the peculiar environment of the arid
region. The forces that have made the civilization of
Utah will make the civilization of western America. It
is in this view of the matter that we shall find our justi-
fication for a careful study of the Mormon structure of
industry and society.

56

THE MOKMON COMMONWEALTH

The economic life of Utah is founded on the general
ownership of land. Speaking broadly, all are proprie-
tors, none are tenants. Land monopoly was discounte-
nanced from the beginning. All were encouraged to
take so much land as they could apply to a beneficial
purpose. None were permitted to secure land merely to
hold it out of use for speculation. The corner-stone of
the system was industrialism — the theory that all should
work for what they were to have, and that all should
have what they had worked for. In order to realize
this result, it was necessary that each family should own
as much land as it could use to advantage, arid no more.

The adoption of this principle was plainly due to the
peculiar conditions which the leader saw about him. He
instantly realized that value resided in water rather than
in land ; that there was much more land than water ;
that water could only be conserved and distributed at
great expense.

If he had settled in a land of abundant rainfall it is
improbable that he would have set such severe limitations
upon the amount of land which individuals should ac-
quire. In that case he would, perhaps, have thought it
well for his people to take all the land they could possibly
obtain under the law, and thus enjoy large speculative
possibilities. But if he had pursued this policy in Utah
he could not have accommodated the thousands whom
he expected to follow him in the early future. He thus
found it imperatively necessary to restrict the amount of
land which each family should acquire, suiting it to their
actual needs. He came from a country which had been
settled in farms ranging from two hundred to four hun-
dred acres in size. The reduction in the farm unit

57

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

which he now proposed must have seemed nothing less
than startling to his followers. It is plain that in pro-
posing such an innovation he not only comprehended the
social necessities of the situation, but anticipated, with
remarkable foresight, the possibilities of intensive agri-
culture by means of irrigation.

The first settlement which he planned was, of course,
Salt Lake City and its neighborhood. This became the
model of all future colonies. It was laid out in such a
way as to secure an equitable division of land values
among all the inhabitants.

The city blocks consist of ten acres each, divided into
eight lots of one and a quarter acres. These lots were
assigned to professional and business men. Next there
was a tier of five-acre lots. These were assigned to me-
chanics. Then there were tiers of ten-acre and of twenty-
acre lots. These went to farmers, according to the size
of their families. Under this arrangement every colon-
ist was a small landed proprietor, owning a certain
amount of irrigated soil from which he could readily pro-
duce the necessities of life. The division of land values
was remarkably even, for what one man lacked in
area of his possessions he gained in location. The small
lots were close to the centre of business ; the largo lots
more remote from that centre. As the place grew in
course of years from an emigrants' camp to a populous
city, with paved streets, domestic water, electric lights,
and railways, the inevitable rise in values was distributed
with remarkably even hand. Not a single family or indi-
vidual failed to share in the great fund of *f unearned
increment " which aroso from increasing population and
growing public improvements.

58

THE MORMON COMMONWEALTH

This principle of universal land ownership, and of care-
ful division according to location and of differing needs
of various classes, has been followed throughout the
Mormon settlements of Utah and surrounding States,
and is being duplicated to-day in the latest colonies es-
tablished by this people.

It is important to note that the Mormon land system
rested on individual proprietorship. There never was
any attempt at community ownership. The unit of the
State was the family and the home. But the moment
we pass from the sphere of individual labor we encounter
another principle, which was always applied, though not
always by the same methods, to public utilities. This
was the principle of public ownership and control.

If the Mormon leaders had desired to organize their
industrial life in a way to make large private fortunes
for themselves, no single item in the list of Utah's re-
sources would have offered a better chance for specula-
tion than the water supply. It was perfectly feasible
under the law for private individuals or companies to ap-
propriate these waters, construct canals, sell water rights,
and collect annual rental. By adopting this method,
which widely prevails in other western States, they could
have laid every field, orchard, and garden — every in-
dividual and family — under tribute to them and their
descendants forever. Neither in law nor in practice, at
that time, was it any more a moral and economic wrong
to appropriate privately and hold against the public the
natural wealth of the streams than it was to do the same
with the natural wealth of the mineral belts on govern-
ment land.

Probably the Mormons owed their escape from the

59

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

misfortune of private irrigation works mostly to the fact
that this feature of their institutions was established when
none of their people possessed sufficient private capital to
engage in costly enterprises. They started upon a basis
of equality, for they were equally poor. They could buy
water rights only with their labor. This labor they ap-
plied in co-operation, and canal stock was issued to each
man in proportion to the amount of work he had con-
tributed to its construction. This in turn was deter-
mined by the amount of land he owned, the owner of
twenty acres doing just twice as much work as the owner
of ten. Here we see the influence of aridity not only
favoring, but compelling, the adoption of the principle
of associative enterprise, as mentioned in a previous
chapter. But before discussing the wider results of this
influence in the life of Utah, it is important to observe
the characteristic forms of agriculture which grew out
of these new conditions.

We have seen that Brigham Young had made twenty
acres the maximum size of farms in the Salt Lake settle-
ment. He now proceeded to lay down a philosophy very*
different from that which prevailed on the large farms
of the wheat and corn country whence he had come. He
urged that each family should realize the nearest possi-
ble approach to absolute industrial independence within
the boundaries of its own small farm. His sermons in
the tabernacle dealt less in theology than in worldly com-
mon-sense. The result is an agricultural system peculiar
to Utah.

Just as we have the cotton-belt in Texas, the corn-belt
in Nebraska, the wheat-belt in Dakota, and the orange-
district in California, so in Utah we have the land of the

60

THE MORMON COMMONWEALTH

diversified farm. This is the first and one of the most
precious fruits of the industrialism which had been so
deeply rooted in the plan of general land ownership.

Much of the misfortune which the settlers of the Mis-
sissippi Valley have endured during the past decade is
due to the fact that their industrial system was founded
on the speculative instinct. They acquired large farms,
because they hoped to get rich out of the rise in land.
They engaged in the production of single crops, because
they were gambling on the hope of great prices for these
staples. They mortgaged their homesteads to make
costly improvements, because they had the utmost faith
in future big prices for the land and its product. It
is very easy to comprehend the virtues of Utah industrial-
ism when we may make use of a Texas cotton plantation
or a Dakota wheat farm for a background. In the one
case we see the little unmortgaged farm, its crops in-
sured by irrigation, systematically producing a variety of
things required for the family consumption. A generous
living is within the control of the proprietor of such a
home. In the other case we see the single crop exposed
to the mercy of the weather and the markets, its owner
employing many hired hands, and going to the town to
buy with cash nearly all that is necessary to feed his
family and laborers.

The Utah system was clearly the outgrowth of the
peculiar conditions with which the Mormons dealt. They
were so far removed from all centres of production as to
make self-sufficiency an imperative condition of existence.
Hence they were taught the gospel of industrial inde-
pendence in its purest and most primitive form. And
self-sufficiency is the most striking characteristic of their

61

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

civilization to-day. Wars and panics have swep t the
country since the pioneers built their homes in Salt Lake
Valley, but they and theirs have not gone hungry for a
day or an hour. Nor need they do so while water runs
down hill and mother earth yields her increase.

The conquest of Utah began with the establishment
of agriculture, which is everywhere the foundation of
civilization. Brigham Young realized, as the American
people may well do to-day, that there can be no prosper-
ity if agriculture languishes. He realized that whatever
the Mormon people might have in the future — whatever
of factories, stores, and banks, whatever of churches tem-
ples, and tabernacles — must come primarily from the
surplus profits of the soil.

As soon as his people had been supplied with food and
shelter, he turned his attention to the development of a
broader industrial life. Workshops, stores, and banks
were necessary to furnish facilities for manufacture, dis-
tribution, and exchange. All these enterprises were un-
dertaken in a co-operative way under the familiar forms
of the joint-stock company. Those who were unwilling
to engage in them upon these terms generally left the
church and set up for themselves. At the beginning
there was no capital for such undertakings except the
capital which resided in every man's land and labor — no
wealth but the commonwealth. As all had started on a
basis of equality, so all were given an equal chance to
participate in the new industrial, mercantile, and bank-
ing enterprises of the Territory. When a factory or
store was to be started subscription papers were circu-
lated and everybody urged to take some of the stock.
Payments were made sometimes in cash, more often in

62

THE MORMON COMMONWEALTH

products, not infrequently in labor. Of one thing there
has never been a scarcity in Utah — this is the chance to
work. And labor has always been exchangeable there
for other commodities, including bank and mercantile
stock. Otherwise it would not have been possible to
have secured anything like the wide distribution of these
stocks which now prevails.

In the early years the industries were of a crude sort.
Everything had to be hauled in ox-teams over a thousand
miles of deserts, plains, and mountains. The people
used almost no money in their daily transactions. As a
medium of exchange they had printed slips of paper
known as " tithing-house scrip." This answered every
purpose of exchange money, while the prices of com-
modities were regulated by the standard of values which
prevailed elsewhere. But while the local scrip did very
well for all home purposes, it did not enable the people
to purchase the supplies of machinery which they need-
ed from abroad. The process of equipping their factories
was, therefore, necessarily slow, but they rapidly devel-
oped an army of skilled artisans, which was constantly
augmented by immigration. But even without assis-
tance from the great world which lay so far beyond the
borders of their own valleys marvellous progress was
achieved in the arts and industries.

Brigham Young was strenuously opposed to the de-
velopment of the mines by his people, believing that
what they might gain in wealth from that source would
be much more than offset by the demoralization which
would come to his industrial forces with the rise of the
speculative spirit. Above all other virtues he placed
that of sober industry, earning its bread in the sweat of

63

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

men's faces. That the mines would some day be worked
by " Gentiles " he had no doubt, and he rightly calcu-
lated that his own people would enjoy more prosperity
by feeding the miners than by working the mines. A
few of the many millions afterwards taken from the
mountains around Salt Lake would have facilitated the
growth and equipment of the Mormon industries im-
mensely during the early years. But time and patience
accomplished in the end all — perhaps more than an
abundance of original capital might have done. Nearly
all the industries essential to a complex and symmetrical
business economy have been established for many years.
Every important settlement has its co-operative store
and bank. From the great beet-sugar factory at Lehi
down to the smallest mercantile enterprise in the small-
est hamlet, the business is owned by a multitude of stock-
holders.

The capital represents the surplus profits of the many.
The system bears no likeness to Socialism. Nothing is
owned by virtue of citizenship nor of membership in
the church. No one owns a dollar's worth of stock who
has not earned and paid for it. The system ia nothing
but the joint-stock company with what may be called a
generous and friendly interpretation. That is to say, it
is really desired that everybody shall have an interest,
and that all shall share the benefits. It should not be
understood by any means that all have an equal owner-
ship in these various enterprises, for the Mormon system
has not resulted in making men equally successful. AH
have had an equal chance however, and the weak have
been watched over and assisted by the strong. In-
deed, this latter is one of the few good results to be

64

THE MORMON COMMONWEALTH

credited to the exercise of church authority in secular
affairs.

It would be quite impracticable to attempt to fol-
low the history of any considerable number of the many
co-operative enterprises of Utah. Neither are figures
available for a satisfactory generalization of results.
But the whole system is typified in the experience of one
monumental enterprise — Zion's Co-operative Mercantile
Institution. This great house is in a sense the mother
and the model of all the Mormon stores in Utah and its
surrounding States. Mr. Thomas G. Webber, the suc-
cessful superintendent of "Z. C. M. I.,9' as it is famil-
iarly called, describes the history of the enterprise as
follows :

" The Institution was organized October 16, 1868 ;
commenced business March 1, 1869 ; was incorporated
for twenty-five years from October 5, 1870, and the
capital was then $220,000. It was reincorporated for
fifty years September 30, 1895, with a capital stock of
$1,077,000.

" During the life of our first incorporation period we
have sold $76,352,686 worth of merchandise, and paid to
the railroad and express companies for freight $6,908,630.

"We have paid out in cash dividends $1,990,943.55,
and in stock dividends $414,944.77. During the panic
in 1873, for prudential reasons, we passed our dividend,
and continued to do so until 1877, but during the whole
of the period we have been in business, some twenty-
seven years, we have paid to our stockholders an average
dividend of nine and one-third per cent, for each and
every year, or two hundred and forty-three per cent, in
all ; $1,000 invested in our capital stock on the 1st of
E 65

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

March, 1869, at the end of September, 1895, when our
incorporation ran out, had accumulated to $2,014.30,
and in addition to this we have paid upon this $1,000 in
cash dividends the sum of $4,218.05.

" We have turned out in our manufacturing depart-
ments boots and shoes to the value of $2,053,294.43, and
in our duck clothing and shirt factory upwards of
$80,000 worth. Last year (1895) it was an off-year with
our manufacturing departments, but we turned out
75,400 pairs of boots and shoes, and 15,648 dozen over-
alls, shirts, etc."

This is the history of Utah's largest co-operative un-
dertaking. It is a history which no friend of co-operative
effort will blush to read, for it proves that a great busi-
ness can be as successfully administered in the interest
of the many as in the interest of a few. The latest
and largest of the Mormon industrial enterprises is the
beet - sugar factory, owned by seven hundred stock-
holders, which in 1895 produced considerably more than
700,000,000 pounds of sugar and paid a cash dividend
of ten per cent. Its later dividends are much larger.
It also furnished a profitable market for the products of
many irrigated fields.

While the most satisfactory results of co-operative en-
terprise have been obtained in the last two decades, much
was achieved in the early day. As early as 1850, when
Salt Lake Valley had been settled less than three years,
the industrial products amounted to only a little less
than three hundred thousand dollars. Ten years later
they had mounted nearly to the million mark, and in
1870 they considerably exceeded two and a quarter mill-
ions. In 1895 the total was close to six millions. The

66

THE MORMON COMMONWEALTH

growth of these hard-won industries has naturally fos-
tered a feeling of intense loyalty to home products.
Foreign goods are not a badge of honor. The Utah man
wears Utah clothes, made in Utah factories, from wool
sheared from the back of Utah sheep, with the same
pride that a New York man wears a London hat and a
New York woman a Paris gown.

Let us look now at the broader results of the Mormon
labor in the wilderness. The church historian, Mr. A.
Milton Musser, has made a careful estimate of the finan-
cial results which may fairly be credited to the irriga-
tion industry in Utah. In doing so he communicated
with church leaders throughout the State and compiled
the results of his correspondence with the utmost care.
The statement is given just as he prepared it, without
attempt to discuss it in detail. To fully comprehend it
however, the reader must remember that the Mormons
began in poverty, having almost nothing to invest ex-
cept the labor of their hands and brains, and that all
they have expended in a period of nearly fifty years for all
classes of improvements — from the first shanty to the
last turret of the last temple — came primarily from the
soil. Here is the balance-sheet of the Mormon people as
Mr. Musser prepared it :

Cost of establishing the 10,000 farms ($187.50

per farm per annum) $75,000,000

Cost of making irrigation canals and ditches

($37.50 per farm per annum) 15,000,000

Cost of irrigating 10,000 farms and gardens

($24.00 each per annum) 9,600,000

Building factories 5,000,000

Building temples 8,000,000

67

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

Building churches and schools $4,000,000

Cost of missionary work 10,000,000

Cost of immigrating and sustaining the poor 8,000,000

Living of the farmers ($875 to each family

per annum) 350,000,000

Cost of roads and bridges in mountains and

valleys 4,000,000

Cost of Indian wars, building forts, stockades,

breaking up settlements, etc 5,000,000

Cost of feeding and clothing Indians and
establishing Indian missions, farms,
schools, etc 2,000,000

Cost of resisting the invasion of the army of
1857, and of the people of Salt Lake
county and the counties north moving
south into middle and southern Utah 6,000,000

Loss sustained by crickets, locusts, and grass-
hoppers 2,500,000

Unsuccessful early experiments in making
iron, sugar, paper, nails, leather, cotton-
raising, mining, etc 6,000,000

Cost of defence against anti-polygamy legisla-
tion believed to be unconstitutional 3,000,000

Heavy freight rates from the Missouri river

and the Pacific coast before the railroads 8,000,000

Cost of establishing the Overland Mail and
Express Company, purchase of Fort
Bridger, and establishment of Fort Sup-
ply, abandoned and afterward absorbed
by the army of 1857 2,000,000

Protecting overland travel, succoring and
feeding California, Oregon, and other
emigrants 1,500,000

Cost of colonizing Carson and Green River
counties, abandoned because of the
army of 1857 2,000,000

Cost of establishing colonies on Salmon

THE MORMON COMMONWEALTH

river, in Lower California, and the sugar

plantation near Honolulu $1,500,000

Cost of local telegraph aad railroad lines 3,000,000

Cost of obtaining fuel, and building and
fencing materials, from the rugged
mountains and canyons many miles away 10,000,000
Cost of making settlements on the Muddy,
Call's Landing, Florence, Sunset, and
other localities, afterwards abandoned be-
cause of adverse conditions subsequently

developed .* 1,000,000

Losses by fire ($20,000 per annum) 800,000

Taxes 8,000,000

Miscellaneous expenditures 12,000,000

$562,900,000

Less the personal property brought into Utah
by immigrants, such as cattle, wagons,
cash, etc 20,000,000

8542,900,000

In his note transmitting these figures Mr. Musser
writes : " The inclosed has been submitted to the inspec-
tion of Presidents Woodruff, Cannon, and Smith, and
Bishops Preston, Burton, and Winder, as well as to others
conversant with such matters. All agree that the esti-
mates are as fair as they can be given." And he adds,
with a reverence characteristic of his people: "While
much of our prosperity is due to industrious, temperate,
and frugal habits of life, yet we never lose sight of the
overruling hand of the Almighty in all these results, and
to Him be given praise and thanksgiving without stint."

In a private letter accompanying these statistics His-
torian Musser directed attention to the fact that upon
this showing each Mormon farmer enjoyed an average

69

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

income of four hundred and eighty- two dollars above the
cost of living for each of the more than forty years which
the statement covers. This is a considerably higher re-
turn than the gross amount averaged by wage earners in
the United States.

While in many particulars this imposing statement of
results may be open to criticism, there can be no doubt
that it was prepared with conscientious care. It is pre-
sented here for what it may be worth. To the writer it
seems to confirm the impression of a vast material achieve-
ment which comes to any person upon visiting Utah and
looking about him. For the present purpose the precise
statistical facts are of less consequence than the economic
principles which have produced what everybody acknowl-
edges to be a wonderful result. These principles may be
briefly summarized as follows :

GENERAL LAND OWNERSHIP, LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT
WHICH FAMILIES AND INDIVIDUALS COULD APPLY TO A
USEFUL PURPOSE.

SELF-SUFFICIENCY IN AGRICULTURE, AIMING AT THE
COMPLETE ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE OF THE PEOPLE, IN-
DIVIDUALLY AND COLLECTIVELY.

THE PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF PUBLIC UTILITIES, SUCH AS
WATER SUPPLY FOR IRRIGATION AND DOMESTIC USES.

THE CO-OPERATIVE, OR ASSOCIATIVE, OWNERSHIP AND
ADMINISTRATION OF STORES, FACTORIES, AND BANKS,
THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF THE JOINT-STOCK COMPANY.

These are the underlying principles of the Mormon
commonwealth. They are vindicated by the successful
experience of the last half century. Nowhere else do so
large a percentage of the people own their homes free
from incumbrance. Nowhere else has labor received so

70

THE MORMON COMMONWEALTH

fair a share of what it has created. Nowhere else has the
common prosperity been reared upon firmer foundations.
Nowhere else are institutions more firmly buttressed or
better capable of resisting violent economic revolutions.
The thunder-cloud which passed over the land in 1893,
leaving a path of commercial ruin from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, was powerless to close the door of a single
Mormon store, factory, or bank. Strong in prosperity,
the co-operative industrial and commercial system stood
immovable in the hour of wide-spread disaster. The sol-
vency of these industries is scarcely more striking than
the solvency of the farmers from whom they draw their
strength. No other Governor, either in the West or in the
East, is able to say what the Honorable Heber M. Wells
said in assuming the chief magistracy of the new State
in January, 1896. " We have in Utah," said the young
Governor, "19,816 farms, and 17,684 of the mare abso-
lutely free of incumbrance." A higher percentage in
school attendance and a lower percentage of illiterates
than even in the State of Massachusetts, is another of
Utah's proud records.

So far we have been dealing with facts that are be-
yond dispute. No one can deny that the Mormon indus-
trial and commercial system is correctly described in the
foregoing pages, nor that that system has made the peo-
ple remarkably prosperous in an economic sense. But
for the purposes of this book it is highly essential to
determine just what weight should be given to the Mor-
mon experience as a guide for future colonization effort
in the arid West, and to what degree the Utah system
is founded upon correct principles of industrial and
social economy.

71

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

The problem can be summed up in two questions
which have doubtless already occurred to the reader :
Was the Utah experience possible without Brigham
Young ? Was Brigham Young possible without the
Church ?

The first of these questions may be answered unhesi-
tatingly in the negative. Without a Brigham Young
there could have been no such record of achievement in
the deserts of Utah. He was the brains and the soul of
the enterprise. He planned with extraordinary sagacity
and wrought with tremendous vigor. Leave out that
brain and soul — that sagacity and vigor — and we can
conceive of no emigration from Nauvoo ; of no success-
ful march over plain and mountain ; of no triumph over
the almost insuperable difficulties which intervened be-
tween the arrival of the people in Salt Lake Valley in
1847 and the firmly established community of fifty years
later. But what of that ? The concession of the indis-
pensable fact of Brigham Young amounts only to the
concession, equally applicable to all human undertak-
ings of magnitude, that leadership is absolutely essen-
tial.

This brings us to the other and more complicated
question: Was Brigham Young possible without the
Church ? First let us see what manner of man he
was.

Born in Vermont, of good native stock, he had the
characteristics of the place and the race in a pre-eminent
degree. He was shrewd and thrifty, far-seeing -and in-
tensely practical. He was of coarse fibre, deficient in
the finer feelings, and devoid of all imagination of the
poetic kind. Of his innumerable sermons and speeches

72

THE MORMON COMMONWEALTH

nothing survives save an occasional homely maxim, such
as, " Plough deep and plant alfalfa." Like all his sayings
and all his works, this marks the mind and method of
the materialist rather than of the idealist. Whatever
else he really thought of polygamy, he at least believed
it a capital method of increasing the population of a new
country, and that happened to be the particular work
upon which his effort and ambition were engaged.

A leader of men ? Most emphatically, but of the grim
and masterful sort — a Cromwell rather than a Lincoln.
While no orator, he had strong persuasive powers. These
were supported by splendid enthusiasm and optimism.
He could set men at work with the conviction in their
minds that success was certain, failure impossible.

This man was successful in what he undertook to do.
He did not originate Mormonism. He added nothing
to its creed or its literature, though he added much to
its power. But finding the Mormons a despised and
hunted people, he set himself the task of extricating
them from intolerable surroundings, of leading them a
thousand miles across an almost unexplored country,
and of founding, in the midst of untried conditions, a
commonwealth where they could rear their homes and
temples and wax great and strong. Who can doubt that
if he had undertaken to build a transcontinental rail-
road, like Ames and Huntington; to found a pork-pack-
ing business, like Armour ; or to lead an army, like Grant,
he would have commanded success ? He had all the
elements of a successful man in any of the greater walks
of life where pluck and brains, determination and vast
ambition, are the requisite qualities. If he was a relig-
ious fanatic, there never was another of his composition.

73

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

Poet or orator he could not have been ; seer, revelator,
and ecclesiastic he was not, save to the superstitious
vision of his blind followers ; but great, resourceful, and
of commanding personality he was — a captain of industry,
an organizer of prosperity; and the Utah of to-day is
his undeniable claim to fame and his imperishable monu-
ment.

So much for the man. What of the Church ? It was
unquestionably the instrument used in the settlement
of Utah. It is being used to-day as an instrument in
.settling portions of Canada, Mexico, and other localities.
Regarded simply as a Church, it is successful numerically
and financially. It is one of the few creeds where secu-
lar and religious affairs are brought into the closest as-
sociation, and, for this reason, it is generally believed
that church solidarity is the true explanation of the
economic prosperity of the Mormons. This conclusion
rests upon the theory that the Church sustains the in-
dustrial system. The writer emphatically dissents from
this notion, and confidently asserts that precisely the re-
verse is the truth — that the industrial system sustains
the Church.

The principles upon which the Mormon industrial and
social structure was reared have been carefully presented
in this chapter. These principles have worked success-
fully for fifty years. To determine the part which they
had in the actual result, let us ask ourselves this ques-
tion : Suppose the plans initiated by Brigham Young had
failed to give his followers the security of a home and
the certainty of a living ; that their co-operative industry
had produced losses rather than profits ; that their vil-
lage system had brought social discontent instead of

74

THE MORMON COMMONWEALTH

satisfaction — what then ? Is it conceivable that religious
fanaticism could have held them together and lent such
an impulse to their growth that to-day, nearly a quarter
of a century after the death of Brigham Young, they
should be growing faster than ever before, maintaining
more missionaries and building more colonies in various
parts of the world ? Surely economic fallacy never pro-
duced such striking results as these in any other instance
known to history.

It would perhaps be a tenable position to say that in
Utah a sound economic system, working in conjunction t
with religious enthusiasm, produced the result now
known of all men ; but that would be very nearly equiva-
lent to saying that the only way to solve the problem of
reclamation and settlement in the arid regions is to turn
the task over to the Mormon Church and to advise all
who crave homes to join that organization. The writer
believes that the attraction of Morrnonism has consisted
mostly in what it offered to the home-seeker, and that
the secret of its cohesion is the prosperity that has re-
sulted from its industrial system rather than the occult
power of its creed.

Polygamy has so stirred the Christian world that no
man may speak in praise of any of the Mormon institu-
tions except at the risk of being misunderstood, or pos-
sibly regarded as an apologist for what the nation has
condemned as a crime against womanhood. On the
other hand, no candid mind can study the problem which
confronts the American people — the problem of opening
the door to the masses of our citizenship upon the un-
used natural resources of the nation — without realizing
that Brigham Young and the State he founded furnish

75

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

stronger and clearer light for the future of domestic
colonization than any other experience that can possibly
be discovered. It is in the earnest conviction that it is
a high public service to show the virtues of the Mormon
industrial system that this chapter is written.

CHAPTER II
THE GKEELEY COLONY OF COLORADO

THE Greeley Colony of Colorado sprang belated from
the seed of Fourierism sown broadcast in the forties.
In all our social history there is no more interesting page
than that which records the rise, progress, and tem-
porary defeat of the doctrine of association. Fraught
with the noblest aspirations, and welcomed and cham-
pioned by the most brilliant minds, it disappointed, in
actual practice, the high hopes of its friends. Fran9ois
Marie Charles Fourier devoted his life to elaborating his
scheme of Socialism, and died a few years before the
seed of his thought was wafted across the Atlantic to
take sudden root in our soil.

The American impulse of Fourierism arose from the
miseries of the hard winter of 1838. The doctrine had
been imported by Albert Brisbane, a young gentleman of
wealth and leisure who had studied the works of the
French philosopher in Paris and returned to this country
warm with these new hopes for humanity. Availing
himself of the opportunity offered by the universal dis-
content, he plunged boldly into the agitation and at-
tracted a remarkable degree of attention. Horace
Greeley, then in the morning of his fame, espoused the
new cause, at first cautiously, then with characteristic

77

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

energy and daring. The period of agitation covered the
years between 1840 and 1847. The men of thought soon
won the confidence of the men of action, and a large
number of associations for the purpose of bringing
Fourierisrn to the practical test were formed in various
States. In May, 1843, Mr. Greeley wrote in the Tribune:
(i The doctrine of association is spreading throughout
the country with a rapidity which we did not anticipate,
and of which we had but little hope. We receive papers
from nearly all parts of the northern and western States,
and some from the South, containing articles upon as-
sociation, in which general views and outlines of the
system are given. Efforts are making in various parts
of this State, in Vermont, in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and
Illinois, to establish associations, which will probably be
successful in the course of the present year."

There was not much difficulty in obtaining recruits for
these undertakings, and the experiment was entered
upon with great enthusiasm. With a single exception,
it ended in failure. The most famous of these colonies
was Brook Farm, at West Roxbury, nine miles from
Boston. Rev. George Ripley was the head of the enter-
prise. With him were associated, either as actual col-
onists or active sympathizers and supporters, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry D. Thorean,
James Freeman Clarke, William Ellery Charming, Bron-
son Alcott, George Bancroft, Charles A. Dana, Margaret
Fuller, and many others whose names rank high in the
annals of American literature. Never before, and never
afterwards, was such a galaxy of brains assembled in a
single colony. Most of them were then in young man-
hood, with their fame all before them. But the historian

78

THE GKEELEY COLONY OF COLORADO

of the enterprise sadly relates that, at the end of their
first year they found they had a surplus of philosophers
and a dearth of men who could hoe potatoes. And New
England has been smiling about Brook Farm ever since.
The end of Fourierism in the United States was the joint
debate between Horace Greeley and Henry J. Raymond
in their respective newspapers, the Tribune and the
Courier, of New York.

In the minds of the devoted constituency of the New
York Tribune, the idea of colony-planting as a means of
improving the lot of average humanity had taken deep
root, so that twenty-five years after Fourier's dream had
ceased to flourish as a social experiment, a colony repre-
senting its hopes, if not its methods, could gain supporters.

The new venture was initiated by Nathan Cook Meeker,
who had succeeded Solon Robinson as agricultural editor
of the New York Tribune at the close of the war. In
1844 Mr. Meeker had been an active participant in the
Trumbull Phalanx at Warren, Ohio. This had expired
of ague, poverty, and dissension, after a fitful career of
about three years. " If the place had been healthy,"
Mr. Meeker said afterwards, " we should have held out
longer, and the idle and improvident would have got
more out of the industrious and patient ; but I have no
reason to suppose that we should not have finally ex-
ploded, either in some fight, or at least in disgust."
From this experience he emerged disappointed and des-
titute, but with valuable lessons for the future and un-
shaken faith in the utility of colonization effort. The
knowledge thus dearly bought he was destined to apply,
many years later, in a useful career as one of the found-
ers of a State.

79

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

In the fall of 1869 Mr. Meeker had returned from a
trip to the Far West, the object of which was to describe
the Mormon industrial system in a series of letters to the
Tribune. Encountering a snow blockade at Cheyenne,
which compelled him to postpone his visit to Utah, he
had gone to Colorado instead. It was at the time when
the Kansas Pacific Railroad was pushing across the plains
to the budding village of Denver, transforming the wag-
on-trail into a highway of civilization. Everywhere Mr.
Meeker beheld the dawn of a new industrial life in the
midst of a wilderness. He was charmed with the climate
and scenery, and impressed with the material wealth of
the country's undeveloped resources. The old enthusi-
asm for colony-making filled his imagination. "Wearied
with a life struggle to remodel old social structures, he
longed to avail himself of this opportunity to build on
new foundations.

These hopes he communicated to his friend, John Rus-
sell Young, who agreed to bring the matter to the atten-
tion of Horace Greeley. This he did at a dinner held at
Delmonico's in December, 1869. Mr. Greeley was in-
stantly interested, and beckoned Mr. Meeker to join him
at the table.. " I understand you have a notion to start
a colony to go to Colorado," said the editor. " Well,"
he continued, "I wish you would take hold of it, for I
think it will be a great success, and if I could, I would
go myself." Thus assured of powerful backing, Mr.
Meeker at once proceeded to form his plans.
j The prospectus of the new colony was drawn up by
Mr. Meeker, but carefully weighed and revised by Mr.
Greeley. A quarter of a century had elapsed since these
men had been engaged — the one as active participant,

80

THE GREELEY COLONY OF COLORADO

the other as the most conspicuous American champion —
in the Fourier scheme of association. It is interesting to
observe just how much of the old plan survived in the
new colony prospectus, when the thought of these leaders
had been mellowed and broadened by many more years of
life and experience.

In the Fourier communities the people had lived to-
gether under one roof, in the hope of effecting large
household economies. There had been common owner-
ship of land, and an attempt at equal division of labor.
The unit of the community was the whole ; the only in-
dividual, the public.

In forming the plan of the new colony the lessons of
experience were not forgotten. There was but a single
suggestion of the " phalanstery," or common household
of Fourier days, and that was advanced in timid terms.
"It seems to me/' Mr. Meeker wrote, "that a laundry
and bakery might be established, and the washing and
baking done for all the community ; but other household
work should be done by the families." It was provided
that the unit of society should be the family, living under
its own roof ; that farms and homes should be owned
independently ; that individuals should plan their own
labor, and rise or fall by their industry and thrift, or lack
of them. The new ideal was that of an organized com-
munity which should give the people the benefit of as-
sociation without hampering individual enterprise and
ability. It furnished a means of settlement essentially
different from that under which the Middle West had
been developed.

Land was to be purchased on a large Scale with a com-
mon fund. This cheapened its cost, and gave the col-
P 81

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

onists an important measure of control in its sub -di-
vision and development. The settlement was to be made
almost wholly in a village, the land being divided into
blocks of ten acres, and the blocks into eight lots for
building purposes. It was proposed to apportion each
family "from forty to eighty, even one hundred and six-
ty acres," adjoining the village. Northampton, in Mass-
achusetts, and several other New England towns and vil-
lages, had been settled in this manner. A feature of
much interest was the proposal to have the residence and
business lots sold for the benefit of the colony's treasury,
the capital so obtained to be appropriated for public im-
provements, such as building a church, a town-hall, and
a school -house, and establishing a public library. This
plan marked an important departure in town-making.
Town sites, as a rule, especially where the community
promises a rapid growth, are treated as opportunities for
private speculation. The boom comes, and everybody
prospers ; the boom goes, and a few schemers have man-
aged to acquire nearly all the cash capital. Under the
new plan, as the prospectus pointed out, " the increased
value of real estate will be for the benefit of all the peo-
ple." They would receive these benefits, too, in the best
form, as in the shape of permanent improvements essen-
tial to their social and intellectual well-being, and of
capital available for industrial purposes.

Other advantages of settling in a village were pre-
sented as follows : " Easy access to schools and public
places, meetings, lectures, and the like. In planting, in
fruit-growing, ajid improving homes generally, the skill
and experience of a few will be common to all, and
much greater progress can be made than where each livea

82

THE GREELEY COLONY OF COLORADO

isolated. Refined society and all the advantages of an
old country will be secured in a few years ; while, on the
contrary, where settlements are made by old methods
people are obliged to wait twenty, forty, or more years/'

This prospectus was published in the New York Trib-
une of December 14, 1869, with a hearty editorial indorse-
ment. Spite of radical departures in the matter of
private landholding and individual industry, the vital
spirit of Fourierism lived and breathed through the cau-
tious lines of the announcement. There was still the
high ideal of social and civic life, of industrial indepen-
dence, of a scheme of labor which should give to the la-
borer an equitable share of what he produced. There
was still the plan of co-operation in achieving things for
the common benefit. There was still the craving for a
society composed of sober, temperate, industrious people.
The common household had been discarded for the family
home and hearth-stone, but for the barbarism and isola-
tion of life on great farms there had been substituted the
association of homes in the village centre, with the best
social and intellectual opportunities. Behind the new
plan, as behind the old, stood the patient energy and faith
of Meeker and the glorious optimism of Greeley.

The announcement had met with a prompt and en-
thusiastic response at the hands of several hundred peo-
ple, who had organized the Union Colony of Colorado at
a meeting held at the Cooper Institute in New York,
where Horace Greeley had presided. A committee had
selected twelve thousand acres of railroad and govern-
ment land in the valley of the Cache la Poudre, twenty
miles northwest of Denver, on the line of railway then
building to Cheyenne. The pioneers of the colony were

83

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA -

thus able to begin settlement in the spring of 1870, and
to bring to the test of actual experience the social and
industrial plans set forth in the prospectus. A party of
eastern people, most of whom came from cities, they en-
tered cheerfully upon the task of adjusting a high ideal
to the untried conditions of a country which had previ-
ously known only the Indian, the hunter, and the cow-
boy. Their experience for the next twenty years has a
larger significance than merely local history, since the
community is one of the landmarks in western life.

Mr. Meeker having refused the use of his own name,
the new town was christened " Greeley," and this name
was popularly applied to the colony also, in spite of its
incorporated title. The first severe test of the co-
operative principle, which had been relied upon for the
larger enterprises, arose in connection with the building
of canals. There had been no misconception as to the
need of irrigation, but it was supposed that the works
could be quickly constructed and the new methods of
agriculture readily learned. The original estimate of
cost was twenty thousand dollars. The actual outlay be-
fore the works were completed reached four hundred
and twelve thousand, or more than twenty times the es-
timate. For resources to meet this unexpected demand,
the colony had only receipts from the sales of property
and the subscriptions and labor of its members. The re-
sult was not reached without serious dissensions and
some desertions, but the works were built, and the commu-
nity survived with its co-operative principle intact. It is
not to be believed that a private enterprise could have lived
through a similar experience with the same slender finan-
cial resources, for it was the public spirit and pride which

84

THE GREELEY COLONY OF COLORADO

saved the day at this critical juncture. These increased
as difficulties multiplied, and rose with thfe tide of out-
side criticism and abuse. The process welded the people
together, and made them strong enough to meet success-
fully the obstacles which yet remained.

Having provided water for their lands, the settlers pro-
ceeded to create the irrigation industry of Colorado ; for
nothing worthy of the name existed on the scattered
ranches of the sparsely settled Territory. The new-
comers brought their intelligence to bear upon the prob-
lem of perfecting skilful methods of irrigation and culti-
vation, and of discovering the classes of crops best
adapted to the soil and climate. This work quickly led
them to realize another disappointment of serious import.
They had dreamed of orchards and vineyards, and of
homes set in the midst of beautiful flowers and delicate
shrubbery. Experiment soon taught them that they had
been deceived about the character of the country. The
hopes which had been built upon the fruit industry failed
utterly, and the colonists were compelled to fall back
upon general farming. This involved somewhat larger
farms, and rendered more difficult the realization of their
social plans. Very likely it saved them from the evils
of the single crop which has marred the prosperity of
many agricultural districts. The diversified products of
the soil yielded them a comfortable living. Since there
was no hope of obtaining cash income from fruit, they
sought another surplus crop, and found it in the potato,
to which their soil proved to be peculiarly adapted. They
made an exhaustive study of this culture, and at last pro-
duced in the " Greeley potato" one of the famous crops of
the West. Its superiority readily commands the best place

85

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

in the market, and there have been years when the crop
has returned a million dollars to the potato districts of
which the colony is the centre. The farmers invented a
pool system which frequently enabled them to control
the output, and so influence prices in their favor.

Events proved that the colonists were gainers by reason
of the trials and disappointments which attended the
establishment of their industrial life. Though the cost
of their canals had so far outrun their expectations, they
obtained their water supply much cheaper than did sub-
sequent communities who patronized private companies.
At Greeley the cost of a water-right for eighty acres was
three hundred and fifty dollars. This made the user a
proportionate owner of the works. AVhere canals were
private, settlers paid twelve hundred dollars for precisely
the same amount of water, while the works remained the
property of a foreign corporation. The difference in the
price of water under the two systems represented a very
handsome dividend for those who had persisted in their
allegiance to the co-operative principle. In the same
way, the colonists profited from their struggle to realize
the best agricultural methods. They won a reputation
for their products which possessed actual commercial
value, and they became the teachers of irrigation, furnish-
ing practical examples to students of the subject and
contributing largely to its literature. These results must
be credited to the fact that the community was organized,
and that the people acted with a common impulse.

Passing now from the industrial to the civic side of the
colony life, we find that the high public spirit in which
the community was conceived left its marks not less in-
delibly. In the original prospectus Mr. Meeker had

8G

THE GREELEY COLONY OF COLORADO

plainly stated, " The persons with whom I would be will-
ing to associate must be temperance men and ambitious
to establish good society." This was no sounding phrase,
for the founder and his fellow-colonists wrote their prin-
ciples into the title deeds which transferred farm and
village property from the company to individuals. These
provided that if intoxicating liquor were ever manufact-
ured or sold on the land, title should immediately revert
to the colony. The provision was enforced with splendid
intolerance. Those who were not in accord with its spirit
had not been invited to come, nor were they made com-
fortable while they stayed. Their unbending attitude on
this subject gave the men of Greeley the title of " Puri-
tans," which was a unique distinction in the Far West,
in that day of cowboys and border ruffians. The prohi-
bition clause in the deeds was stoutly resisted by a small
minority, and went from court to court, until it was
finally vindicated by the supreme tribunal at "Washington.
The Greeley local sentiment has always upheld the princi-
ple, and insisted that it was responsible for the admitted-
ly high character of the community. Like several of the
colony's plans, it has been extensively imitated.

The government of the community was vested in exe-
cutive officers, but was actually ruled by public opinion.
This found expression in numerous town meetings held
in Colony Hall, which was one of the earliest buildings
erected. Here all the public affairs were discussed with
perfecttfrankness to the last detail, and no public officer
ventured to stray far from the conclusions there pro-
nounced.

Not even the early hardships and disappointments
were permitted to mar the social life of the colony. The

87

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

people made the most of the opportunities offered by the
association of homes in the village, and organized a
variety of social and intellectual diversions. At an early
period an irreverent newspaper writer remarked: "The
town of Greeley is a delectable arena, for of the entire
population three-fourths are members of clubs that are
eternally in session. Day may sink into night, flowers
may bloom and fade, and the seasons roll round with the
year, but Greeley clubs are unchangeable." In one of
the letters by which Mr. Meeker kept the readers of the
New York Tribune informed of the progress of the com-
munity, he spoke of these "overflowing meetings," and
said : <f In all our experience we have never seen such in-
stitutions so well sustained ; and if we wanted to show
strangers the best that is to be seen of Greeley we would
have them visit the Lyceum."

David Boyd, who was both a prominent actor in these
scenes and the historian of the colony, writes of the same
subject, and throws a suggestive side-light on a notable
trait of western life when he saj^s: "In coming to a
country which offered so many new questions for solution
and presented so many new aspects of life, the minds even of
those past their prime experienced a sort of rejuvenation.
Being nearly all strangers to one another, each was ambi-
tious to begin his new record as well as possible, and so
put the best foot foremost." Here is the explanation of
much of the superior energy which marks the life of new
communities, and here lies the hope of social progress
through colonization. The individuality all but obliter-
ated in the great city springs anew and develops into
blossom and fruitage in the fresh soil of colonial life. In-
stitutions which would be quite impracticable in old and

THE GREELEY COLONY OF COLORADO

crowded centres get a footing in new countries, where
men may exert untrammeled energies, and move freely
in that atmosphere of social equality which is certain to
characterize new communities and likely to endure while
they continue small.

In considering the net results of Greeley Colony, it is
important to note first that it has been thoroughly suc-
cessful. In this respect it presents a striking contrast to
the Fourier experiment, from which it may be said to
have descended. Each man prospered according to his
merit, and what the community undertook to do by
means of co-operation it accomplished. It cannot be said
that the latter principle was applied extensively. The
capital realized from the sale of property was so largely
absorbed in the construction of canals as to leave little
surplus for other industrial and commercial enterprises.
If one-half of this capital had been available for stores,
banks, and small industries, it is likely that much which
was necessarily left to private initiative would have been
undertaken by the colony. In that case we should find
broader lessons in co-operative effort than we do now. It
it is also important to note that the community owed its
prosperity to its high ideal and uncompromising public
spirit. There was here no common religious tie as in the
early New England colonies ; no shadow of persecution
such as that which bound the Mormon pioneers together
in an indissoluble brotherhood. The nearest approach
to this influence was the prohibition sentiment, and this
formed but a small part of the original plan. These colo-
nists were earnest men and women who had gone forth
to make homes where they could combine industrial in-
dependence with social equality and intellectual oppor-

89

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

tnnity. They were grimly determined to accomplish
what they had undertaken. This spirit, and this alone,
kept them from going to pieces during the first five years,
and laid the foundation for their permanent prosperity.

Both Colorado and the arid West owe much to the ex-
ample of Greeley. It lent an impulse to the develop-
ment of their civic character, and made a deep and last-
ing impression upon their agricultural industry. The
influence of the community on its immediate surround-
ings is yet more plainly visible. Its success resulted in
large irrigation developments and numerous settlements
in Colorado, Wyoming, and western Nebraska. A com-
munity without a pauper or a millionaire, Greeley has
yet had a surplus both of men and of capital to con-
tribute to the making of new districts. The colony of
to-day is a well-built town of comfortable homes and
substantial business blocks, surrounded by well -culti-
vated farms connected by a comprehensive canal system,
which is the property of the land-owners. Although in
periods of general business depression it has felt the
heavy hand of hard times, few communities in the world
possess a better assurance of a comfortable living in the
future, while none has better educational and social ad-
vantages.

Horace Greeley followed the colony's development
with the closest interest, writing frequent letters of ad-
vice, and even finding time to pay a hurried visit. His
Jast letter to Mr. Meeker, written six days before his
death, was as follows :

" FRIEND MEEKER, — I presume you have already drawn on me
for the one thousand dollars to buy land. If you have not, please
do so at once. I have not much money, and probably never shall

90

THE GREELEY COLONY OF COLORADO

have, but I believe in Union Colony and you, and consider this a
good investment for my children."

To N. C. Meeker Mr. Greeley's death was, indeed, ca-
lamitous. Depriving him of necessary income from news-
paper sources, as well as of financial hacking in the col-
ony operations, it made it necessary for him to seek
employment in the public service, and this was directly
responsible for his death. He was massacred by the
Indians while serving as agent on the White River
reservation. His work for the colony had been entirely
unselfish, and his name deserves high rank among the
founders of western civilization.

CHAPTER III
THE EVOLUTION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

THE most valuable lessons in all the romantic history
of California may be found in a trivial corner of the
great commonwealth. Upon a clear day the eye may
readily scan its entire length from the San Tirnoteo
hills to the shining sea. Between its parallel mountain
ranges the width of the district seems but two or three
miles, though in reality it is from ten to twenty miles.
Ignoring the nomenclature of local districts, this is the
San Bernardino Valley. It is upon this narrow terri-
tory that to a great degree the fame of California climate
and productions rests. Here institutions have been
created in the last thirty years which are destined to ex-
ert a powerful influence upon the future of the West.

What Holland was to the life of Europe in the four-
teenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, southern Cal-
ifornia is to the life of the Pacific coast at the end of the
nineteenth century. The industrial impulse which the
men of the Netherlands caught from their conquest of the
sea, the men of the southern valleys caught from their con-
quest of the desert. " Curbing the ocean and overflowing
rivers with their dikes," says one of the closest students of
Dutch history, " they came to love the soil, their own cre-
ation, and to till it with patient, almost tender care." So

92

EVOLUTION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

they became the fathers of scientific farming in Europe.
They wrought a marvellous revolution in the methods
of cultivating the soil. "When Catherine of Aragon
wished for a salad she was compelled to send for it
across the Channel by a special messenger." The civ-
ilization founded upon this wonderful agriculture main-
tained its high character through the whole range of
their economic life. The habits of skilful industry
which grew from the intensely cultivated soil conferred
the same prosperity when adapted to the workshop and
the store. The thread of co-operation spun from their
common labor on the dikes ran through the entire in-
dustrial fabric of the crowded little nation. The influ-
ence of neighborly association involved in the conditions
of existence on farms of petty size colored and shaped
their social life. As it was in Holland, so it is in south-
ern California.

The men of the southern valleys made the small-farm
unit supreme. With marvellous patience and intelli-
gence they worked out the highest methods of watering
and tilling the soil , known to the world. Tempering
their speculative instincts with love of home, they de-
veloped towns and surroundings of rare beauty and com-
fort, and made them centres of high social and intellect-
ual life. To compare these conditions with those which
prevail in the great wheat- and cattle-ranches of the
North, where labor is mostly servile, and where beauty
has never laid its hand upon the home or dooryard, is
like comparing Holland to Paraguay. Although the
South has by no means escaped the evils of the single
crop, it has vindicated irrigation and the small farm, and
the extraordinary social possibilities inherent in both.

93

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

These are the valuable lessons which may be set against
the failures and disappointments of the last two dec-
ades.

In the stormy and heroic days of the gold epoch, of the
Bear Flag, of the American conquest, and of the vigi-
lance committees, southern California played a small
part. Its past is the dreamy memory of old mission
days, of peaceful shepherds, of great haciendas, of a land
dominated by Spanish folk and speech. The land was a
desert of sage-brush and cactus, in which a few scattered
mission gardens made charming oases. Along moist
river-bottoms there were sometimes fields and gardens,
though not of the highest type. On the uplands light
crops of wheat and barley were occasionally harvested, if
spring rains happened to be fairly generous. But it was,
apparently, a country which offered nothing to the
stranger save climate and scenery. To this barren place
came irrigation and the Anglo-Saxon, bringing a new
era in their train.

The evolution of southern California may be studied
in the experience of two representative colonies. These
are Anaheim and Riverside. Both were undertaken by
comparatively poor men, and made important contribu-
tions to the permanent prosperity of the district in which
they settled. The success which they achieved and the
methods by which they accomplished it colored and
shaped the larger institutions which grew from these
pioneer plantings. Anaheim owes its historical impor-
tance to the fact that it was the mother colony, but it
gains added interest as an example of the way in which
a number of petty capitalists may combine their means
in large enterprises. It is useful, too, as showing the

94

IE <%

\cj>

& >

EVOLUTION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

outcome of the settlement of city workingmen on agri-
cultural lands. Riverside represents a higher degree of
social conditions, and is especially important and inter-
esting as an example of the influence exerted by an en-
tirely new element of population upon a country which
had been neither developed nor appreciated by its natives
and early settlers. A brief glance at the beginnings of
these two communities is essential to any just compre-
hension of the condition and tendencies of the southern
California of to-day.

Anaheim was projected forty years ago by a party of
Germans in San Francisco. They were all mechanics
and small tradesmen, and each was possessed of a modest
amount of savings. It was proposed that this capital
should be united in a common fund and used for the
purchase and improvement of a large tract of land. For
this purpose a colony association was formed, the mem-
bers paying one hundred dollars each and agreeing to
make further contributions in monthly instalments. A
committee was sent out to discover a good location and
contract for its purchase. A body of land near the Santa
Ana river, twenty-five miles southeast of Los Angeles,
was chosen. A part of the colony was then detailed to
build an irrigation canal, divide the land into twenty-
acre farms, with a central village, and plant the whole
tract in orchards and vineyards. In the mean time the
main body of the association remained in San Francisco,
earning money and sustaining the work in the field.
When the colony had thus been completely prepared for
occupancy, the settlers came with their families, build-
ing their houses in the village and assigning the farms
to individuals by drawing lots. In order to make this di-

95

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

vision equitable, those who obtained the choicest property
paid a premium, which was divided among those to whom
the poorer places had fallen. Most of the colonists devoted
themselves exclusively to agriculture, but enough opened
small shops and worked at their trades as blacksmiths,
carpenters, painters, shoemakers, and tailors, to meet
the needs of the community. With the division of the
land the association settled its accounts, and only the ir-
rigation canal remained public property. Co-operation
had served an excellent purpose, however, in enabling
the people to obtain their land at first cost, and to have
it improved skilfully and economically in advance of
their coming.

Beyond the hope of dwelling beneath their own roofs
and working for themselves, the founders of Anaheim
had brought no special ideal to the southern valley.
They were people of common tastes, well content with
simple prosperity and comfort. The community was
thoroughly successful. It is also possible to record an
almost uniform story of individual ease of life for the
settlers. While a few became discouraged and sold out
to their neighbors, much the greater number remained
and became comfortably well off, while a few rose to
wealth. They had come to the colony from the employ-
ments of city life, yet readily adapted themselves to the
work of tilling the soil of their small farms. But the
true importance of Anaheim was seen in the impulse
which it gave to a new form of development in southern
California. It had been a region of great ranches,
where live-stock and grain held almost complete sway.
Anaheim pointed the way to the subdivision of large es-
tates and the intensive cultivation of the soil with the

96

EVOLUTION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

aid of irrigation. This demonstration was destined to
work a revolution in the character of the people and
country.

The Riverside Colony, perhaps the most widely cele-
brated of any of these communities, is a better example
of the colonial life of California. In a truer sense than
Anaheim, it is a product of irrigation, and it illustrates
more fully than the mother colony the social possibili-
ties inherent in this form of agriculture. Its history
reveals a curious struggle between the forces of co-op-
eration and of private enterprise, in the course of which
both lent much strength to the colony and exerted a
marked influence upon its fortunes. Like most of the
pioneer settlements, Riverside was the dream of com-
paratively poor men who sought, in the fresh opportuni-
ties of a new country, better conditions for themselves
and their children. The enterprise originated with
Judge North, of Knoxville, Tennessee. His prospectus
was issued from that place in the spring of 1870, and
evoked a large response from many different States. In
this prospectus the founder did not undertake to out-
line a social organization with any detail.

"Appreciating the advantages of associative settle-
ment," ran the circular, "we aim to secure at least one
hundred good families who can invest one thousand
dollars each in the purchase of land ; while at the same
time we invite all good, industrious people to join us who
can, by investing a smaller amount, contribute in any
degree to the general prosperity." The advantage of
co-operative over individual settlement was rather for-
cibly expressed: "Experience in the West has demon-
strated that one hundred dollars invested in a colony
G 97

. THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

is worth one thousand dollars invested in an isolated lo-
cality." That the projectors had formed a very decided
opinion as to the most favorable location is evident in
the following: "We do not expect to buy as much land
for the same money in southern California as we could
obtain in parts of Colorado or Wyoming; but we ex-
pect it to be worth more in proportion to cost than any
other land we could purchase within the United States.
It will cost something more to get to California than it
would to reach the States this side of the mountains,
but we are very confident that the superior advantages
of soil and climate will compensate us many times over
for this increased expense."

His circular had attracted the attention of a few men
of considerable means, and with these Judge North
set out for California to select the site of the under-
taking. With the rare intuition which eastern men
have frequently displayed in going to the West, the new-
comers selected a location which seemed quite preposter-
ous to the natives of the country. Planning the most
ideal development which had thus far been attempted,
they deliberately bought lands which had formerly been as-
sessed at a valuation of seventy-five cents an acre. These
lands then constituted a sheep pasture of inferior sort.
They were similar to the stretch of desert which the
transcontinental traveller sees in passing through Ari-
zona. After the winter rains they bore a short-lived
crop of wild flowers, but during most of the year they
offered nothing more attractive than sage-brush and
mesquite. The Mexican who owned them had not suffi-
cient imagination to perceive how the new proprietors
could realize a profit upon the modest sum of two dol-

EVOLUTION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

lars and a half an acre, for which he gladly sold them.
But Judge North and his friends had two well-defined
ideas in their brains. One was irrigation ; the other,
oranges. To the natives the first seemed impracticable,
because of the expense; and the other ridiculous, be-
cause no one had ever raised orangey there upon a com-
mercial scale.

The Santa Ana river rises in the Sierra Madre moun-
tains, drawing its volume from a multitude of springs
and canyon streams. It flows southwesterly for a dis-
tance of seventy miles, where it empties into the ocean.
Riverside is about twenty miles from the source of the
stream, and lies on the bluffs along its eastern bank.
The conditions did not present such opportunities for
the cheap and easy diversion of the waters as the Mor-
mon pioneers found in Utah. In later years, as the de-
mand for irrigation grew constantly larger and more
insistent, it became necessary to resort to the very high-
est type of works for the distribution of water, and even
the earliest canal required a cash outlay of fifty thou-
sand dollars. Fortunately the capital was available, and
thus the work of development went forward without fal-
tering. The original canal was completed in the spring
of 1871.

The enterprise had resolved itself into a private stock
company, owning both the land and the water. The
land was now sold to the colonists for twenty-five dollars
an acre. This included the right to purchase a certain
amount of water, for which there was an extra charge in
the form of an annual rental. At the beginning this
amounted to about one dollar an acre, but it rose with
the demand for water, and the need of costly improve-

99

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA ,

ments in the system, until it reached an annual charge
of ten dollars an acre.

In the experience of Riverside we may see the com-
mercial romance of irrigation in its most striking form.
The original sheep pasture, assessed at seventy-five cents
an acre, sold readily at twenty-five dollars an acre when
irrigation facilities had been supplied. While this re-
presented a handsome profit to the original investors,
it was extremely moderate compared with the returns
which the second purchasers realized. A few years
later the unimproved lands sold for prices ranging from
three hundred to five hundred dollars per acre. The
improved orange orchards, which had been evolved from
the sheep pasture, were valued, and actually sold, at
one thousand to two thousand dollars per acre. There
have been years when the best of them earned a profit of
fifty per cent, on the higher figure.

Riverside was destined to win its chief celebrity as the
pioneer orange colony. Its founders had based their
faith in the possibilities of this industry on what they
had seen in the gardens of old missions.

They did not hesitate to plant their lands largely with
citrus fruits in the face of many predictions of disaster.
The new culture prospered from the start, but made se-
vere demands upon the patience and intelligence of the
settlers. During the same years in which the Greeley
colonists were working out, by means of experiment and
painful experience, the solution of agricultural problems
for Colorado, the Riverside colonists were performing
precisely the same service for southern California. The
skill and the enterprise which the one people applied to
potatoes, the other applied to oranges, with the same

100

EVOLUTION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

high results. The Riverside colonists not only exhaust-
ed their own sources of information on the subject of
citrus culture, but induced the State Department at
Washington to make its consuls in semi-tropical coun-
tries their agents. In this way they were enabled to learn
all that foreign horticulturists knew about the business.
They made constant progress in improving the standard
of their fruit, their most marked triumph in this direction
being the production of the Washington navel, or seedless,
orange. Their orchards represented all the choicest
varieties, which were cultivated with the highest skill.
The original colony tract of two thousand acres has been
gradually extended until it includes ten thousand. The
shipment of oranges has risen to over four thousand car
loads annually, realizing a million and a half of dollars.

The projector of Riverside had framed his prospectus
on the lines of co-operative effort. We have seen that
the enterprise speedily became private and speculative in
character. This result was mostly due to the necessity
of using large capital for the initial development, and to
the fact that the colony included a group of individuals
who possessed considerable means. Possibly the same
result might have occurred in Utah if the Mormon pio-
neers had not enjoyed a fortunate equality in the matter
of poverty. In Utah there was no capital except labor
and brains, and these admitted of no other form of en-
terprise than pure co-operation.

The speculative instinct which took possession of River-
side and ran a mad race through southern California, ac-
complished much good, as well as much evil. And in the
end the pioneer orange colony returned very closely to
the original ideal of its founder. The principal irriga-

101

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

tion system became in time the property of the people,
and the water-rights were inseparably associated with the
land. The orange-growers also found it necessary to seek
refuge from the rapacity of the commission system in the
adoption of co-operation for the sale oi their product.
Hence, in the two most vital features of their industry
— the watering of their lands and the handling of their
crops — Riverside is fully realizing to-day the hopes in
which it was originally conceived. On the side of its
social life it has never departed from its first ideal, and
it is in this aspect that it may be studied to the best ad-
vantage.

The homes and avenues of this colony, which have
been evolved from an inferior sheep pasture in less than
a generation, are among the most beautiful in the world.
In considering their widely celebrated charms, it should
never be forgotten that these are the homes and sur-
roundings of average people, and that they earn their
living by tilling the soil. Making due allowance for cli-
matic differences, there are equally beautiful residence
districts in the suburbs of great eastern cities ; but these
belong to people who enjoy a degree of prosperity much
above the average — to the small minority who are rich,
or at least unusually well-to-do. They are not farmers,
but business or professional men who have risen above
the general level of society. At Riverside, on the other
hand, at least ninety per cent, of the total population
live in homes which front on beautiful boulevards, pre-
senting to the passer an almost unbroken view of well-
kept lawns, opulent flower-beds, and delicate shrubbery.
Newspaper carriers canter through these streets deliver-
ing the local morning and evening dailies. Though this

102

EVOLUTION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

is a farming population, the homes are so close together
that the people enjoy the convenience of free postal de-
livery. They fill their bath-tubs with water piped
through the streets. They light their homes with elec-
tricity. In the centre of the colony they have fine stores,
churches, hotels, and public halls. Their schools are of
the highest standard, and are housed in buildings the
beauty and convenience of which bespeak the good pub-
lic taste. A well-patonized institution is the club-house
and its reading-room. There is but a single saloon, and
it is considered decidedly disreputable to frequent it.

The first result of the early colonies was to give a tre-
mendous impetus to the settlement and development
of southern California. The fruits of this new impulse
are seen in the scores of charming communities which
stretch eastward to the margin of the Colorado desert
and southward to the border of Mexico. Redlands, On-
tario, and Pomona are typical examples. The impres-
sive city of Los Angeles, which grows alike in good times
and in bad, is another product of the movement which
traces back to the humble beginnings of these pioneer
settlements established by a superior class of eastern
emigrants. High land values and costly irrigation works
have naturally resulted. But these are only the super-
ficial evidences of economic forces which lie deeper, and
which should be noted as the peculiar product of the
colonial life of southern California.

The gerrn of Riverside, and of the civilization which
it inaugurated in the San Bernardino Valley, is the small
farm made possible by irrigation. This is alone respon-
sible for the character of industrial and social institu-
tions and of the people who sustain them.- Where farms

103

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

are very small — in Riverside they are from five to ten
acres in size — they necessarily belong to the many. This
means a class of small landed proprietors at the base of
society. The condition is one which forbids the exist-
ence of a mass of servile labor like that which lives upon
the cotton plantations of the South, and, to a greater or
less extent, upon large farms everywhere, including the
greater part of California itself. On a small farm the
proprietary family does most of the work. Hence the
main part of the population in such districts as Riverside
is independent and self-employing.

The people of southern California are plainly moving
along the line which leads to public ownership of public
utilities and co-operative management of commercial
affairs. But with them the movement is an economic
growth rather than a political agitation. It is the logi-
cal outcome of their environment and necessities. A
great body of producers and proprietors of the soil, they
formerly stood between private irrigation systems, sup-
plying the life-current of their fields, and private com-
mission houses, furnishing the only outlet for their prod-
ucts. The condition was an intolerable one, since it made
them utterly dependent upon agencies beyond their con-
trol. These instrumentalities the people are rapidly
taking into their own hands, and it is inconceivable that
they can ever again pass into private control. It is prob-
able that California has seen almost the last of the at-
tempts to establish the policy of private ownership of irri-
gation works, the most vital of all public utilities in arid
regions. The system of co-operative fruit exchanges is
carried forward by the same impulse. Already it handles
more than half the enormous product. The producers

101

EVOLUTION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

have their own packing-houses, make cash advances to
their members, and send their agents to represent them
in distant markets.

It is pleasant to note that beautiful homes and high
average prosperity have not spoiled the democratic sim-
plicity of these communities. After the adjournment of
the International Irrigation Congress at Los Angeles in
1893, its members enjoyed the hospitalities of many of
the charming colonies in the neighborhood. In his re-
marks at a banquet tendered the party by the people of
Santa Ana, Sefior de Ybarrola, the representative of
Mexico, paid a handsome compliment to the ladies who
had waited upon the table. Afterwards one of the dis-
tinguished representatives of France remarked his sur-
prise at hearing a public compliment to "the servants."

"What!" exclaimed Sefior de Ybarrola, "did you
think they were servants ? Why, those were the leading
•ladies of Santa Ana."

" Do you mean to tell me," the French delegate de-
manded, in amazement, " that the leading ladies of Santa
Ana put on aprons to serve strangers ?"

"Certainly," the Mexican replied ; "for in this coun-
try service is a title to respect."

The incident illustrates at once the hospitality and the
equality which are characteristic of the social life of
southern California.

CHAPTER IV
THE REVOLUTION ON THE PLAINS

THE semi-arid portion of the Great Plains constitutes
a distinct division of the irrigation empire. Its history
and its problems are peculiarly its own. During the last
half century it has lived through three stirring and ro-
mantic epochs and entered upon a fourth. This last is
one of absorbing human interest, and will doubtless
shape the permanent civilization of the region.

When Francis Parkman and the Mormon pioneers tra-
versed the country, late in the forties, it swarmed with
herds of buffalo and tribes of hostile Indians. It was the
era of savagery, broken only by the presence of a few
frontier posts, which served as the occasional refuge of
adventurers and hunters.

Almost miraculously the buffalo disappeared, and the
red men retreated before the white wave which over-
flowed the western bank of the Mississippi and began
gradually to people the eastern margin of the plains.
Then the savagery of the desert suddenly gave way to
the semi-barbarism of an epoch of cattle-kings and cow-
boys.

Just as the Indian and the trapper had surrendered to
the cowboy and his herds, so the latter in their turn re-
ceded and largely disappeared before another element

106

THE REVOLUTION ON THE PLAINS

which now swiftly arose in the life of the Great Plains.
The third era of American colonization, noted in a pre-
vious chapter, was yet at the stage of flood-tide. New
railroads were pushing their iron highways westward
across the prairie. Such entrepots as Chicago, St. Paul,
Omaha, and Kansas City were crowded with hopeful im-
migrants whose appetite for government land had been
whetted by the stories of prosperity with which the news-
papers teemed. Horace Greeley's famous injunction,
" Go west, young man/' still rang in the ears of am-
bitious youth and homeless middle-age. Land agents
urged on the multitudes with a zeal born of the com-
missions on which it fed.

In the enthusiasm of the hour no one gave heed to the
few croakers who hinted that there was somewhere a
mysterious boundary-line beyond which all efforts at set-
tlement must be disastrous. There was a theory that
rainfall moved westward with population, and that the
cultivation of the land wrought changes in climatic con-
ditions. Under these circumstances it was not strange
that the home-seeking hosts crossed the unknown boun-
dary into the region of scant rainfall, and learned in hard-
ship and bitterness the lessons which a more cautious and
far-seeing government would have comprehended and
taught to its children.

In the absence of such scientific determination of the
conditions of the country, tens of thousands expended all
their money and the most precious years of their lives
in discovering what could not be done in the semi-arid
region. The crushing and pathetic truth that nature
had denied sufficient rainfall for the production of crops
in a region where a multitude of people had made their

107

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

homes dawned slowly upon the public mind, and the con-
clusion was stubbornly resisted.

Between the acknowledgment of this fact and the be-
ginning of practical efforts looking to the use of irri-
gation, there was a brief but exciting intermediate stage
in which high hopes were built upon the possibility of
precipitating rain by artificial means. An Australian
genius suddenly appeared with a mysterious prescription
warranted to assemble clouds in a clear sky and compel
them to weep in the shape of copious showers. The end
of this undertaking was the failure of the experiment
and the suicide of the inventor. One of the railways dis-
covered another wizard with another prescription, and
hauled his special car over the entire length of its line,
promising showers on regular schedule time* Even the
Agricultural Department at Washington expended several
thousand dollars in experiments in this direction. In
this case, however, there was no mystery about the method
adopted. It was the use of powerful explosives to be
discharged at a high elevation. As nobody denied that
heavy showers frequently followed great battles, and that
it generally rained on the night of the .Fourth of July,
there were high hopes for the success of this undertaking,
which occurred on an elaborate scale in Texas. Secre-
tary Rusk described the preparations in detail, and sum-
marized the outcome in the sententious remark: "The
result was — a loud noise I" The theory exploded with
the dynamite and disappeared from the minds of men
with the last reverberation on the Texas prairies.

The mysterious line which divides the region of fairly
reliable rainfall from the land of sunshine has been dis-
covered at last and generally accepted. This, as stated

108

THE REVOLUTION ON THE PLAINS

before, is the ninety-seventh meridian west from Green-
wich. It divides the United States almost exactly into
halves, running through the middle of North Dakota,
South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Indian Territory, and
Texas. The vast territory lying between this meridian
and the foothills of the Rockies, bounded on the north
by Canada and on the south by Mexico, is the semi-arid
region of the Great Plains. Over all this vast district
the tide of settlement had flowed and ebbed again, as we
have seen. It now awaits the full development of the
fourth epoch in its eventful and romantic history. The
character and extent of this development is governed by
the nature of the water supply, which differs materially
in the several States.

The utility of irrigation on the plains was revealed in
a curious way. In Finney county, near the western bor-
der of Kansas, thousands of acres were planted to wheat
in the summer of 1878, and it seemed the sanest of proj-
ects to build a grist-mill to grind the crop. This was
undertaken near the Arkansas river by enterprising
merchants in the neighboring community of Garden
City, but the new institution began and ended with a
mill-race. Before the building and machinery were re-
quired, the wheat had surrendered to dry air and hot
winds. Not an acre of the crop was harvested. And
yet the blighted seed was destined to bear another and
far more fateful crop and the forgotten mill-race on the
banks of the Arkansas to grind a grist that would prove
historic.

A few settlers remained to rake amid the ashes of
their ruined hopes. Among them was a man who had
learned the methods of irrigation while living in Call-

109

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

fornia and Colorado. It happened that his land ad-
joined the abandoned mill-race, and he readily obtained
the right to turn the water upon a part of his farm.
The result, though not surprising to the practised irri-
gator, was a revelation to his thoroughly disheartened
neighbors. The soil which produced nothing in the
previous summer responded to the new method of culti-
vation with enormous crops of all varieties of products.
In quality they surpassed anything previously grown in
that region. As these facts became known a new hope
arose, like a star in the night, against the dark back-
ground of past discouragements. The Garden City
" experiment " became the Mecca of students of irrigation
throughout the wide region devastated by the drought.
The ruined crop of the previous year and the useless
mill-race gave birth to an influence which in fifteen
years has assumed far-reaching proportions.

Kansas is the mother of irrigation on the plains. When
the people heard of the miracle wrought by the waters
of the abandoned mill-race their optimism instantly fore-
told a better civilization than they had dreamed of.
Irrigation began here with canal-building in the valley
of the Arkansas river. For a time the work was prose-
cuted with remarkable vigor. As early as 1890 over
four hundred miles of large canals had been built, at a
cost of nearly three million dollars. But the industry
came suddenly face to face with an unexpected and
almost fatal obstacle.

The Arkansas river rises in the mountains of Colo-
rado and waters a broad and fertile valley before cross-
ing the boundary into Kansas. In the upper State
enterprise was busy with the diversion of its waters.

110

THE REVOLUTION ON THE PLAINS

In the absence of any regulation of interstate streams
by national authority, the Colorado irrigators claimed
the right to take the last drop of water for their own
canals. This they proceeded to do during the growing
season, leaving the canals of western Kansas as dry as
its prairies. The investment of an English company in
extensive works costing more than a million dollars was
practically destroyed by this turn of affairs. There were
many similar losses of less magnitude. It was at this
stage that the lamented humorist " Bill Nye " remarked
of some of the western rivers that " they are a mile wide
and an inch thick — they have a large circulation, but
very little influence."

When the Kansas irrigators found themselves deprived
of their surface supplies they sought the underflow, and
in the process of finding and utilizing it developed an
entirely unique and very promising mode of irrigation.

The new experiment was first made at Garden City,
within sight of the historic mill-race. It was found that
in the Arkansas Valley water could be obtained by shal-
low wells ranging in depth from eight to twenty feet.
This is raised by hundreds of wind-mills into hundreds
of small reservoirs constructed at the highest point of
each farm. The uniform eastward slope of the plains is
seven feet to the mile. The indefatigable Kansas wind
keeps the mills in active operation, and the reservoirs
are always full of water, which is drawn off as it is re-
quired for purposes of irrigation. These small indi-
vidual pumping-plants have certain advantages over the
canal systems which prevail elsewhere. The irrigator
has no entangling alliances with companies or co-oper-
ative associations, and is able to manage the water supply

ill

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

without deferring to the convenience of others, or yield-
ing obedience to rules and regulations essential to the
orderly administration of systems which supply large
numbers of consumers. The original cost of such a
plant, exclusive of the farmer's own labor in construct-
ing his reservoirs and ditches, is two hundred dollars,
and the plant suffices for ten acres. The farmer thus
pays twenty dollars per acre (about double the average
price paid to canal systems in this region) for a per-
petual guaranty of sufficient "rain" to produce bounti-
ful crops ; but to this cost must be added two dollars per
acre as the annual price of maintaining the system.

Farming under these conditions is limited to small
areas, and intensive methods of cultivation become im-
perative. The result has been the evolution of a multi-
tude of five-, ten-, and twenty-acre farms, each sur-
rounded by its tall fringe of protecting cottonwoods,
which inclose grounds variously planted to orchard,
field, and garden. Perhaps these methods present a
closer parallel to European agriculture than anything
else found in this country, while the numerous wind-
mills suggest comparison with Holland. Nowhere are
there sharper contrasts than that which is presented by
these green and fruitful farms, gleaming like islands of
verdure upon the brown bosom of the far-stretching
plains, which have been seared by the hot breath of rain-
less winds.

The uses of the artificial reservoirs are not limited to
irrigation; they are usually stocked with fish, which
multiply with surprising rapidity and enable the farmer
to include this item of home produce in his bill of fare
every day in the year. These fish are very tame, and in

112

THE REVOLUTION ON THE PLAINS

some cases actually trained to respond to the ringing
of the dinner-bell, coming in scurrying shoals to fight
for crumbs of bread thrown upon the water. (This fish
story is a true one.) The reservoirs also yield a profit-
able crop of ice in the winter. When we compare the
hardships and bitterness of this locality but a few years
since with the comfort and abundance which the infin-
itely smaller farms yield to-day, we behold anew the civ-
ilizing power of irrigation. The Starvation Belt has be-
come a Land of Plenty.

The centre and inspiration of these developments is
Garden City, capital of Finney county. What Greeley
was to Colorado and Riverside to southern California,
this little town has been to western Kansas. Perhaps
no other small place on the plains suffered a more vio-
lent attack of " boom" than Garden City in the feverish
times of the last decade. Certainly none has held with
more tenacity to its confidence in the final outcome of
the country or contributed more to the early vindica-
tion of its faith.

It is difficult to estimate the reasonable possibilities
of windmill irrigation in Kansas. There are enthusiasts
who insist that the industry will be extended to nearly
every acre, uplands as well as valleys. There are pessi-
mists who assert that the amount of land reclaimable by
such means is relatively very small. Of this subject the
conservative hydrographer of the United States Geo-
logical Survey, Mr. Frederick Haynes Newell, speaks as
follows :

" The existence of the subsurface waters of the river
valleys of western Kansas has long been known. Like
every other natural resource, its importance, at one time
H 113

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

little recognized, has been seized upon by the so-called
" boomers" and exaggerated to the extent of creating
distrust and depreciation. It is, however, one of the
most important of the natural advantages of the State,
and one upon which the foundations of prosperity must
be carefully laid. By a thorough employment of the
underground waters, with the best methods, much of
the vacant land of the State will be utilized for agricult-
ure, and the remainder can become a source of revenue,
indirectly at least. Taking the Arkansas Valley as best
illustrating these conditions, the general statement may
be made that water can be had everywhere within the
valley at moderate depths, and in quantities such as to
be inexhaustible to ordinary pumping machinery if prop-
erly installed."

Referring to the very much larger territory lying out-
side of the river valleys, the same authority says:

"In the portions of western and central Kansas where
wells cannot be obtained at moderate depth, it will prob-
ably be practicable to store considerable volumes of water
by closing the outlets of natural depressions. Favorable
localities, although somewhat rare, can be found in nearly
every county, and by the proper construction of substan-
tial earth-dams considerable volumes of water can be
held for use upon the lower lands. In one instance at
least water thus stored has been pumped for use upon
an orchard, and the success attained in this way should
induce others to try similar devices/'

The drought of 1890 made Nebraska one of the im-
portant irrigation States of the West. Canals had been
built on the North Platte river near the Wyoming
boundary, several years earlier, but the irrigation indus-

114

THE REVOLUTION ON THE PLAINS

try had won no general recognition. Thousands of
farmers were persisting in the delusive hope of rainfall
farming, and public sentiment was distinctly opposed to
those who sought to include Nebraska in the arid re-
gion.

All this was changed by the events of 1890. In that
year crops were ruined by dry weather and hot winds
throughout a large part of the State, and the people in
the western counties generally acknowledged that it was
useless to longer persist in the effort to cultivate the
soil without artificial moisture. Strangely enough, they
seemed to draw a new inspiration from their blighted
fields. Irrigation conventions were held at many county
seats. The study of water resources, of methods and
laws essential to their utilization, became earnest and
general. The popular agitation rapidly crystallized into
a permanent and organized movement which has gath-
ered strength with each passing year. Comprehensive
laws were enacted by the legislature and the office of
State Engineer created. Meanwhile, large amounts of
private capital were invested, many canals constructed,
and the despised western counties began to rise in pub-
lic esteem.

It is now clearly apparent that the very lands which
refused to yield a return for the industry of the first set-
tlers will sustain the densest population in the future
and give the most absolute assurance of permanent pros-
perity. Already the time has come when a State irriga-
tion fair can be held in western Nebraska and make a
striking exhibition of results, and when a commonwealth
which ten years ago resented as a libel the intimation
that its rainfall was deficient, can proudly claim to rank

115

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

among the greatest of irrigation States. The transforma-
tion which has occurred in public opinion is no less
striking than that of the agricultural industry itself.

The State is more fortunate than some of its neighbors
in the character and extent of its water supplies. Over
its western boundary the North Platte pours a perennial
stream of considerable volume, which feeds a number of
large canals. The surface flow of the South Platte
is mostly absorbed in Colorado, but when the two forks
are united in Lincoln county they make a river of re-
spectable proportions, which flows through the heart of
the State and furnishes water both from its surface flow
and from its gravel bed. The Loup river further increases
the irrigation facilities in the central counties. In the
southwestern part of the State the Republican and its
tributaries supply a number of quite extensive irrigation
systems. Along the northwestern boundary the Niobra-
ra, a noble stream, is beginning to be utilized.

The conformation of the land in western Nebraska
also offers more favorable opportunities for the storage
of flood waters than are found in most of the prairie
States. The possibility of irrigation from wells by means
of pumps driven by windmills and by steam and gaso-
line engines, are also being thoroughly tested, with hope-
ful results. The experts of the Geological Survey report
that even away from the river valleys, where the depth
to water is considerable, small farms can be irrigated by
this means at most points. This conservative authority es-
timates that fully one million and a half of acres can be
irrigated in western Nebraska. Local enthusiasts put
the amount very much higher, but even the former fig-
ure represents a reclaimed area three times greater than

116

THE REVOLUTION ON THE PLAINS

that on which the wonderful agricultural industry of
Utah has been developed.

The Dakotas are comparatively well watered by surf ace
streams, but they flow in deep channels, and the uniform
slope of the land to the eastward is only about one foot
to the mile. Under these conditions it is not practicable
to divert the flow by gravity canals, though it is some-
times done with the aid of pumping machinery. But
the Dakotas rejoice in the possession of great artesian
basins and of some of the largest flowing wells in the
world. Many of them are one thousand feet in depth,
and some of them furnish the remarkable flow of four
thousand gallons per minute. Over sixteen hundred
artesian wells were reported in these two States as early
as 1891, and the number has constantly increased. The
irrigation sentiment has been well organized and has re-
sulted in the provision of progressive legislation.

Texas was also a severe sufferer from drought through-
out the western part of its vast territory. The greater
portion of it is well watered by rivers, by large perennial
springs, and by artesian wells second only to those of
Dakota. Here the people have also responded with high
public spirit to the appeals of the irrigation champions,
and the new era in the industrial life of the State is well
under way.

The actual amount of land that may be reclaimed and
cultivated in the semi-arid region furnishes no measure
of the value of irrigation to this vast district. By en-
abling thousands to engage in farming, irrigation has
made it possible to use the surrounding plains as the4
pasture for great numbers of beef cattle. In many in-
stances small herds are owned by the farmers themselves,

117

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

but to a large extent their crops are bought by those
whose sole business is cattle-raising. Thus all the re-
sources of the region are brought into use, and a wonder-
ful prosperity has followed as the logical result.

From Canada to Mexico the revolution on the Great
Plains is now in full tide. It is the most dramatic page
in the history of American irrigation. It has saved an
enormous district from lapsing into a condition of semi-
barbarism. It has not only made human life secure, but
revolutionized the industrial and social economy of the
locality.

To a considerable extent it has replaced the quarter-
section with the small farm and the single crop with
diversified cultivation. It has transformed the specu-
lative instincts of the people into a spirit of sober in-
dustrialism. It has raised the standard of living and
improved the character of homes. It has planted the
rose-bush and the pansies where only the sunflower cast
its shadows, and it has twined the ivy and the honeysuckle
over doors which formerly knew not the touch of beauty.
It has made neighbors and society where once there were
loneliness and heart-hunger. It has broken the chains
of hopeless mortgages and crowned industry with inde-
pendence.

part TTblrD

• UNDEVELOPED AMERICA

" Mighty as has been our past, our resources have just been touched
upon, and there is wealth beyond the Mississippi which, in the not
distant future, will astonish even the dwellers on the shores of Lake
Michigan.

" From the time my eyes first rested on the great uncultivated
plains which lie between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean, my
wakening dreams have been filled with visions of the incalculable
wealth which the touch of living water will bring to life from those
voiceless deserts. There wealth only can produce wealth, and man,
singly and alone, might as well try to subdue the Himalayas as to
cope with these wastes ; but the hand of united and associated man
is already reaching forth to grasp the great results.

"The same power which wastes millions on the Mississippi can
be utilized to make the desert blossom with the homes of men, for
whom and for all of us the now blighted soil will bring forth the
fruits of the Garden of Eden." — HON. THOMAS B. REED, in a
speech at Pittsburg, 1894.

CHAPTER I
THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA

CALIFORNIA is widely celebrated, but little known. Its
unique climate and productions, and the dramatic inci-
dents of its early history, have been deeply impressed
upon the popular imagination wherever the name of the
Republic is spoken. These circumstances have given it
rank among the most famous of American States ; yet its
problems and its future are inscrutable enigmas to all
who have not studied the subject at close range, and to
many who have. The anomaly that one of the States
most talked of should be one of the least understood is
not difficult to explain.

In the first place, California is known not by what
millions of people have seen, but by what millions have
read. Europe is better known by contact to Americans
than California. A prominent American orator recently
" discovered " California, and filled the newspapers with
the interesting and suggestive impressions it had made
upon his mind. He had been to Europe twenty times, and
to the Pacific coast once, which is once of tener than many
other distinguished travellers of the eastern seaboard.

Still further, the Anglo-Saxon race is dealing with new
conditions in California. Coming from dense forests,
from a land of heavy rainfall, and from a temperate

121

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

climate where winters are long and stern, it settled in
treeless deserts, in a land of slight and peculiar rainfall,
and under a sky that never knows the winter.

Finally, California is in its infancy, having recently
celebrated its forty-sixth birthday as an American com-
monwealth. Born in a paroxysm of speculation — one of
the wildest the world has seen — it has outlived a trying
experience of lesser economic epilepsy, and come to the
threshold of its true career strengthened and purified by
the extraordinary process. In less than half a century
several far-reaching changes have swept through the in-
dustrial and social life of the State, swiftly altering the
conditions of labor and of business. Even for those
living in the midst of these events it has been difficult
to read their significance and estimate their influence on
the ultimate character of the place and people.

What wonder, then, that to the outside world Cali-
fornia has meantime appeared like a jumble of gold,
palms, and oranges, of gilded millionaires and hopeless
paupers, of enviable farmers living luxuriously on small
sections of paradise, and of servile alien laborers herded
in stifling tenements ? Such are the conflicting aspects
of the Golden State to those who view it from afar. What
are the facts ?

The literature of California is prolific. Perhaps no
other locality in the United States has been so often writ-
ten about. In dealing with a place which presents so
many strange and fascinating features it is easy for praise
to become extravagance. This is now so well understood
that it is commonly thought that the words "Cali-
fornian " and ' l veracity " are seldom synonymous. But
the truth is that visitors from abroad have contributed

122

THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA

rather more than Californians themselves to the popular
impression of the State and its wonders. It is the fleet-
ing tourist rather than the permanent resident who be-
comes the more reckless partisan of the charming climate,
the majestic scenery, and the vast resources which, to
his exhilarated imagination, seem certain to burst into
their full potentiality in the immediate future.

Without doubt, the most influential books ever written
about California were those of Mr. Charles Nordhoff.
His California : for Health, Pleasure, and Residence
(1873), and Northern California (1874), had a great
vogue at the time of their publication, and for many years
after. They are as fresh and readable to-day as when
written, and it is easy to understand why they should
have exercised so powerful an influence in making public
opinion. Mr. Nordhofl should not be confounded with
the superficial enthusiasts who study the country only
from car-windows and the verandas of luxurious hotels.
Addressing his books ( ( to travellers and settlers," he evi-
dently realized the grave responsibility of the undertak-
ing, and made a conscientious effort to describe the
situation faithfully and conservatively. To keen observa-
tion, and a clear, vivid, descriptive style, he added a
shrewd common-sense, which enabled him to divine, with
striking accuracy, several important economic facts
which the residents themselves overlooked or ignored.
He went thoroughly over and into the country, accepting
no facts at second-hand which it was possible for him to
verify by personal investigation.

Nevertheless, he wrote as a tourist-correspondent, and
is first among those of that class who have given Cali-
fornia the place it holds in the popular imagination.

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THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

Looking back now to his studies and the deductions he
drew from them, it is interesting to note how conditions
have changed in twenty-five years, and to what extent
his words of advice require revision before they can be
offered to the settler of to-day.

When Mr. Nordhoff wrote his books cattle and cattle-
men were just beginning sullenly to recede before the
rising tide of agriculturists in the great San Joaquin
Valley. He correctly foretold the first effects of the in-
dustrial revolution that would follow, predicting that the
railroad and the public lands, and, later, the old Spanish
grants, would be divided among farmers ; that the cattle
would be compelled to seek the mountains for free range,
and would come into the valleys only to be fattened upon
alfalfa and other crops. But he foresaw only the first
effects of these changes, and the farmer who should pro-
ceed upon his advice to-day would certainly fail to prosper.

Mr. Nordhoff championed the cause of the small far-
mer against the great landowner, but his idea of a small
farmer is widely different from the present significance of
the term. He saw in the San Joaquin " cheap farms for
millions/' These were to be acquired, either from the
railroad or the government, in tracts ranging from one
hundred and sixty to six hundred and forty acres. This
was what he meant by " small farms," and they were
small, indeed, compared with the great ranches of thou-
sands or tens of thousands of acres. But they were
still of quite imperial dimensions compared with the
unit of ten, twenty, or thirty acres which is now consid-
ered amply sufficient for the settler's needs.

While Mr. Nordhoff recognized the advantage of irri-
gation, he did not appreciate its actual importance, nor

124

THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA

did he realize how largely it would increase the cost of
land and how seriously it would influence the entire
economic character of the country. He held out the
hope of a prosperous living for families of small means
who should settle upon farms of one hundred and sixty
acres and upwards in the San Joaquin Valley, and de-
pend chiefly upon crops that could be grown without
irrigation. If "the millions" had accepted this advice
in the past, or should do so to-day, nothing but disaster
could result. Except in a few localities, prosperous
agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley without irriga-
tion is impossible. The character of the country is such
that large and costly canal systems are required to bring
any considerable portion of it under water. When these
were built it was no longer possible to acquire cheap
land, and the size of the practicable farm unit had been
reduced to about one-tenth of the amount Mr. Nord-
hoff advised. These developments changed the situa-
tion completely.

The enthusiastic author was by no means blind to the
possibilities of horticulture, nor did he fail to foresee
that when this had been established it could be success-
fully pursued on much smaller areas. But here also his
advice is now quite obsolete, and must be revised before
it can again be offered to the public. He left the im-
pression that oranges could be grown throughout south-
ern California and the San Joaquin Valley. Later ex-
perience has eliminated the dream of orange orchards
from a vast portion of these localities, but has demon-
strated that the industry is practicable in some places
where it was formerly supposed to be out of the ques-
tion. While the orange- tree will grow and generally

125

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

bear fruit throughout the lower valleys, the area in
which it can. successfully be cultivated for commercial
purposes is rather severely restricted. To grow a few
orange-trees within the shelter of the house, and to pro-
duce sufficient fruit for home purposes, is one thing ;
to grow thousands of acres of oranges fit for the market,
and thus develop a genuine citrus district, is entirely
different. There is a well-recognized thermal belt in
the foothills of the Sierras, bordering the San Joaquin
and Sacramento valleys, but the conditions of the coun-
try as a whole, with reference to this subject, have
turned out to be very different from what they were
supposed to be when Mr. Nordhoff wrote his books. In
southern California his predictions in regard to orange
culture have been largely realized, but even there it has
been discovered that the field is limited.

The author was not unnaturally led into the error
of saying that "the seasons are a little later in the
North" than in the South. The contrary is the case,
strange as it may seem, for it is the northern fruit dis-
tricts which send the earliest products to market. This
is true of both deciduous and citrus fruits. In the case
of the latter the difference is very striking, as the
northern oranges are ready for the Thanksgiving mar-
ket, while comparatively little of the southern crop is
available for Christmas purposes. Both the raisin and
the prune industries were beginning to assume import-
ance in 1873. Mr. ISTordhoff quoted raisins at " two dol-
lars per box of twenty-five pounds," and added : ' ' I judge
from the testimony of different persons that at seven
cents per pound raisins will pay the farmer very well."
To-day they are quite content to obtain three cents. He

126

THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA

quoted prunes as bringing from twenty to twenty-two
cents at wholesale at San Francisco, "and even as high as
thirty cents for best quality/' Prunes now bring from
three to eight cents, and pay well at four and a half.
Figs were then selling at from five to ten cents per pound,
and the author thought they would be very profitable.
The result has proved that while figs bear most prolific
crops they are not profitable, as Calif ornians have not
yet been able to cure and pack them successfully. There
are exceptions to the rule, but this is true as a general
statement, and the fig is not a profitable article of com-
merce in California. In much the same way tobacco-
culture failed and disappointed the hopes which had
been built upon that industry.

These are instances of many particulars in which even
the most painstaking of works on California require re-
vision in the light of experience. So, too, the public
opinion which they helped to make must be revised.
Mr. Nordhoff described California as it looked and as
it seemed to promise in 1873. While his methods were
conscientious, his tone was one of intense enthusiasm.
His vision extended as far as any one's could do at that
time. The fact is that at that stage of its history Cali-
fornia had not begun to develop its real and enduring
economic traits as it has done during the past few years.
It had recently emerged from an era of wild speculation.
It stood upon the verge of another, in which railroads
and agriculture, rather than gold, were to be the prin-
cipal factors. It is from the calm sea-level of these quiet
days that the State may best take its bearings. Thus the
time is ripe for a new study of what in many respects is
the most wonderful of American States.

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THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

The great farmer of California is the successor of the
gold-hunter. Both were speculators of the thoroughbred
type ; both looked with contempt upon the matter of
making a living, and dreamed only of making a fortune.
Of homes and institutions they were neither architects
nor builders, for they sought only to take the wealth
from the soil and spend it elsewhere. The miner leaves
nothing to commemorate the place where he gathered
gold save crumbling hovels and empty tin cans. The
five -thousand -acre wheat -farmer leaves no monument
beyond fields of repulsive stubble and the shanties of
his "hoboes." These social forces belong to barbarism
rather than to civilization.

Mr. Nordhoff clearly perceived these things, and not
only urged the importance of smaller farms, but that
farmers should be encouraged to diversify their products
and become independent on their own places. But the
conditions were yet too favorable for speculation. Wheat
commanded more than one dollar per bushel. Of the
new products, such as raisins, prunes, and oranges, the
output was slight, and the prices consequently high.
The result was inevitable. The owners of large farms
sought to buy more land and increase the scale of their
operations. The new settlers acquired as much land as
they could, while the growing class of horticulturists plant-
ed their property exclusively to the few kinds of trees or
vines which seemed most profi table at that time. Writing
of this subject Mr. T. S. Van Dyke says : "The general
principle upon which all farming was done, from the high-
est to the lowest, was very nearly this : Do nothing your-
self that you can hire any one else to do, make no machin-
ery at home, and raise nothing to eat that you can buy."

128

THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA

The rise of horticulture brought no material change
in these conditions. As with the miner and wheat-
farmer, so with the fruit-grower the aim was to get rich
quickly, and the method speculation. Certain districts
were devoted exclusively to prunes, others to wine grapes,
others to raisins, and yet others to oranges. Fruit-land
rose to almost fabulous prices, and was readily bought
by those who had been taught to believe that they could
realize profits ranging from one hundred to one thousand
dollars per acre for certain crops. Exceptional instances
justified this prediction, and everybody seemed to prefer
to found expectations upon these instances rather than
upon average returns. It is not difficult to understand
why a man who counts upon an income of five to ten
thousand dollars from ten acres, or double that amount
from twenty acres, should turn his back upon common
things, and devote his land exclusively to the crops
which promise such gilded profits.

This was the general policy, and it conferred great
prosperity upon some classes, particularly the Chinese
and Italian market-gardeners, who raised food for the
gentlemen-farmers to eat. There were years, however,
when the fruit of trees and vines brought very large re-
turns. Wherever the policy of single crops is pursued,
whether it be wheat, corn, or cotton, raisins, prunes, or
oranges, there are occasional years of well-nigh riotous
prosperity. But such years are frequently more disas-
trous in their results than sober periods of depression.
They feed the flame of speculation and raise false indus-
trial ideals. Under the spell of such times, the people
depart still further from the safe path of self-sufficient
agriculture, buying more land to devote to the favorite
i 129

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

crop, expanding their living expenses, and running into
debt. When this spirit becomes the breath of industry
no human laws can avert disaster.

A true industrial system is like a noble river fed by
eternal snows : it never floods its banks with an exces-
sive flow, and never sinks below its normal stage. It
ebbs and flows with the regular tides of the great com-
mercial ocean to which it is tributary, but alike at high
water and at low, it bears the ships of men upon its tran-
quil bosom.

After a very intimate acquaintance with California
horticulture, and with the army of producers who have
engaged in it, Mr. Edward F. Adams, formerly mana-
ger of the State Fruit Exchange, wrote as follows :

"Unless certain reforms in the trade can be effected,
there is danger that a large portion of the capital will be
lost. The mortgage indebtedness is very serious ; the
general depression in values has temporarily wiped out
the equities of the nominal owners ; and while a partial
recovery is doubtless to be expected in due time, it is
not believed by the best informed that under present
conditions of marketing, our orchards and vineyards
can continue to maintain those who occupy them in their
present standard of comfort. We are endeavoring by a
general popular movement to remove the evils which op-
press us/'

Notwithstanding such warnings as this, and the sore
experience on which they are based, there are real-estate
interests which still advertise the fabulous profits of
California fruit-culture, and there are many who believe
them and proceed to organize their farms in the old

way.

130

THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA

The evolutionary process of the last twenty years has
wrought out some very valuable lessons for the future of
California. It has demonstrated that irrigation is es-
sential to the highest standard of civilization. The cen-
sus of 1890 revealed the fact that two-thirds of the gain
in rural population stood to the credit of eight counties
where irrigation prevailed. The counties which rely
upon rainfall had about reached a stand-still or scored a
loss. The people have always been divided on the ques-
tion as to whether irrigation is necessary. Those who
oppose urge that it breeds malaria and injures the qual-
ity of the fruit. Those who favor insist that it is essen-
tial to the most scientific agriculture, and to the main-
tenance of dense population. The last twenty years
have answered the question forever. The answer con-
sists of a comparison between the South and the North.
The one was born of the irrigation canal ; the other of
the mining-camp and the wheat-ranch. The one is char-
acterized by a high civilization ; the other by a low one.

With a population estimated by Governor Budd, in
1896, at less than one million and a quarter, California
has a territory nearly as large as that of France. It is
inferior to France neither in climate, soil, natural re-
sources, nor sea-coast, and its capacity for sustaining a
dense population is fully as great as that of the Eu-
ropean republic. The latter supports more than thirty-
eight millions. If, then, the comparatively few inhabi-
tants of the California of to - day are not equally
prosperous, it is because they have failed to make the
best use of their opportunities. With the same rate of
increase in the next century as in that of the immediate
past, the United States will contain in 1996 a total pop-

131

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

illation of over five hundred and eighty millions. Noth-
ing is more certain than that California must receive its
full share of these future millions. It seems hardly less
certain that they will realize there the highest destiny
of the race. But how?

Notwithstanding the supreme attractions of its rural
life, more than seventy-seven per cent, of California's
total increase in the last decade covered by the national
census settled in towns and cities. As a result, the ur-
ban life of this far, new State is as badly congested as
that of the old communities of the East. But the pos-
sibilities of agriculture, of manufacture, and of mining
are relatively untouched. Ultimate California remains
to be fashioned from these undeveloped materials. The
tendencies of future growth are revealed by the teaching
of the past, and not less by its failures than by its suc-
cesses— not less by the fury of old speculations than by
the calm current of these saner times.

The future tides of population in the Golden State
must first spend their energy upon the soil. It is the
creation of a new and ampler civilization that is involved,
and agriculture must be its foundation. But if those
now engaged in cultivating the soil can scarcely main-
tain themselves, what hope is there for new recruits in
the industry? The question is natural, but the answer
is conclusive. There is no hope for them if they engage
in speculation, but there is an absolute guaranty of a
living and a competence, to be enjoyed under the most
satisfying and ennobling social conditions, if they work
upon sound industrial lines. These lines are clearly dis-
closed by the light of past experience.

Three classes of products should enter into the cal-
132

/ THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA

culations of the new settler in California: the things he
consumes ; the things California now imports from east-
ern States and foreign countries ; the things which east-
ern communities consume, but can never hope to pro-
duce, and of which California possesses virtually a
monopoly. In the first list is almost everything which
would appear in an elaborate dinner menu, from the
course of olives to the course of oranges, nuts, and
raisins, and excluding only the coifee. This policy -of
self-sustenance has been ignored to a startling degree in
the mad struggle for riches, but the coming millions of
farmers can be sure of a luxurious living only by stoop-
ing to collect it from the soil.

In the second list are many of the commonest articles
of consumption, which California might readily produce
at home, but for which it sends millions of dollars
abroad each year. The imports of pork and its products
range as high as eight or ten millions each year. Con-
densed milk is not only a very important article of con-
sumption in mining - camps and great ranches, but is
largely shipped abroad for the Asiatic trade. It is
brought across the continent from New Jersey. Cali-
fornia also sends beyond its borders from twenty to
twenty-five millions annually for the item of sugar, which
should not only be produced in sufficient quantities to
supply consumption, but for export as well. It is a
curious fact that many of the finest fruit preserves sold
in San Francisco bear French and Italian labels, and
that the supply of canned sweet corn comes mostly from
Maine. Essential oils made from the peelings of citrus
fruits are also imported. It is not uncommon to find
orange marmalade which has been prepared in Rochester,

133

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

New York, the oranges having been shipped eastward,
and the manufactured product westward, at the cost of
two transcontinental freights. Imports are by no means
confined to things which require capital and machinery
for their manufacture. Chickens, turkeys, and eggs are
largely brought from outside. A single commission-
house in San Francisco imports five hundred thousand
chickens every year. Thus a good many thousands of
the new settlers can profitably be employed in feeding
much of the present population of the State, which in-
cludes a large proportion of those who are speculating on
wheat and fruit, sheep, cattle, and hogs.

Having made perfectly sure of his living, and disposed
of his surplus for cash in the home market, the settler
still has left a promising field in the list of things which
nine-tenths of the American people consume but cannot
produce. Among these products are oranges, lemons,
and limes. Florida competition in this line has been
temporarily destroyed, if not permanently injured. Mex-
ico is, perhaps, a rising competitor ; but there is little
reason to fear that California cannot hold its own against
all foreign producers. Even more promising is the olive-
culture ; for while the orange is an article of luxury, the
olive must ultimately become here as elsewhere an im-
portant article of food. Calif ornians are just beginning
to pickle the ripe olives. The difference between a green
olive and a ripe one is precisely the difference between a
green and a ripe apple. In Spain the people subsist
largely on olives — but not on green ones. All who have
eaten the ripe fruit which is now being pickled in Cal-
ifornia will agree that it is conservative to say that
when the American public become acquainted with this

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THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA

product, its consumption will be enormously increased.
This will be true, because in its new form the olive is as
nutritious as it is palatable, and the people will learn to
depend upon it as an article of diet. In the production
of deciduous fruits, such as peaches, apricots, cherries,
and nectarines, California has much competition, and is
to have much more in the future. There are irrigated
valleys throughout the Pacific Northwest, the inter-
mountain region, and the now undeveloped Southwest,
which are beginning to produce marvellous fruits of this
kind. The same is true of olives, almonds, and walnuts
in a much more restricted way. The California wine in-
dustry is promising to-day, and the culture of grapes for
this purpose profitable. Planters who depend for their
entire income upon the cultivation of these export crops
will necessarily suffer all the evils of speculative farm-
ing, but those who have founded their industry upon the
plan of self-sufficiency will always have a surplus income
from this third source, and in years of high prices it will
be large. It is thus that the agricultural basis of Cali-
fornia will be indefinitely broadened in order to sustain
future millions.

Upon this foundation manufactures, mining, and an
enlarged commerce will rest. The first cannot be long
delayed. California will not permanently endure the
enormous waste involved in shipping its wool and hides
across the continent to Eastern mills, tanneries, and
workshops, and in shipping back again the manufactured
cloth and shoes. The factories must inevitably grow up
near the raw material and the consumers. Expediency
and the economy of nature alike demand it. This im-
portant part of California's civilization remains almost

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THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

wholly to be developed. Its growth will open new av-
enues for employment and new outlets for the products
of the soil.

The mining industry is also in its youth. To use a
common phrase, but a true one, "the surface of the
ground has only been scratched." Old methods have
been outlived, and the conditions of the industry are
changing in vital ways ; but the work of taking gold and
silver, copper, lead, and iron from the foot-hills and
mountains of California has only been begun. The day
of the individual miner, working with his pan in the
gravel bed of the stream, is mostly passed. The conditions
of hydraulic mining were materially altered by legisla-
tion because of the injury done by polluting the rivers
and filling their channels ; but quartz-mining is in a
state of rapid development, and is destined to assume
prodigious proportions. It will add untold millions to
the wealth of the community, increasing the demand for
labor and widening the markets of the farmer.

Nature has unquestionably provided the foundation of
a marvellous industrial life in which millions of people
will finally participate. To-day these resources are un-
developed. There is but one force that can awaken the
sleeping potentialities into a manifold and fruitful life.
That force is human labor. Looking down the years of
the future, it is possible to predict, with the accuracy of
mathematics, that human labor will coin from these va-
cant valleys and rugged mountain-sides billions upon
billions of money. The wealth to be so created will
build many beautiful homes, capitalize banks, factories,
and railroads, and send great steamships across the Pa-
cific to foreign shores. To whom shall these things be-

136

THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA
«*

long when labor has made them from the materials
which nature provided ? Upon the answer to that ques-
tion hang the destinies of California.

The seed of the California of the past was in the little
group of feverish gold-hunters who camped by Butter's
mill in 1849. It bore the gaudy weed of speculation,
with its bitter harvest of misfortune and discontent for
the many, accentuated only by the superfluous riches
which it gave to the few. The seed of the California of
the future is in the irrigation canals owned and admin-
istered by small landed proprietors ; in the fruit ex-
changes, which are supplanting the commission system
and securing to the producer the rewards of his labor ;
in the co - operative creameries and canning factories
which, in the face of deficient capital and unfair compe-
tition, are slowly fighting their way to the sure ground
of abiding prosperity ; in the multitudinous and uni-
formly successful manufacturing and mercantile associ-
ations which Mormon genius has planted in the valleys
of Utah ; in the banks, insurance companies, and loan
and building societies which, all over the Union and all
over the world, have vindicated the possibilities of asso-
ciated man.

It is interesting to consider what portions of California
will receive the bulk of the future population. The
topography of the State is peculiar and readily compre-
hended. The coast region presents a frontage of over
one thousand miles to the sea, and is narrowly hemmed
in by mountain ranges which, in many places, come down
to the shore itself. But in these mountains there are
many picturesque and fertile valleys which have long
been applied to agricultural purposes. The coast region

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THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

has a climate of its own. It is the mildest type of the
temperate zone, closely verging upon the semi-tropical,
but not adapted to the growth of citrus fruits. Here
the rainfall is heavier than elsewhere in California, and
proximity to the sea gives rise to frequent fogs. In the
southern extremity of this region, from Santa Barbara
to San Diego, the climate becomes genuinely semi-
tropical and fogs are less common. North of San Fran-
cisco the leading industries are lumbering, dairying,
stock-raising, and general farming, with some mining.
In a few favored valleys fruit-raising on small farms is
successfully followed. South of San Franciso the lum-
ber and mining interests are insignificant, and the coun-
try is mostly devoted to dairy, stock, and general farming.
A most notable exception to what has been said of the
general condition of the coast region is the Santa Clara
Valley, which contributes enormously to the exports of
the State. In the beauty of its homes and orchards and
the excellence of its horticultural methods, in the organ-
ization of its fruit exchanges, and the character of its
urban life and civic institutions, the Santa Clara Valley
is fully equal to the most ideal localities in California,
not even excepting the famous orange districts near Los
Angeles. There are numerous opportunities in counties
farther south, notably in Monterey, San Luis Obispo,
and Santa Barbara, to apply the same methods with
similar results. But while the Santa Clara Valley rep-
resents the finest possibilities of the coast region, it
also strikingly illustrates certain failings in the econom-
ic system of the State which have been dwelt upon in
earlier pages. Land "is almost exclusively devoted to
fruit. Fanners buy their milk, butter, eggs, poultry,

138

THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA

bacon, and fresh meats of others. They themselves pro-
duce none of the real necessities of life, but only the
luxuries. One reason for this is the lack of irrigation.
They have taught themselves to believe that this is not
only unnecessary, but would actually be injurious to the
quality of their fruit. They are learning gradually,
however, that this idea is erroneous — that skilful and
proper irrigation is always beneficial, and that artificial
moisture is imperatively necessary to diversified produc-
tion ; hence, to the highest business prosperity and best
social conditions. When this lesson is learned by the
coast region as a whole a new era will set in, and great
numbers of colonists will come.

What is popularly known as southern California is a
narrowly restricted district reaching eastward from Los
Angeles for about one hundred miles and southward to
San Diego. Like the coast region, its character is fixed,
though on widely different lines. Its population is al-
ready comparatively dense, and its future growth will be
measured by the water supply for irrigation. While it
would seem as if the water resources had been fully
utilized, the fact is that large quantities run to waste in
seasons of flood, and that the cultivable area can be
gradually extended by storage works and more economi-
cal methods of irrigation.

It is an impressive fact that the seven counties of the
south received sixty -one per cent, of the increase of
rural population between 1880 and 1890. This marvel-
lous showing was chiefly due to the superior public spirit
of the locality, and to the attractive institutions which
grew out of it. Los Angeles itself is the throbbing
heart of a region which, in many respects, has no equal

139

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

in the world. The leading characteristics of this locali-
ty have been referred to in another chapter. Bat the
very success which attended these methods in the past
place limitations upon the country as a field for future
expansion. Land values have risen high, and the water
supply has become almost as precious as gold. Health-
seekers and the leisure class have been attracted in large
numbers, and occupy the field which would otherwise
be open to home-makers of smaller means. A class of
wealthy people is a prominent feature of immigration
in the southern valley. These opulent settlers plant
orchards of oranges, lemons, and olives, just as their
poorer neighbors do. It is reassuring to reflect, how-
ever, that they can accomplish little more with their
abundant capital than humbler settlers may do with
their united labor. The sun, the sky, the earth, and the
waters will be as kind to one class as to the other.
While it should not be inferred that none but the very
rich can settle in the south, it is perfectly true that this
charming district is not within the field of the largest
future developments.

A district known as Antelope Valley is one of the later
developments of southern California. This lies north of
the Sierra Madre mountains, on the southern margin of
the Mojave Desert. Irrigation has here begun to evolve
orchards, fields, and beautiful homes from conditions
which, in their virgin state, were peculiarly forbidding.
A series of promising colonies, chiefly engaged in almond-
culture, have been successfully established. But the
amount of land that can be reclaimed in this locality is
severely limited by the scanty water supply.

Where, then, is the field to accommodate the hosts
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THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA

who will come when the population of California begins
to approximate that of France ? It lies principally in
four great and distinct bodies, which may be named, in
the order of their importance, as follows: the Sacra-
mento Valley, stretching north from the Bay of San
Francisco to the feet of snowy Shasta ; the San Joaquin
Valley, reaching south from the great bay to the place
where the two mountain - ranges meet at the pass of
Tehachapi; the intermountain valleys on the eastern
slope of the Sierra, extending over the boundary into
Nevada ; and the Colorado Desert, in the extreme south-
eastern part of the State, on the borders of Mexico.

The first of these, the valley of the Sacramento, re-
ceived an addition of only two thousand to its rural pop-
ulation, out of a total of nearly ninety-seven thousand
for the State, between 1880 and 1890. The fault lay
neither with the soil nor the climate, which are equal to
those of any part of California, but with economic con-
ditions. The country is held in vast estates, principally
devoted to the cultivation of grain, which has been a
losing industry for several years. Where horticulture
has been adopted it has frequently been clone upon a
great scale. The vast orchards and vineyards of Mrs.
Stanford, of General Bid well, and of A. T. Hatch are
striking instances of this tendency. "When General N.
P. Chipman, himself a distinguished resident of the
Sacramento Valley, called attention to the startling rev-
elations contained in the census figures, the matter was
widely discussed, but with little result. The public
spirit which has given the southern counties their splen-
did place in the life of the Pacific coast is distinctly
lacking in the north. The truth is that it cannot be

141

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

cultivated on wheat-fields or in mining-camps. It comes
with irrigation, with the subdivision of the land into
thousands of diminutive holdings, with a citizenship
composed of a multitude of small proprietors.

These conditions are exactly reversed in the northern
valley, with pitiful results. The same forces would
make the same civilization in both localities, for the
physical foundation is practically identical. The south-
ern valley lies open to the sea, the breezes from which
mercifully temper the summer heat. In other respects
the advantages are all on the side of the Sacramento.
It is far greater in area; its water supplies are both more
abundant and more reliable ; its surrounding advantages,
notably in the way of mines and timber, are much supe-
rior. Finally, it possesses the inestimable blessing of a
mighty river, navigable for a distance of two hundred
miles, and capable of being much improved. This is a
factor of the highest import. It furnishes cheap trans-
portation by boat, and materially lessens railroad charges.
Furthermore, it gives the valley a comprehensive system
of drainage from Shasta to the sea. The wonderful min-
eral riches of this locality will be rapidly developed.
They are by no means confined to gold, but include a
variety of natural riches. What has proven to be one of
the greatest copper-mines in the world has recently been
opened in Shasta county, with the aid of British capital-
ists. It is from the foot-hills on the eastern side of the
Sacramento Valley that the earliest oranges and lemons
seek the market. They command high prices, and are
mostly sold on the coast from San Francisco to British
Columbia. It is in this imperial valley, and in the foot-
hills and mountains which rise above it in splendid pict-

142

THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA

ures on each side, that a large proportion of the future
millions will find homes and prosperity.

Irrigation is by no means absolutely necessary in the
Sacramento Valley. If it had been, the story of its set-
tlement and industrial progress would be different from
what it is. No one could then truthfully assert, as now,
that this splendid district contains less population than
it had twenty-five years ago. Producing fair crops of
grain and of deciduous fruits without artificial moisture,
the country has been given over to large ranches and
scattered orchards and wholly deprived of the powerful
social influences which lent such distinction to the civil-
ization of southern California. While irrigation is not
indispensable in the north, it is essential to the best and
highest results, especially in the line of small-farming.
The rainless season usually extends from May until No-
vember. Without irrigation there can be no beautiful
lawns, successive crops of vegetables and small fruits, or
goodly yields of alfalfa. One acre under reliable irriga-
tion is more valuable, for the purpose of small, diversi-
fied farming, than ten acres without it. The citrus fruits
cannot profitably be cultivated except by irrigation, and
there- is no fruit which is not improved, both in quality
and quantity, by the proper application of water. This
claim is often stoutly disputed, particularly by those
wishing to sell land that cannot be irrigated. But ex-
perience has taught that northern California can only
hope to equal the southern part of the State by imitating
its industrial methods, of which irrigation is the foremost.

The San Joaquin Valley is even larger, and in many
respects resembles its northern sister. Indeed, the con-
ditions of soil, climate, and productions are so nearly

143

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

identical that they need not be rehearsed. Here irriga-
tion and the small farm had begun to make themselves
felt, and the single county of Fresno gained more than
five times as much in population in the last census dec-
ade as the entire Sacramento Valley. Perhaps the earliest
triumph of the new woman in this generation was that of
Miss Austin and her three associates — all school-teachers
of San Francisco — who founded the wonderful Fresno
raisin industry. Investing their savings in a ranch, and
then boldly venturing upon a culture in which few had
faith, they demonstrated that raisins equal to those of
Spain could be produced in the San Joaquin. They were
rewarded with handsome profits, and later thousands of
people shared in the benefits of their demonstration.
But speculation and the fallacy of the single crop fol-
lowed as natural consequences, bringing hard times,
mortgages, and disappointment in their train. In the
mean time unskilful irrigation without proper drainage
wrought harm in various ways. All of these misfortunes
are being overcome, but it is not easy for the great valley
to undo the injury which its reputation has suffered in
the last few years. Nevertheless, the country of the San
Joaquin contains great possibilities, and will sustain a
dense population. Its contiguous mountains are richly
endowed with mines and great timber, as well as with
the sublimest scenery. Among its valuable resources are
artesian wells of large size, so situated as to be available
for use in irrigation.

The valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin have
been, and are yet, the grain-fields of the PaciQc coast.
Many of their residents have bemoaned the fall in the
price of wheat as the greatest of calamities. The truth

144

THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA

is that for California it is the first of blessings. The
fall in wheat prices has broken the land monopoly which
kept labor servile and gave the most fruitful of coun-
tries to four-footed beasts rather than to men. Not until
nearly all great ranches had been mortgaged to their
full capacity, not until the failure of prices had made
the debts intolerably burdensome and brought their
owners face to face with disaster, was it possible to
open the country for its best and highest uses. With
the supremacy of wheat will go the shanty and the
"hobo" laborer, to be followed in time by the China-
man. In their places will come the home and the man
who works for himself. Civilization will bloom where
barbarism has blighted the land. There are localities
where the cultivation of grain can be pursued, but the
semi-tropical valleys of California were plainly intended
for better things.

Irrigation, drainage, and cheap transportation are close-
ly related as economic problems in the great interior val-
leys. William Hammond Hall, the former State engineer,
has predicted that within fifty years the waters which rise
in the mountains and meander through these valleys to
the sea will all be utilized to moisten and fertilize the
soil, and then be turned into canals, serving the double
purpose of drainage and transportation. He claims that
it is feasible, from an engineering stand-point, to con-
struct such works, and to propel trains of freight-boats
by electricity at a speed of six miles an hour. If this
shall be done, the gain to the State will be beyond all
calculation, provided the works be owned by the public.
It is by no means an idle dream when considered in con-
nection with ultimate California.
K 145

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

The third field for f utnre development is a vast region
lying upon the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. This
is so little known to the outside world that it may almost
be named as Undiscovered California. It is reached
only by lines of narrow-gauge railway running northwest
and southwest, respectively, from Reno, Nevada. The
northerly district is included in the three great coun-
ties of Plumas, Lassen, and Modoc. The country is
distinctly arid, lying upon the western flank of the great
basin formed by the Sierra Nevada and Wasatch ranges,
which inclose portions of California, Idaho, and Utah, and
all of Nevada. Here we find the real sage-brush desert —
fertile, well-watered valleys surrounded by all the wealth
of forest, mine, and natural pastures. The climate ap-
proximates much more nearly to that of New Mexico
than to that commonly associated with the name of Cali-
fornia. It is of the milder type of the temperate zone,
favorable to the growth of such hardy fruits as apples,
pears, peaches, and prunes. Up to this time, however,
the chief products of the country are native and alfalfa
hay, cattle, sheep, and horses. The sparse population
is, perhaps, as prosperous as any farming community in
the United States. This fact is mostly due to the vast
extent of fine grazing lands surrounding irrigated valleys
and to the herds of cattle and sheep which find their way
to the farmers' hay-stacks from the ranges of northern
California, southern Oregon, and western Nevada every
autumn and winter.

The most important district in this region is Honey
Lake Valley, lying eighty miles northwest of Reno. Here
a new era has set in with water-storage for irrigation,
small farms, and colonies planned upon the best ideals.

146

THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA

Cheap land, valuable surrounding resources, and a cli-
mate similar to that in which our race has flourished
best, would seem to combine in favoring a large and
rapid future growth.

The more southern body east of the Sierras lies chiefly
in Inyo county. This is also at the early stage of de-
velopment. The climate is milder, though still temper-
ate rather than semi-tropical, than in the more northern
counties. There are many beautiful valleys and an
abundance of water, timber, and minerals.

Lack of railroad facilities and remoteness from large
cities account for the backwardness of development in
these attractive regions on the eastern slope of the moun-
tains. They present to-day the finest field for develop-
ment in California, and one of the finest in the Uni-
ted States. There can be no question that during the
next century they will become the homes of hundreds of
thousands of people and the seat of a manifold industrial
life.

The fourth field open to future conquest is the Colo-
rado Desert — most famous of waste-places in America. It
is popularly regarded as an empire of hopeless sterility,
the silence of which will never be broken by the voices
of men. As the transcontinental traveller views it from
his flying train it presents an aspect indeed forbidding.
Neither animal life nor human habitation breaks its level
monotony. It stretches from mountain-range to moun-
tain-range, a brown waste of dry and barren soil. And
yet it only awaits the touch of water and of labor to
awaken into opulent life. Only the most superficial view
of it is caught from the passing trains, while those who
have penetrated into its heart and across the boundary

147

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

into Mexico compose but a slender list of prospectors,
hunters, surveyors, and curious travellers. But some of
these have made careful studies, and this really wonder-
ful country is beginning to attract the attention of both
capitalists and settlers, though the former must do their
work before the latter can hope to occupy the land.

Much time will be required to overcome the wide and
ingrained public prejudice against the Colorado Desert,
but it will finally be reclaimed and sustain tens of thou-
sands of prosperous people. It is more like Syria than
any other part of the United States, and the daring im-
agination may readily conceive that here a new Damas-
cus will arise more beautiful than that of old.

With the occuption of the Colorado Desert and of the
great peninsula which adjoins it, a powerful impulse will
be given to agriculture, mining, and commerce in a vast
region now little peopled. One of the inevitable conse-
quences will be the rise of San Diego to the proportions
of a large city — probably the largest in the southern part
of the coast.

The future of California will be very different from its
past. It has been the land of large things — of large es-
tates, of large enterprises, of large fortunes. Under an-
other form of government it would have developed a
feudal system, with a landed aristocracy resting on a
basis of servile labor. These were its plain tendencies
years ago, when somebody coined the epigram, "Cali-
fornia is the rich man's paradise and the poor man's
hell." But later developments have shown that what-
ever of paradise the Golden State can offer to the rich, it
will share, upon terms of marvellous equality, with the
middle classes of American life. Over and above all other

148

THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA

countries, it is destined to be the land of the common
people. This is true, because, owing to its peculiar cli-
matic conditions, it requires less land to sustain a family
in generous comfort. For the same reason, cheaper cloth-
ing and shelter, as well as less fuel, suffice, while it is pos-
sible to realize more perfectly the ideal of producing what
is consumed. Moreover, it is a natural field for the ap-
plication of associative industry and the growth of the
highest social conditions. Indeed, the country has dis-
tinctly failed as a land of big things, and achieved its
best successes in the opposite direction. Its true and
final greatness will consist of the aggregate of small
things — of small estates, of small enterprises, of small
fortunes. Progress towards this end is already well be-
gun. It must go on until the last great estate is dis-
membered and the last alien serf is returned to the
Orient. Upon the ruins of the old system a better civili-
zation will arise. It will be the glory of the common
people, to whose labor and genius it will owe its exist-
ence. Its outreaching and beneficent influence will be
felt throughout the world.

CHAPTER II

THE NEW DAY IN COLORADO

THE old day in Colorado was the era of frontier bar-
barism. The glitter of Pike's Peak gold drew throngs
of adventurous folk who toiled across the plains of Kan-
sas and Nebraska in wagon-trains that they might spec-
ulate in the mysterious possibilities of a new country.
They were not home -builders, but fortune-hunters.
Wherever they found placer gold rude settlements sprang
up.

In the mean time the cattle industry began to contend
with Indians and buffalo for the possession of the grazing
lands which sloped away from the Rockies, and the neces-
sity of a base of supplies planted the seeds of a few per-
manent towns, such as Denver and Pueblo. These were
mere clusters of rude homes and stores which seemed to
hold out scant promise of future importance. The In-
dians were numerous and troublesome, and the life of
the pioneers was spiced with danger. Though the coun-
try belonged nominally to Kansas, there was but the
slightest pretence of civil government. Practically the
only authority was that exercised by organizations of cit-
izens, who brought horse-thieves and murderers to speedy
justice upon the most convenient tree.

In 1861 Colorado became a Territory, and was then
150

THE NEW DAY IN COLORADO

able to deal more effectively with the Indian, who was
the common enemy and an obstacle to settlement and
development. There was little in these early conditions
to encourage the hope that a great and populous State
could be established amid the mountains and plateaus.
Mines, cattle, and border traffic were not alone sufficient
for the making of civilization. Beyond these crude in-
dustries the future was speculative. The country was
unexplored, the resources undeveloped, the conditions
untried. The transformation which swiftly followed
upon this period of doubt converted the frontier commu-
nity into one of the most brilliant and promising of
American States.

The dawn of the new day was heralded by the whistle
of the locomotive. The dissolution of the Union armies
had turned the faces of many thousand veterans towards
the trans-Missouri region, and of these Colorado re-
ceived its full share. The wonderful era of railroad-
building — perhaps the most dramatic page in all our in-
dustrial history — had just begun. These circumstances
conspired to give a new and powerful impulse to the ter-
ritory at the base of the Rocky Mountains. Large cap-
ital joined hands with the increasing stream of immi-
grants, and Colorado entered with amazing vigor upon a
stage of real and far-reaching development. More im-
portant than the finding of gold was the discovery of
the fact that the highest forms of agriculture would
flourish with the aid of irrigation. When this had been
demonstrated by the pioneers there was no longer doubt
about the future greatness of the State or the character
of its civilization. Denver and a few other settlements
began to take on the appearance of permanency, and

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THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

even to exhibit the signs of coming refinement and
power.

The settlers of Greeley inaugurated large irrigation
enterprises and planted seeds from which the finest civic
institutions were to grow. General William J. Palmer
and his friends, anticipating the commercial value of cli-
mate and scenery even before the industrial economy of
the community was established, laid out Colorado Springs,
at the foot of Pike's Peak, and began to make Manitou
and the Garden of the Gods ready for future thousands
of health-seekers and tourists. Pueblo quickly felt the
importance of its position on the banks of the Arkan-
sas at the gateway of the mountains, and developed rap-
idly in population and business. The daring conception
of a railroad to parallel the Rockies and open communi-
cation with Mexico, or to scale the giant peaks and
penetrate the wilderness which lay beyond, took posses-
sion of General Palmer's mind and furnished the hope
of further extraordinary developments.

Thus the decade between 1870 and 1880 saw the rise
of Colorado to a place of immense promise and of im-
portant achievement, and in 1876 the nation signalized
the centennial of the Declaration of Independence by be-
stowing the rich privilege of sovereignty upon the new-
born commonwealth.

The Colorado of to-day contains a population of a
little less than half a million. It is marvellously fort-
unate in its railroad development, having twenty-four
separate lines, which maintain over five thousand miles
of track, penetrating nearly every part of the State. Its
mines of precious and base metals — very largely the
former — yield an annual income of nearly fifty millions.

152

THE NEW DAY IN COLORADO

Its two million acres of irrigated land add forty millions
more to the annual industrial product. Although man-
ufactures are in their infancy, they even now produce
goods to the value of thirty-five millions. Other busi-
ness transactions, represented by the commercial and
professional classes, represent considerably more than
one hundred millions each year. The live-stock indus-
try is difficult to estimate, but adds very largely to the
yearly production of wealth.

Such are the results wrought out by the labor of a
single generation upon the raw resources of a new State.
Before glancing at the people who have organized such
an economic life in so brief a space of years, and at the
institutions they have created, it is important to con-
sider the material foundation on which they have built.

Colorado owes something to its scenery, much to its
climate, yet more to its mines. The first of these made
it widely known as one of nature's wonderlands. The
second was a prime factor in attracting population.
The third poured a large and continuous stream of
wealth into the hands of the people, and a little further
on we shall see how loyally this has been used for the
benefit of the State. The grandeur of the scenery and
the charm of the climate are both matters of popular
knowledge. Neither is peculiar to Colorado, for both
are characteristic of the arid region as a whole. But
nowhere else do the ordinary paths of travel lead
through so grand a scenic region as in Colorado, nor has
any other locality been as fortunate in the energy and
intelligence bestowed upon the work of making this
phase of its attractions widely and favorably known.

The Colorado climate is the product of high altitude

153

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

and aridity. Denver is one mile above the level of New
York harbor, and much of the inhabited portion of the
State is even higher. The result is a rarefied atmos-
phere very exhilarating in its effects and extremely
favorable to persons suffering with certain kinds of dis-
eases. Summer and winter are almost equally de-
lightful, though presenting great extremes of heat and
cold.

Of the mineral wealth it is needless to say more than
that it increases its annual output with regularity, and
that there is every reason to suppose that much the
greater part of it yet remains to be discovered and de-
veloped. It will be a permanent resource of the highest
utility, since most of it is directly converted into money
at the local mints. While the energies of the mining
industry are chiefly centred upon the search for precious
metals, the country is endowed with the greatest variety
of mineral riches. These include nearly all the base
metals, such as copper, lead, and iron, as well as coal, oil,
precious and semi -precious stones, granite, marble,
onyx, and sandstone. These materials exist in the great-
est profusion, but must lie mostly unused until the pop-
ulation largely increases.

In considering the matter of agricultural development,
it must be remembered that Colorado is the crown of
the continent. Its lofty mountain-peaks cut the rain-
fall and melting snows in twain, sending one part to the
Pacific and the other to the Atlantic Ocean. The same
influence makes a radical division in climate, produc-
tions, and the character of agriculture. Irrigation devel-
opment naturally began earliest where streams could
most easily be diverted. This was on the high plateau

154

THE NEW DAY IN COLORADO

which slopes eastward from the foot-hills and merges into
the Great Plains of Nebraska and Kansas.

For a period of nearly twenty years, beginning in
1870, canal construction and the settlement of lands
were actively carried on in this part of the State. The
scene of action was principally in the valleys of the
Cache la Poudre, the Platte, and the Arkansas. Here the
farms are of large size for an irrigated region, though
the present tendency favors a smaller unit. These dis-
tricts, prosperous in ordinary times, have not escaped
the evil effects of the general depression in recent years.
The products are diversified and largely disposed of in
the home market. In the upper Arkansas Valley, where
the foot-hills furnish shelter from the high winds pre-
vailing at certain seasons, fruit-culture has been notably
successful. Prices of unimproved lands on the eastern
slope range from twenty to fifty dollars per acre, while
cultivated lands are valued at one hundred dollars an
acre and upwards, according to the extent of improve-
ments and location with reference to cities or large

o

towns. The glimpse we have had in an earlier chapter
of the agricultural industry of G-reeley Colony may be
accepted as true of the entire region east of the moun-
tains, for Greeley has been the model to which other
districts have looked for inspiration. The experimental
farms which surround the agricultural college at Fort
Collins undoubtedly represent the highest type of irri-
gation results in this part of the State. In the Arkansas
Valley the altitude is lower and the climate more favor-
able for small farming and fruit-culture.

The San Luis Valley is an elevated plateau lying be-
tween parallel mountain - ranges in the southern and

155

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

central part of the State. Here a vast expenditure has
been made for irrigation works, but efforts at settlement
have been almost uniformly disappointing. The expla-
nation is found in the altitude, which is from seven thou-
sand to eight thousand feet above sea-level. This makes
short seasons and limits the farmer's industry to the
hardiest class of crops. There is no month in the year
when frost is not likely to occur ; yet the country makes
a wonderful yield of grain, of vegetables, and frequently
of small fruits. There are instances of great prosperity
on the part of individual settlers, but as a whole the
valley shows a record of failure for those who have at-
tempted to make homes there. A striking example to
the contrary is seen in a few thriving communities of
Mormons. The industrial system which we have already
studied in connection with Utah produces the same good
results in the San Luis Valley. In view of this fact it
must be assumed that the locality will eventually be
settled and sustain thousands of prosperous people.
Land and water may be obtained more cheaply here than
anywhere else in Colorado, and there is a good market
for the products of the soil. The costly preliminary
work of reclamation has been well done in advance. A
labor colony, founded upon wise plans, backed by suffi-
cient capital, and inspired and managed by skilful lead-
ership, would solve the problem of colonization for the
San Luis Valley, while furnishing work and homes for
those who need them. The Mormon communities are
practically of this character in the beginning.

The western slope of Colorado constitutes a region
entirely distinct. From a casual glance at the map it
would be inferred that about two-thirds of the State con-

156

THE NEW DAY IN COLORADO

sist exclusively of mountains, and are therefore unfitted
for settlement. The truth is that there are many beau-
tiful valleys of varying size and elevation, and that these
are destined to sustain the most interesting and profit-
able agricultural districts of Colorado. Unlike the east-
ern slope, there is here more water than irrigable land —
a condition almost unique in the arid region. The val-
leys are so protected by the mountains which inclose
them upon either hand as to have a climate of their own.
This is perceptibly influenced by the warm winds which
make their way from the Gulf of California through the
canyons of the Colorado river. These conditions are
extremely favorable for the culture of the most delicate
fruit and for the diversification of general crops. The
principal rivers of the western slope are the Grand, the
Green, and the San Juan. These are fed by the prolific
snows of the higher Eockies, and carry a strong and tur-
bulent flow of water throughout the year. They are not
always readily diverted, however, as their channels have
been deeply cut through the rocks and soil, and the
stream often flows below the level of the tract to be irri-
gated. This makes it necessary to elevate the water in
many instances by pumping machinery, which can be
operated cheaply by the power of the stream itself, or
by the use of coal, which in many cases is found close at
hand.

The best example *of the possibilities of the western
slope is seen in the neighborhood of Grand Junction,
where two splendid streams — the Grand and the Gunni-
son — join forces and flow westward to their meeting with
the Green river across the Utah boundary. Here the
valley opens put into a broad desert, with foot-hills, or

157

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

mesas, marking the rise to the mountain masses which
line the horizon on either hand. To the eye of the
traveller who has just come through the awe-inspiring
scenery of the mountains and narrow upper valleys,
nothing could he less promising than the brown waste of
arid soil which he beholds upon approaching Grand
Junction. The scene is one of utter desolation, for even
sage-brush arid mesquite are absent from large portions
of the landscape. The roaring river hurrying down the
slope seems to mock, with hoarse laughter, the unfruitful
soil, which stretches away from its banks in silence and
in sunshine. But if the traveller leaves the train and
rides out a few miles upon the desert he will quickly in-
terpret the mystery of these conditions. Wherever the
water has been married to the soil, prolific fields and
orchards have sprung from the union — such fields and
orchards as may be rivalled as yet only in semi-tropic
California. The favorite size of farms is from ten to
twenty acres, or only about one-fourth or one-eighth of
the average area of farms on the eastern slope of Col-
orado.

Fruit-culture chiefly claims the thought and energy
of the people in this locality, and it is very profitable.
Peaches are the leading product, and they are wonderful
for flavor, size, and beauty. A local festival is " Peach
Day,'*' when people come from all directions to feast
upon the free bounty of Grand Junction. Lands are held
high, ranging from fifty to one hundred and fifty dollars
per acre, though they were but recently public property
and of no value until irrigation facilities had been pro-
vided. The excuse for these high prices is the fact that
orchards in bearing frequently earn one hundred and fifty

158

THE NEW DAY IN COLORADO

dollars and upwards per acre each year. This is dne in
part to the marvellous quality of the fruit, and in part
to the extensive home markets offered by mining camps
in the mountains, and by large towns such as Denver,
Pueblo, and Colorado Springs. In view of the severe
limitations which nature has placed upon the territory
suited to the highest culture of delicate fruits, and of the
steady growth of the consumers in mountain districts
and large towns, there is, perhaps, good reason to hope
that profits will be well sustained for a long time to
come.

These conditions make the western slope choice ground
for settlement. They are by no means limited to the
lower valley of the Grand, but exist in the numerous
smaller districts scattered through the mountains in the
western and southwestern part of the State. On the so-
cial side the possibilities of the country have not been
much developed, as there has been a lack of organized
effort in settlement. But the extraordinary fertility of
the soil, the extent of the water supply, the proximity of
mining camps, and the charm of the climate must some-
time combine to lend a powerful impulse to the highest
development of these favored valleys.

The scenery presents not merely pictures, but pictures
that are painted and tinted and wrought into fantastic
shapes. To the ever-changing aspect which the moun-
tains, buttes, and mesas gain from light and shadow, from
sun and cloud, new and strange beauties are added by the
reds, pinks, yellows, and grays of soil and rock. From
the vivid cliffs and bluffs which stand guard upon river
banks to the purple and shadowy peaks which lift their
pointed heads on the utmost horizon, the scene is one of

159

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

such beauty and grandeur as may be felt, though not de-
scribed.

Such are the materials of Colorado. Let us look now
at the people and their civilization.

Intense local patriotism is a well-recognized western
trait, but in Colorado it amounts to a religion. We
have seen how the progress of California was impeded
by certain elements of its population having no sym-
pathy with its higher ideals, no pride in its best achieve-
ments. If there is such an element in Colorado it is
unseen and unfelt in the larger life of the State. The
community is dominated by a spirit of aggressive enter-
prise which recognizes no impossibilities, harbors no
doubts' of the future. This is the explanation of
what we may fairly call — in view of the brief time con-
sumed in its evolution from conditions essentially bar-
baric— the splendor of Colorado civilization. It is this
which created Denver, almost the fairest of American
cities; which made Colorado Springs the centre of
wealth and refinement; which blackened the sky of Pu-
eblo with the smoke of a young Pittsburg; which
planted Leadville among the clouds ; which placed a
steam ladder against the dizzy summit of Pike's Peak ;
which carried the iron highway of commerce through
gorges and mountain - passes ; which turned rivers out
of their courses that barren soil might blossom with
the homes of men. This high public spirit is seen in
schools, colleges, clubs, public buildings, and improve-
ments— above all, in the homes.

It has been the policy of those who have taken riches
from the mines to invest them in developing the State's
resources and in beautifying its cities and towns. In this

160

THE NEW DAY IN COLORADO

respect the spirit of Coloradans presents a sharp con-
trast to that of many who grew rich in California, and
of most of those who received the enormous wealth coined
from the resources of Nevada. In the latter instance
the beneficiaries of the mines did not even make their
homes in the land which raised them from poverty to afflu-
ence. But the men of Colorado have been proud of
their devotion to the commonwealth which they created,
and have striven by every means in their power to keep
it moving along the upward path. In the erection of
fine public and business buildings and of palatial homes,
in the extension of railroads and irrigation canals, in the
increase of banking capital, and, above all, in the pursuit
of daring mining operations, their enterprise has been un-
equalled by that of any other western community. Fore-
most among those who inaugurated this policy at the
risk of their fortunes was the late H. A. W. Tabor,
whom Denver and Colorado should always hold in grate-
ful remerhbrance.

But there is another side to the picture. The tenden-
cies of Colorado civilization are not wholly in line with
the best ideals of the arid region. Viewed from this
stand-point, its institutions are in a measure disappoint-
ing. The marvel of Denver's growth and the beauty
of its homes and business districts should not blind us
to the fact that it is essentially like the great cities of
the East. It is, in a word, another case of "progress
and poverty." The equality which marked its early life
has diminished in proportion to the growth of the popu-
lation and the increase of wealth. The rise of land
values has made it more difficult for the many to own
their homes, and has increased the wealth of the land-
L 161

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

lord class. All the evils which grow from the coridi-
tions of life in a large city are rife in Denver.

These are not the natural economic tendencies of a
country founded upon irrigation. They are not such as
we have observed in localities where irrigation has been
so nearly the dominant influence as to shape institu-
tions. The explanation is found in the influence of
mining speculations which, diffused like the atmos-
phere, breed a cheerful but demoralizing contagion :
also in the early tendency to adopt a comparatively
large farm unit. These two forces have operated to
produce very different results from those flowing from
the Mormon land policy, which we saw in the Salt Lake
Valley ; or from those which grew in consequence of irri-
gation in the San Bernardino Valley of California. Large
portions of Colorado are admirably adapted to the de-
velopment of the best social conditions — of those condi-
tions which make for a permanent and growing body of
landed proprietors ; for the multiplication of little towns
rather than a concentration of people in congested cen-
tres ; for the application of the associative principle in
connection with industrial and commercial affairs. It
is gratifying to be able to record that the latter cur-
rents of thought in Colorado seem to show the effects
which might be expected to result from its environ-
ment.

More and more the State asserts its authority in the
control of irrigation works and practice. The farm unit
grows smaller, and intensive cultivation finds more fol-
lowers. By enormous majorities the people pronounce
in favor of party platforms which demand the public
ownership of public utilities. Equal suffrage and the

162

THE NEW DAY IN COLORADO

presence of women in the legislature mark the progres-
sive temper of the body politic. On the whole, there is
much reason to hope that the social achievement of the
next generation in Colorado will be equal to the material
achievement of the last.

CHAPTER III
THE PLEASANT LAND OF UTAH

THE industrial system of the people who compose
three-fourths of the population of Utah has been con-
sidered in connection with typical institutions of the
arid region in earlier pages. It remains to speak of the
physical aspects of the newest of American States.

Standing on the summit of Capitol Hill in Salt Lake
City, one may take in the entire range of Utah's re-
sources, developed and undeveloped, in a single sweeping
glance.

At one's feet lies the mountain metropolis, with the
stately temple of native granite supporting the golden
figure of the Angel Moroni on its culminating turret,
and beside it the odd-roofed tabernacle, like an enormous
turtle basking in the sun. Below, the miles of city
streets stretch southward — a huddle of business blocks
in the centre ; a series of garden-homes hidden by leaves
and blossoms on either hand. Still farther out the
generous city lots expand into little farms of ten or
twenty acres, exemplifying the prosperous irrigation in-
dustry, which is the corner-stone of the commonwealth.
Far down the valley the smelters send up their black
smoke to the sky — emblem of the mining industry. At
the lower end and on the sides of the valley lies an ex-

164

THE PLEASANT LAND OF UTAH

pause of arid land in its natural desert state, typifying
alike the conditions encountered by the pioneers and
the present aspect of a vast proportion of Utah. On
the left, one sees hastening down the canyon the roaring
creek which watered the first crop ever planted in these
valleys; on the right, the glistening expanse of the
famous inland sea. And inclosing all, the mountains —
treasure-house of precious metals, of coal, of iron, of
timber, and of the snows and waters which fertilized the
desert and made it blossom with civilization.

Here in a single picture is all of Utah — town and
country, farm, workshop, mine, shrines of religion, and
play-grounds of wealth and leisure. If the human eye
might look beyond the brown barriers, which now inter-
cept the view, to the very boundaries of the State,
it would see nothing more than it sees from Capitol
Hill, for Utah is a succession of mountains, of desert
valleys, and of crystal streams, and scattered over it all is
the wealth of the mine and the sleeping potentiality —
here and there partially awakened — of the home, the
field, the orchard, and the workshop. It is a pleasant
and a sunny land, unf orgotten by the most casual traveller
who has crossed it and well loved by those who claim it
as their home. It is easy to understand the feelings of
the little Utah boy who tired of the World's Fair in a
very few days and begged, with tears in his eyes, to be
taken back. Asked if there were not plenty of interest-
ing sights in Chicago, he replied, "Yes, but I can't see
no mountains I"

Utah has a population of about a quarter of a million.
Though this is but one-half as many as Colorado, and
one-fifth as many as California, the new State approaches

165

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

more nearly to the ideal of a self-supporting community
than either of its neighbors. The bulk of its population
has been trained in the policy of industrial independence
from the time of its earliest settlement. We have seen
how this was accomplished with little capital except that
which was taken from the soil. The fortunate results
may now be observed in an industrial life which is re-
markably diversified for a community so new and remote.

Very much the larger portion of the population may be
seen in a railroad ride of two hours, from Provo through
Salt Lake City to Ogden. This ride takes the traveller
through Utah, Salt Lake, and Weber valleys, which were
the first to be reclaimed, and must always contain the
densest population. The original advantage of this now
splendid district was its abund ant water supply, flowing
in numerous streams from high mountains near at hand.
To this advantage later development added the presence
of important railroad system sand the proximity of rich
mines of precious metals. The growth of other portions
of the State, which must be large and constant, can only
confirm the supremacy of the communities which have
grown up near the shores of the Great Salt Lake. These
are alike the commercial, political, and religious centres
of Utah, to which all the sources of material wealth must
be tributary.

The natural resources of Utah, as in the case of all the
States of the mountain region, are wonderfully diverse,
though in the infancy of development. The annual out-
put of gold, silver, copper, and lead is now ahout ten
million dollars, and is constantly increasing. The min-
ing industry is thus a large contributor to local wealth,
supplying employment to thousands of laborers, furnish-

ino

THE PLEASANT LAND OF UTAH

ing a home market for the products of the farms, and
giving constant encouragement to the extension of the
railroad system. The work of discovery and develop-
munt in new districts steadily progresses, and the eco-
nomic value of mineral resources must grow with every
passing year. Utah is somewhat deficient in forests
suitable for timber, but is abundantly endowed with coal,
iron, and water-power, which are the raw materials of
manufacture. The development of water-power in con-
nection with electricity has begun in earnest and will be
a factor of high importance in the future. This is ac-
complished by damming streams which flow through
mountain canyons in the immediate neighborhood of
large towns. This requires the transmission of electric-
ity for a distance of only a few miles, owing to the fortu-
nate natural conditions. The State is also rich in fine
building stone, which includes beautiful marble and
onyx.

The climate of Utah is that of the milder temperate
zone, and during large portions of the year is thoroughly
delightful. Ploughing begins earlier than in eastern lo-
calities of similar latitude. The spring days are showery
and windy, but the first warm breath of approaching
summer is usually felt by the last of April. From May
until November there is little rain. The thermometer
climbs high during the summer days, but the heat is not
oppressive, owing to the dryness of the air. Mountain
breezes, sweeping down through the numerous canyons,
make the nights delightfully cool. In Utah it is the
custom to run irrigation waters through the streets of
cities and towns during the summer, and the music of
these numerous babbling streams is ajoleasant feature

167

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

of the country, and apparently of considerable effect in
mitigating the heat. The long autumn, extending fre-
quently into December, is the most charming season of
the year. The winter is usually brief, but accompanied
by considerable snow even in the valleys and a very
heavy precipitation in the surrounding mountains. On
still nights the thermometer sometimes goes well below
zero. The extreme southern portion of the State, loc-
ally known as ' ' Dixie," is much milder, indeed verg-
ing upon the semi-tropical, and permitting the culture
of figs, almonds, and English walnuts.

The agricultural industry of Utah presents some odd
contradictions. It is more diversified, and therefore
more completely self-sustaining, than that of any other
western State. Farms are smaller and less incumbered
with mortgages, and the people may be said to live gen-
erally in easier circumstances than the occupants of the
soil in any other part of the United States.

On the other hand, it is not here that we find the best
methods of irrigation and cultivation, nor of packing and
marketing the crops. The high intelligence and persis-
tent effort which placed certain communities in Colorado
and California at the head of the list in their respective
lines of production are wanting in Utah. The fruit pos-
sibilities of the country have been especially neglected
until recently, so that newly settled portions of Idaho
have easily surpassed Utah localities which had the ad-
vantage of more than a generation in time. Of late
years there has been a marked improvement, resulting
from a State Board of Horticulture, from the influence
of the Agricultural College at Logan, and from the in-
fusion of a considerable element of new settlers.

168

THE PLEASANT LAND OF UTAH

Not far from, half a million acres of irrigated land are
in actual cultivation, while nearly twice that number are
under canals now completed or in process of construc-
tion. Nearly one hundred thousand acres are cultivated
in grain crops without irrigation. These are mostly sit-
uated north of the Great Salt Lake, where the rainfall
is heaviest. The total amount of cultivated land is,
however, only about one per cent, of the area of the
State. According to the best local authorities, some-
thing like six times as much land as is now irrigated
can be brought under cultivation by these methods when
the water supply is utilized. Here is a large field for
the growth of population.

The territory available for settlement is well dis-
tributed throughout the State. The country immedi-
ately surrounding the three large towns of Ogden, Salt
Lake, and Provo is compactly settled, yet better meth-
ods of utilizing the water supply will enlarge the area of
cultivation even in those districts. The beautiful coun-
try lying immediately north of Great Salt Lake, and
watered by one of the largest irrigation systems in the
West, is still largely open to settlement. Here the fruit
industry is rapidly developing in connection with gen-
eral farming and stock-raising. In this locality unim-
proved lands sell for prices ranging from thirty to fifty
dollars per acre, while the annual water - rental is two
dollars and a half per acre. The construction of new
irrigation systems in the large deserts south of the lake,
in central Utah, has been actively carried on during the
past five years. Here much government land is open to
entry, but the settler must purchase water-rights from
canal companies. This item of cost should be added to

1C9

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

the price of the land. In this locality unimproved lands
with water cost from ten to thirty dollars per acre. The
raising of grain and hay is profitable because of the de-
mand which the stock industry furnishes for these pro-
ducts, while the culture of peaches, apricots, apples,
and prunes seems promising. These fruits have been
raised successfully for forty years in the more sheltered
valleys and foot-hills of central Utah, and the later or-
chards are being gradually extended farther out upon
the desert.

A promising region now almost wholly undeveloped is
the Uinta country, surrounded by the mountains of that
name and lying directly east of Salt Lake City. Here a
great Indian reservation will soon be opened to settle-
ment, and plans have already been made to reclaim and
colonize the most attractive parts of the district. This
will be done by the Mormon methods, which have been so
successfully applied throughout the intermountain re-
gion. Settlers will be organized into companies con-
structing their own canals by combined labor and di-
viding the farms and village lots under an equitable
arrangement. Thus the land will cost the government
price of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, plus a
certain amount of labor in making improvements. The
Uinta country is rich, not only in agricultural land, but
in minerals, timber, building-stone, asphalt, and other
useful resources. It is now remote from railroads, but
its settlement and development must inevitably lead to
the construction of the iron highway. The deserts in
eastern Utah within reach of the Green river, and in
southern Utah in the neighborhood of the Colorado and
Virgin rivers, have but begun to feel the influence of

170

THE PLEASANT LAND OF UTAH

modern enterprise. The costly works necessary to their
reclamation will doubtless come as the pressure of settle-
ment increases.

Utah's pre-eminence in the land of irrigation is due to
historical considerations rather than to the excellence of
its canal systems or to the superiority of its laws and
customs. In the latter respect it is distinctly disappoint-
ing. The pioneers turned the water from the most con-
venient streams by the crudest devices, and with no
thought for any grand and enduring scheme of engineer-
ing. Canals were often duplicated many times over in a
single valley, wasting precious water, injuring the soil,
and unnecessarily restricting the area of settlement. The
evils of the irrigation system hastily constructed by the
pioneers are now seen and felt ; yet the early appropri-
ates of the mountain streams are so tenacious of what
they consider their rights as to render the reform of the
laws, the reconstruction of canals, and the readjustment
of irrigation customs to meet the conditions imposed by
the pressure of population, extremely difficult. Efforts
to establish a plan of State supervision which would pro-
vide for the measuring of water and its just apportion-
ment among irrigates — a system which is the first and
last essential of peace and progress in an arid land — have
been repeatedly frustrated by the unreasoning jealousy
of the older settlers. This has occurred in spite of the
fact that the best local authority asserts that at least
seventy per cent, of the water supply is wasted under
present methods.

For fully forty years Utah irrigation was held in the
hands of small local companies composed exclusively of
the land-owners. Works were built by the common labor

171

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

of the community, and the repairs and improvements
made in the same way. The first important departure
from this policy came with the construction of the bold
and expensive canals of the Bear River Irrigation Com-
pany, which have reclaimed a large area lying between
the Great Salt Lake and the Idaho boundary. These
works also supply domestic water to the city of Ogden
and furnish power for electrical purposes. The Bear
river canal is one of the most notable works of en-
gineering in the United States, ranking at least second,
if not first, among irrigation systems in this respect.
Not far from two million dollars of eastern and foreign
capital is invested in the enterprise. The work ex-
hibits almost every phase of irrigation — engineering,
including canals cut into solid canyon walls, tun-
nelled through mountain sides, as well as iron flumes
and notable diverting dams. Other private water sys-
tems followed the Bear river development. The most
important of these are the storage enterprises at
Mount Nebo and in the neighborhood of Sevier lake.
Both of these utilize the flood waters of the Sevier
river, which is one of the largest streams in the
State.

No other community in the West will deal with more
interesting irrigation problems in the future than Utah.
The conflicts between the policies of public and private
ownership cannot be avoided, since both are represented
in systems which lie side by side. In districts where
settlement is furthest advanced and canal systems the
oldest, the crying necessity for the reconstruction of
works and the application of a rigid public supervision
must soon be answered. Coincident with the settle-

172

THE PLEASANT LAND OF UTAH

mcnfc of these questions will be the gradual evolution of
better agricultural and horticultural methods. The
next decade will inevitably see significant developments
in connection with the most important feature of Utah's
economic foundation.

CHAPTER IV
THE CRUDE STRENGTH OF IDAHO

Two travellers crossing Idaho on the same day, one by
the Northern Pacific and the other by the Oregon Short
Line, would receive quite opposite impressions of the
country. The one who had traversed its northern end
would think of Idaho as a land of dense forests mir-
rored in the surfaces of beautiful lakes, of narrow val-
leys presenting but meagre scope for agriculture, of
abundant verdure, and of Alpine scenery. These condi-
tions suggest nothing except the lumber-camp, the mine,
and the stock-range.

The traveller who crossed the southern part of the
State, on the other hand, would receive the impression
of an arid land, with wide stretches of valley and plain
covered with wild grasses or sage-brush, alternating with
curious formations of rock and lava. This traveller
would understand how a large agricultural population
may be maintained by turning the abundant water of the
streams upon the rich valley soils. Both of these im-
pressions of the resources of the great inland State of
the Pacific Northwest would be true, but either of them
taken alone, as is often done by travellers, would be
quite inadequate. The fact is that Idaho, perhaps even
more than other localities in the Far West, presents a

174

THE CRUDE STRENGTH OF IDAHO

marvellous diversity of soil, of climate, and of natural
endowments. This diversity must necessarily mark its
future industrial life and be reflected in the social side
of its civilization.

The first important item in the material wealth of
Idaho is its water supply. Along its eastern boundary
nature has piled up towering mountain-ranges, which re-
ceive an enormous snowfall. These mountains are cov-
ered with forests, ranking among the most magnificent
in the world, which treasure the snow within their som-
bre depths until the warm weather gradually sends it
down to streams which reach out through hundreds of
miles of lower valleys. The great river of Idaho is the
Snake, which deserves a better name in spite of its tortu-
ous meanderings. This is the largest tributary of the
Columbia, and drains a vast water-shed, beginning in the
Yellowstone Park of Wyoming and including all of
southern and much of western Idaho with eastern Ore-
gon and Washington. Along its course it receives nu-
merous minor streams which drain interior mountain sys-
tems. The Snake is nearly one thousand miles long and
so deep that in some places soundings of two hundred
arid forty feet have failed to find the bottom. While
incalculably valuable for irrigation, this is by no means
its only utility. It is navigable for one hundred and fifty
miles above its junction with Clarke's Fork in the north-
ern part of the State, and may sometime furnish a
water route to the Pacific Ocean through the Columbia.
It also has immense possibilities in the way of power,
which must some day be harnessed to electricity, moving
passengers and freight through the valleys, and perhaps
furnishing both light and heat to thousands of homes.

175

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

The most marvellous of these water-powers is furnished
by the Great Shoshone Falls, in the south-central por-
tion of the State. Here is a waterfall scarcely inferior
in power and grandeur to Niagara, and, like the latter,
destined to be an important economic factor in the re-
gion within its reach. The abundant water supply is
by no means limited to the splendid valleys in the
southern part of the State. It is found in hundreds
of mountain streams throughout the central portion, and,
in the narrow district which tapers northward to the Brit-
ish Columbia line, is so marked a feature of the land-
scape as to impress the most casual observer. Here
Clarke's Fork of the Columbia, draining the Bitter Root
mountains in western Montana, is a stream of noble
proportions. Lakes Pend Oreille and Coeur d'Alene
are among the most notable of inland waters, both in
beauty and extent. But these northern etreams will not
be used extensively for irrigation, as there is consider-
able rainfall and comparatively little agricultural land.
They are valuable, however, in connection with mining,
lumbering, and water-power.

The forest area of Idaho includes seven million acres,
and the principal native trees are fir, spruce of the
white, red, and black varieties, scrub oak, yellow and
white pine, mountain mahogany, juniper, tamarack,
birch, cottonwood, alder, and willow. Some of the
large forest regions, notably that of the Pend d'Oreille
in the north, are almost unexplored, and constitute the
wildest parts of the continent. Naturally, a country so
well wooded and watered is the home of fish and game
of the rarest kinds. The mineral resources are well dis-
tributed and diversified to the last degree. The annual

176

THE CRUDE STRENGTH OF IDAHO

output of precious metals varies from eight to eighteen
millions, though the industry is yet in its infancy.
Base metals, precious stones, and building material, in-
cluding fine marble, exist in abundance.

Idaho lies wholly in the temperate zone, yet its climate
presents a great variety of features. In the larger pro-
portion of its territory, which consists of mountains and
elevated valleys, the winter is a season of considerable
severity. Here the thermometer registers far below
zero, though the days are rendered comfortable by dry
atmosphere and abundant sunshine. In these higher al-
titudes, however, production is limited to hardy crops,
and runs largely to hay and grain, which finds a market
in the mining and lumbering camps and at the hands of
stockmen.

Southern and western Idaho are entirely different from
the eastern, central, and northern districts. The alti-
tude ranges from two thousand to four thousand feet,
and the climate admits of the production of delicate
fruits. In much of the Snake River Valley, and still
more notably in the numerous smaller valleys which
open into it, small farming and fruit-growing will as-
sume great proportions. Here the densest population
will be maintained and the finest institutions developed.
Typical districts of this sort are the valleys of the Boise,
of the Payette, and of the Weiser.

The most fatuous product of these charming districts
is the prune. The prunes of southern Idaho were
awarded the first prize at the World's Fair in 1893. Ap-
ples are also a most profitable crop. Twenty-three varie-
ties of Idaho apples surprised the eastern pomologists at
the Exposition. Professor L. H. Bailey, the horticult-
M 177

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

ural expert of Cornell University, recorded the fact that
the yellow Newtown pippin " is twice as large as the same
apple grown in the Hudson River Valley" of New York.
Such delicate fruits as apricots, peaches, and nectarines,
are successfully grown in the lower valleys of southern
Idaho.

While there are occasional instances of a temperature
twelve degrees below zero, the winter in this part of the
State is really short and mild, being influenced by the
Chinook winds, which make their way from the Pacific
over a distance of five hundred miles. Spring opens early
and is apt to be windy. The summer temperature is
high, though the nights are invariably cool. The almost
complete absence of rain between spring and late autumn
makes the best conditions for irrigation, though it also
involves dry roads and clouds of dust when the wind is
high. Of the healthfulness of Idaho it is enough to say
that it shows the smallest percentage of deaths of any
State or Territory in the Union. This is not only the
official record of the population as a whole, but it is the
showing of the army statistics, which furnish a better
test, because the conditions of life in that service are re-
markably even throughout the country.

The greatest irrigation development has occurred in the
upper Snake River Valley in the neighborhood of Idaho
Falls. Here over four hundred thousand acres of land
have been watered at a cost of more than a million dol-
lars. The chief crops are grain and alfalfa, the former
yielding from sixty to eighty bushels, the latter from
seven to ten tons per acre. Land sells for from twenty to
fifty dollars per acre with perpetual water-rights. The
large canals are owned by private companies and rep-

178

THE CRUDE STRENGTH OF IDAHO

resent eastern capital. Large private canals have also
been constructed in the lower valleys, the products of
which have already been referred to. These are in south-
western Idaho near the border of Oregon. Land is usually
more costly here than in the upper country, owing to the
more favorable climatic conditions and the better oppor-
tunities for small-farming. Prices range from forty to
one hundred dollars per acre as a rule. Farther down
on the Snake, in what is known as the "Lewiston Coun-
try," land which has recently been reclaimed from the
desert is held at one hundred dollars per acre. It is ex-
pected that a choice fruit district will be developed in
this locality, and cherries are put forward as the favorite
crop.

While the chief agricultural and horticultural districts
lie along the Snake river and its important tributaries,
the mountains of central Idaho are full of picturesque,
well-watered valleys. In some of these settlement has
been made for a generation, and the products are sold in
surrounding mining towns and stock ranches. The Nez
Perce Indian reservation is also a fertile and promising
country, though the Indians have been located in-sever-
alty on some of the most desirable lands which would
otherwise be open to settlers. A considerable locality in
the northern part of the State, known as the "Palouse
Country," is farmed in grain without irrigation. The
same is true of the Gammas Prairie, in one of the central
counties. But Idaho is substantially an arid region,
and its characteristic institutions are growing up where
irrigation has been supplied. The ultimate develop-
ment of its diversified resources will give it a many-sided
economic life.

179

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

" The Baby State " is a title conferred upon Idaho by
its World's Fair Commissioner, Captain James M. Wells,
in his official report. While it is not the latest acces-
sion to the Union, nor the smallest in population, there
is a certain element of just characterization in the
name, though it can be but temporary. The impression
which Idaho makes upon the observer is that of crude,
undeveloped strength. Utah is newer to statehood,
Nevada and Wyoming smaller in population, yet Idaho
seems more like a lusty infant than either of these. It
is such in the fact that its character is less fixed, and
that, the current of population which is to make its en-
during institutions has but begun to flow in upon the
fertile valleys which will dominate its life, because of
their capacity to sustain dense communities.

Already there have been four periods in the history of
Idaho. The first was that of the explorer, when Lewis
and Clarke, and later Bonneville, came to look over the
country and report upon its possibilities. The second
was that of the trapper, when the Hudson Bay Company
established its supremacy after a brief struggle with
American hunters. The third was that of the mission-
ary, who established the first feeble beginnings of civ-
ilization, then pushed westward for the historic conquest
of Oregon. The fourth was that of the miner, who
gained a lasting foothold in the mountains and along
the streams. The fifth era is now in progress, and has
been, after a fashion, since the early sixties. This is the
era of agricultural settlement and of town-building. It
amounted to little until the railways were built across
the northern and southern extremities of the State, and
until enterprise was attracted by the possibilities of irriga-

180

THE CRUDE STRENGTH OF IDAHO

tion. It is only in recent years that home-building, in.
the better sense of the term, has been seriously begun
in Idaho. All that went before was mere adventure,
whether inspired by religious zeal, by lust of gold, or by
the passion for national conquest.

The most notable colony yet made on the irrigated
lands of Idaho is that of New Plymouth, in the Payette
Valley, twelve miles from the town of Payette. This
colony, organized in the spring of 1895 by William E.
Smytho and Benjamin P. Shawhan, was intended to
represent a high social and industrial ideal. The initial
work of enlisting settlers and public interest for the un-
dertaking was done at Boston, with the aid of Dr. Ed-
ward Everett Hale and other prominent men, but most
of the actual colonists were from Chicago and the mid-
dle West. The pioneers of New Plymouth, who repre-
sented a rather unusual quality of settlers, were drawn
principally from urban business and professional life,
yet entered enthusiastically and successfully upon the
work of making homes on sage-brush lands twelve miles
from a railroad, in a remote and undeveloped part of
the West.

The Plymouth industrial programme aimed at com-
plete economic independence of the people by the simple
method of producing the variety of things consumed, on
small, diversified farms ; of having surplus products,
principally fruit, for sale in home and eastern markets ;
and by combining the capital of the settlers, by incor-
poration of a stock company, to own and develop the
town-site, and to erect and operate simple industries re-
quired in connection with products of the soil. On the v
social side the plan aimed to give these farmers the best

181

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

advantages of town life, or at least of neighborhood as-
sociation. This was accomplished by assembling the
houses in a central village, laid out, in accordance with
a beautiful plan, with residences grouped on an out-
side circle touching the farms at all points. This plan
brought the settlers close together on acre-lots — "home-
acres" — thus preventing isolation, and giving them the
benefit of school, church, post-office, store, library, and
entertainments.

The Plymouth settlers have been contented and pros-
perous from the first, and have had less than the usual
share of early trials and disappointments. They testify
that the social advantages of the colony plan, as com-
pared with the drawbacks of individual and isolated set-
tlement, are alone sufficient to warrant its use.

Each of the early sources of Idaho's growth left its
driftwood along the slender stream of the State's devel-
opment. The " old-timer " is an influential element in
its citizenship. Later comers, perhaps forgetting the
distance which has been covered since the days of the
primeval wilderness, and, in their impatience for prog-
ress, belittling the hardy heroism which made it pos-
sible, sometimes complain that the "old-timers" are con-
tent to live in the memory of "the early days" while
contributing little, either of enthusiasm or capital, to
further development. The obvious truth is that differ-
ent classes of people are required for different classes of
work. If the men who filled the role of pioneers are
not well suited by taste and temperament to solve the
problems involved in the evolution of a complex indus-
trial life, it is doubtless equally true that the element
which enters enthusiastically and intelligently upon this

182

THE CRUDE STRENGTH OF IDAHO

later work would not have dealt as successfully with the
harsher conditions of thirty years ago. It is true, how-
ever, that there are two well-defined classes in the citi-
zenship of Idaho, and that they represent different ways
of thinking. The steady growth of population must
soon give the supremacy to those who are trying to put
the farm in the place of the desert, to develop the best
methods of fruit - culture, to bring the irrigation sys-
tem under rigid public supervision, and to establish the
highest standards in political and social life.

Boise City, the capital and commercial centre of Idaho,
is somewhat smaller than the chief city of any other
western State. It is a beautiful town, on the river of the
same name, and is the seat of considerable wealth and of
growing refinement. In the long summer season it is
almost hidden among its trees, for the pioneers planted
liberally in this comfortable home-spot which they had
prepared for their old age.

The business and public buildings of Boise, as well as
many of its private residences, are examples of the best
modern architecture. The valley above the city has
been reclaimed by irrigation and is being gradually peo-
pled by small farmers. It is a fruit district of great
promise, and in time must become one of the most pop-
ulous and beautiful valleys in the arid region.

The other important towns of the southern part of
the State are Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Mountain Home,
Caldwell, Nampa, Payette, and Weiser. Most of these
are small, but important in view of the certain develop-
ment of the rich country which surrounds them. Lewis-
ton, in the north, lies in the heart of a fine territory, and
is the trading point for the Nez Perce Indian reservation.

183

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

Moscow is still farther north, and owes its prominence
to the presence of tho State university. Besides these
there are scores of important mining towns scattered
throughout the mountains, but mostly away from the
railroads. In town-building, as in the development of
all its other resources, Idaho has barely crossed the
threshold of its vast possibilities.

CHAPTER V

AKID WASHINGTON AND OREGON

To speak of Washington and Oregon as belonging to
the arid region is to challenge popular belief, which re-
gards these as lands of extensive rainfall. Even in the
Far West it is customary to speak of Oregonians as
" Webfeet," on account of the dampness of their cli-
mate. The fact is that there is rain enough in Oregon,
as there is wealth enough in New York, but that it is
not well distributed.

The annual precipitation along the coast of these
States ranges from sixty to one hundred and twenty
inches, and is the heaviest in the United States. In
the Puget Sound region, which is cut off from the coast-
line by a range of mountains, the rainfall is less, but
still so heavy as to make the climate distinctly humid.
The bulk of settlement has been in the extreme west,
and this fact accounts for the reputation of the country
as one of excessive rainfall. Nevertheless, about two-
thirds of these great States belong indisputably to the
arid region, and can only sustain a dense population
with the aid of irrigation. The singular contrast pre-
sented by such marked climatic differences is due to the
Cascade mountains, which form a barrier running north
and south, intercepting the moisture from, the Pacific

185

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

Ocean and decreeing that the western third of these
States shall have too much rain, while the eastern two-
thirds shall have too little.

The humid coast region is comparatively well settled
and in a condition of nourishing development. Port-
land, one of the most substantial of American cities, is
sustained by the trade of the interior, by manufactures
using the power of the Willamette river, and by a
growing commerce moved by railroads and shipping.
The cities of Puget Sound are younger and less firmly
established. While it is impossible that all of them
shall realize their early dreams of greatness, Seattle and
Tacoma have passed beyond the period of doubt, and
are clearly destined to be populous and powerful. The
Washington coast is marvellously rich in forests, which
creep down to the very edge of the Sound, and in other
forms of natural wealth which will contribute to the up-
building of manufactures and commerce. The growth
of centres of population between the Cascades and the
sea will have an important relation to the prosperity of
the much larger regions east of the mountains.

Not all of eastern Washington is worthless for agricult-
ure without irrigation. Large areas of rolling land are
farmed in wheat by dependence upon the rainfall. The
Big Bend and the Palouse countries are notable districts
of this kind. The high, rolling, bunch-grass hills on the
western side of the Columbia are so well adapted for
grazing as to be locally known as the " Horse - heaven
Country/' Along the northern line, running easterly t6
Idaho and covering a broad belt of territory, are rich
mineral and forest areas. But the future of eastern

186

ARID WASHINGTON AND OREGON

Washington, as a whole, hinges on the irrigation indus-
try. This will be the dependence for the support of a
dense population, and will have an important bearing on
the development of other resources.

The most important tracts of arid land lie in the
central part of the State. Perhaps no other locality in
the arid region of the West is so abundantly watered or
so richly favored in natural navigation facilities, though
rivers must be improved before they can reach their high-
est utility. The Columbia river, the Yakima, the Snake,
and the Wenatchee are the principal sources of water
supply, though these have numerous valuable tribu-
taries. The irrigable district is inclosed between the
Cascade and Bitter Root ranges, and the drainage from
these high mountains furnishes more water than can ever
be used to advantage.

The most important irrigation development thus far
accomplished is in the Yakima Valley. Here there are
nearly four hundred miles of canals, some of them very
large. The towns of North Yakima, Prosser, and Ellens-
burg are the chief points in the irrigated portions of the
valley. A number of canals have been constructed along
the Wenatchee river, and a promising development has
been begun on the plains of the Columbia, near its
junction with the Snake, in the neighborhood of Kenne-
wick and Pasco. A good beginning has also been made
on the Walla Walla river near the Oregon boundary,
and on the Snake river at the point where it flows out
of Idaho into the Lewiston country. For long dis-
tances both the Columbia and Snake flow through
deep channels, so that their abundant supplies can
be utilized only by pumping. As yet this has not

187

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

been extensively done, but doubtless will be in the
future.

The soil of arid Washington is generally a light, sandy
loam, or volcanic ash. Some portions of the river-bot-
toms have extensive tracts of dark alluvial soil, while in
other portions the soil is so sandy as to drift before the
wind. While alkali is frequently encountered in small
spots, the soil as a whole may be described as free of both
alkali and clay. Its depth and texture are such as to in-
sure good drainage, which is essential in connection with
irrigation. Rich in potash, lime, and phosphoric acid,
the soil should prove enduring, as it has already proven
extremely productive.

The climate is mild, though distinctly of the temperate
zone. The temperature sometimes goes as high as 108°
in summer days, and as low as zero in winter nights ; yet
the climate is not severe, in spite of these figures. The
rainfall varies in different localities. On the sage-brush
plains of the Columbia it averages only about six inches,
which is less than in any other part of the United States
except the extreme Southwest. The resulting dryness
robs the summer heat and the winter cold of their worst
effects. In the warmer part of the region snow falls
rarely and seldom remains on the ground more than
two or three days. Along the Columbia river ploughing
can be done almost continuously, while at the higher
elevations it is suspended from the middle of November
to the middle of February. Cyclones, tornadoes, and
blizzards are entirely unknown, and the frequent thun-
der-storms are so gentle as hardly to deserve the name.
There is more or less wind at all seasons of the year.
This is frequently strong enough to raise considerable

188

ARTESIAN WELL AT ZILLAH, WASHINGTON

ARID WASHINGTON AND OREGON

dust during the dry season, and wind and dust constitute
the disagreeable features of an otherwise delightful cli-
mate. There is probably no healthier region, nor one
better adapted to people suffering with throat and lung
troubles, than arid Washington.

The products comprise everything that grows in the
temperate zone, including the tender fruits, which are
here of great beauty and high flavor. The localities
where the Yakima, Snake, and Wenatchee rivers empty
into the Columbia furnish the earliest products, the sea-
son being fully a month more advanced than in the
humid parts of the State. For this reason rare oppor-
tunities are offered in the way of market-gardening,
which is an important consideration, as enabling settlers
to obtain an income before their trees come into bearing.

The markets open to the small farmers who settle upon
the irrigated lands of eastern Washington are extremely
fortunate. They include the rich and growing mining
districts of northern Idaho, of Montana, and of British
Columbia, as well as home markets in the northern and
western parts of the State. Nature has rather severely
limited the district which can produce the early fruits,
small fruits, and vegetables, while these mining regions
must always be large consumers, and can never hope to
supply themselves with early products. The improve-
ment of railroad facilities will enhance these advantages.
Strawberries, raspberries, cherries, pears, peaches, prunes,
and apples, as well as all vegetables, find ready sale at
high prices in these markets. The dairy industry is also
profitable.

Settlement on the irrigated lands of eastern Washing-
ton has only begun, and is still far behind canal-build-

189

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

ing. Lack of industrial organization has hindered the
prosperity of those who have come, and this in turn has
discouraged further settlement. Land prices range from
thirty to one hundred dollars per acre, with water-rights.
The smaller and earlier canals were built by co-operative
enterprise, but the larger and later ones represent invest-
ments of eastern and foreign capital. A beginning has
been made in the construction of public works by means
of the formation of irrigation districts under the State
law.

The most important city in eastern "Washington is Spo-
kane, which lies near the border of Idaho. This is sus-
tained by surrounding districts devoted to wheat-raising,
mining, lumbering, and stock industry. The fall in the
price of grain and horses has been a severe blow to the
producers, and marks a transition stage in the life of
the State. It will lead to the extension of irrigation, of
small farms, of -diversified production, and of co-opera-
tive industries. There is no more promising field for
the application of the most enlightened methods of colo-
nization than that offered by the rich and well -watered
valleys of arid Washington.

Arid Oregon includes two-thirds of the State, and re-
sembles its northern neighbor in many respects. It is
less generously endowed with water supplies, and has
been less fortunate in interesting capital in the construc-
tion of large irrigation works. There are, however, one
hundred and fifty thousand acres of irrigated land in
eastern Oregon, and it is estimated that this amount can
be multiplied from ten to twenty times. The country is
but sparsely settled, and has been mostly devoted to

190

ARID WASHINGTON AND OREGON

wheat and stock. The climate varies with the altitude,
and is similar to that of Washington and the lower parts
of Idaho. The rainfall is about fifteen inches, which is
not more than half enough for profitable agriculture.
There are no great extremes of either heat or cold.

The products are practically the same as those of
Washington, except that the earliest vegetables and
small fruits are more successfully cultivated in the low
valleys of the latter. Small-farming and fruit-culture
are successfully pursued wherever irrigation is provided.
Indeed, the contrast with the prosperity of those who
operate large farms in grain is very striking.

The writer recalls an experience in point. On one oc-
casion he rode for hours through miles of farms devoted
exclusively to wheat, which was raised at a loss, the
proprietors generally going into debt for vegetables,
poultry, and even dairy products, at the stores in the
county seat. Then at Pendleton, on the same day, he
inspected a little patch of irrigated ground — only three-
quarters of an acre in size — which furnished a family
with vegetables and small fruits, together with a sur-
plus to be disposed of at the store and sold again to the
thriftless farmers who raised only wheat. Here was a
single cherry-tree, the product of which sold in the mar-
ket for exactly the same price as the product of five acres
of wheat ! Ten or twenty acres of irrigated land in east-
ern Oregon are more valuable than twenty times as much
farmed in grain and sold at the prices prevailing during
the past few years. The little farm furnishes a certain
living, with a prospect of something more ; the large
farm means drudgery, debt, and very often ruin. These
economic facts having been clearly demonstrated to Ore-

191

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

gonians in recent years, irrigation has become an impor-
tant interest.

The State Commission, in its report to the National
Irrigation Congress of 1894, made a careful estimate of
the water resources of eastern Oregon. It was found
that in the extreme southwestern part of the arid dis-
trict, bordering the Cascade mountains, half a million
acres could be watered by using supplies impounded in
natural lakes, the most important of which are Upper
and Lower Klamath, Summer, Albert, Warner, Goose,
and Silver lakes. In the southeastern part of the State
forty thousand acres are already commanded by sixteen
irrigation canals. It was estimated that the irrigable
area could be increased as follows : In the Snake River
Valley, two hundred thousand acres; in the Malhuer
River Valley, two hundred thousand acres ; in the Wil-
low Creek Valley, one hundred and fifty thousand acres ;
in Bully Creek Valley, fifty thousand acres ; and in nu-
merous other valleys, fifteen thousand acres. It would
be necessary, however, to make provision for the storage
of water to effect this result.

The Umatilla river in northern Oregon is one of the
large tributaries of the Columbia. Here irrigation en-
terprise has been so active that at times more than the
total flow of the stream has been appropriated. As yet
most of the projected works have not been built, owing
to the difficulty of interesting capital during the hard
times. The region is fertile and picturesque, well sup-
plied with railroad outlets, and certain to be benefited in
time by improvements which will render the Columbia
river navigable to the sea. A large area can be brought
under irrigation, and the district seems likely to be the

192

ARID WASHINGTON AND OREGON

scene of the earliest colonization efforts. Still farther
west is the region watered by the Des Chutes and John
Day rivers. Here an area of two hundred miles in ex-
tent is susceptible of irrigation. The Hood river flows
through a country which is not entirely arid, but which
would be much improved by irrigation. The waters of
this stream are likely to be turned upon the land during
the next few years. Indeed, it seems probable that the
irrigation industry will be extended to the higher valleys
on the western slope, since the process has already begun
in a small way in the valleys of the Rogue and Willamette.
The irrigation systems already in operation in eastern
Oregon are generally applied chiefly to bottom and low-
lying lands immediately adjacent to the streams. Where
canals are extensive they are used for the production of
hay and grain as an adjunct to stock-raising. There are
a sufficient number of orchards and small farms to de-
monstrate the possibilities in this direction, but for the
most part eastern Oregon is undeveloped. It is within
bounds to say that it can readily make homes for a mill-
ion people when irrigation is applied to the best advan-
tage. The first impulse of a new era had begun to be felt
in 1890, and rose rapidly until the panic of 1893. This
impulse must again assert itself powerfully, and it seems
not unlikely that this will happen during the next few
years.

CHAPTER VI
THE POTENTIAL GREATNESS OF NEVADA

No other State has been so bitterly derided as Nevada.
It has been asserted that the silver mines which made it
all it was are exhausted; that it has no other mineral
wealth ; that it has no agricultural resources ; that it has
nothing to attract people, and that as a consequence it is
"flickering out." These statements have found wide
acceptance, and as a result newspapers and public men
have seriously discussed propositions to deprive Nevada
of its Senators, or to merge it into Utah, or otherwise to
degrade it from its present place of statehood.

All these charges are untrue. Potentially, Nevada is
one of the greatest States in the Union. It would be
difficult to name one commonwealth east of the Missis-
sippi river which surpasses it in physical endowments,
and it even ranks well in this respect among the other
States of the Far West, which it resembles in climate,
soil, and variety of resources. It is true that Nevada has
lost population since the decline of the great excitement
on the Comstock lode, but it is not true that this decline
is due to the fact that the State has not the raw materials
of a rich, populous, and powerful community. The
proper prescription for the economic ills of Nevada is not
degradation, but development.

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POTENTIAL GREATNESS OF NEVADA

The silver mines which chiefly contributed to its pros-
perity in the past were principally those of the famous
Comstock lode, which produced more than $500,000,000
in precious metals ; of Eureka, $125,000,000 ; of Austin,
$36,000,000; of Lincoln county, $30,000,000 ; of Esmer-
alda county, $20,000,000 ; of Elko county, $10,000,000.
There were many other camps of lesser moment.

Now, it is perfectly true that the extraction of such
vast amounts wrought material changes in the character
of some of these mines, notably of the Comstock. It by
no means follows, however, that the deposits of ore have
been "exhausted." The richer ores were utilized at a
time when silver commanded a high price and when
economy in milling was not important. But it may be
asserted upon the best authority that even the mines of the
Comstock, some of which have been worked to a depth of
three thousand feet, possess wellnigh unlimited quanti-
ties of ore running from $6 to $15 per ton, and that un-
der more favorable conditions for silver mining the fa-
mous lode would perhaps duplicate its peerless record of
the past. It is not likely that fabulous profits will ever
again be realized. It is certainly not to be desired that
the old romance of life in Virginia City, with its hot
fever of speculation, its glittering successes, and its tragic
disappointments, should be repeated. But though the
bonanza days are of the past, the better days of sober
industrial development are of the future. This state-
ment applies yet more forcibly to other old camps.

With few exceptions, deep-mining has not been pur-
sued. Only the richer ores near the surface have been
utilized, and these by expensive processes and at high
cost of transportation. Eureka, Austin and Tuscarora,

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THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

and the districts in Lincoln and Esmeralda counties —
all great producers in the past — are yet rich in silver ore
averaging $8 to $20 per tern. Not only are the old camps
far from " exhausted/' but the undeveloped resources in
this direction are far from explored. It is not denied
by any one that admittedly great silver camps in Utah,
in Colorado, in Idaho, and in Montana, have been com-
pelled to cease operation partially or completely as a
result of the depression of prices. The same is true of
Nevada, but she also labors under peculiar disadvantages
in the lack of transportation facilities. In the extreme
southern counties mines have to ship ore to the reduc-
tion works at Salt Lake City at a cost of $15 per ton.
There are other localities where the transportation
charge ranges from $20 to $100 per ton, and where great
ore bodies carrying $30 to $60 per ton in precious
metals lie unworked in consequence. The prostration
of the silver industry in Nevada is due to a number of
causes, but the fact that the " silver mines which made
her all she was have been exhausted " is not one of them,
since it exists only in the imagination of those who know
not whereof they speak.

The statement that Nevada "has no other mineral
wealth " is equally wide of the truth. The actual extent
and value of such resources in any country cannot be
known in advance of thorough development, but the
amazing variety of Nevada's natural endowments is a
fact which no well-informed person ventures to dispute.
Calling the roll of the fourteen counties, we may see
that nearly all answer to the truth of this claim.

Elko, in the extreme northeastern corner of the State,
where the railroad traveller enters from Utah, yielded

19G

POTENTIAL GREATNESS OF NEVADA

placer-gold to the earliest prospectors of the Great Basin,
and has gold ledges of promising extent and value which
are now being carefully explored. Humboldt, central
on the northern boundary, presents as great a variety of
resources as any district in the United States. Besides
silver, it possesses gold, copper, lead, tin, iron, anti-
mony, nickel, cobalt, bismuth, nitre, sulphur, gypsum,
borax, soda, and salt. Coarse gold to the value of sev-
eral millions has been taken from its placer and gravel
mines. Gypsum is shipped to San Francisco for fertil-
izer. Near Lovelock, in this county, are great hills of
fine bessemer iron ore, yielding eighty-six per cent, of iron
and twelve per cent, of aluminum, with no trace of im-
purities. Eureka county, in the central part of the State,
has many mines in which gold predominates, besides large
deposits of magnetic iron ore, of lead, of granite and
other building stones. Lander, adjoining Eureka on
the west, has valuable undeveloped gold deposits and
the richest mines of antimony in the world. Of the
western counties, Washoe reports recent discoveries of
gold, copper, and iron ; Douglas, quartz and placer-gold ;
Lyon, mines which run high in gold, with but little sil-
ver; Churchill, gold, copper, and other minerals; while
Storey contains the Comstock. Esmeralda, bordering
California on the extreme southwest, is very rich in
gold - bearing quartz, and is being actively developed.
Lincoln and Nye, the two great counties of the south,
have gold, copper, lead, antimony, zinc, quicksilver,
fire-clay, chalk, soapstone, borax, and alum. In Lin-
coln there is a deposit of zinc, estimated to be worth
several millions, which cannot be worked because of lack
of transportation facilities. There are hills of salt, the

197

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

product of which commands locally but $1 per ton, owing
to its inaccessibility, though other localities in the State
pay $20 to $40 per ton for a similar product. White
Pine county, along the eastern boundary, has extensive
gold placers.

Finally, there is a large deposit in Elko county of
something which is said never to have been discovered
elsewhere — mineral soap, superior in cleansing virtues to
any of the manufactured varieties known to the students
of modern advertising. As the country was principally
occupied by Piute Indians, the deposit remained undis-
turbed for nameless centuries. But it was exhibited at
the World's Fair, where, it is feared, it added nothing
to Nevada's fame. The thing was so palpably and un-
mistakably the perfection of toilet articles that it over-
taxed eastern credulity, and was quietly set down as a
larger piece of mendacity than of soap.

It is further charged that Nevada " has no agricultural
resources." Of all arraignments, this is the most mis-
taken and unjust, yet it is the one which will find readi-
est credence by those who know the State only through
the experience of a restless day's travel by railroad across
its waste of sage-brush, of sunshine, and of dust. The
more need, then, for its emphatic refutation, for there
are millions of Nevada acres which might answer the cry
of thousands of homeless men.

The territorial grandeur of the battle-born common-
wealth is not a matter of dispute. In the East it would
fill a space from central Pennsylvania to Georgia, and
from Delaware Bay to Ohio. But as Nevada is very arid,
having but ten inches of rainfall, and but little of that in
the growing season, the extent of the water supply is the

198

POTENTIAL GREATNESS OF NEVADA

measure of its capacity to support population. Upon
the all - important subject of the water supply of an
arid and half-explored country authorities seldom agree.
They cannot do so in advance of thorough scientific in-
vestigation, especially where the dependence is largely
upon flood waters, springs, and artesian wells. But the
most painstaking and systematic inquiry ever made into
this branch of Nevada's resources resulted in the con-
clusion that at least six million acres of rich soil could
be irrigated.

Such was the report of a State Commission, appointed
under the auspices of the Irrigation Congress in 1893, of
which the late Governor John E. Jones was chairman
and L. E. Taylor, C. E., secretary. The material for
the report was gathered with the assistance of sub-com-
mittees in every county, and the conclusions undoubt-
edly represent the best judgment of practical men inti-
mately acquainted with the subject in its local details.
The estimate is based on the use of storage reservoirs
and the development of springs and artesian basins, as
well as upon the surface supplies more readily to be cal-
culated. The commission reported twenty lakes and
sixteen rivers of importance. Of the utility of the lat-
ter, it said that the Carson, Walker, and Truckee, flow-
ing eastward from the Sierras, would irrigate in Nevada
one million acres ; the Humboldt, another million ; the
Salmon, Bruneau, and Owyhee, in the extreme north-
east, four hundred thousand; the Quinn, which de-
scends from its Oregon sources into Nevada, one hun-
dred and seventy-five thousand ; the Virgin, on the ex-
treme southeast, one hundred thousand. Minor rivers
and a multitude of flowing springs were counted availa-

199

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

ble for the reclamation of two million four hundred
thousand acres, while the artesian supplies were relied
upon to bring the total for the State to at least six
million acres.

The authors of these conclusions, among the most re-
sponsible men in the State, declare them to be well within
the bounds of conservatism. For the present purpose,
however, the figures may be reduced two-thirds, and
still leave an ample foundation for population in Nevada.
Two States which no one dreams of expelling from the
Union are Colorado and Utah. The splendid agricult-
ural prosperity of those arid commonwealths is based
on a cultivated area of only about two million acres.
There is no excuse for assuming that with a reasonable
development of her resources, mineral and manufactur-
ing as well as agricultural, Nevada could not sustain at
least as many people as do Utah and Colorado in their
present condition of partial development. Neither of
those States has begun to approach the full realization
of its possibilities, though even now they maintain a
combined population of about three-quarters of a million.
This figure is a low estimate of Nevada's capacity in
that direction.

The products of the irrigated lands of Nevada are the
fruits, vegetables, cereals, and grasses of the temperate
zone, and, in the extreme southern portions, the more
delicate fruits of the semi-tropics. Average crops are
thirty-five bushels of wheat per acre, sixty bushels of
barley, seventy-five bushels of oats, three hundred bush-
els of potatoes, and four to eight tons of alfalfa, which is
the leading forage grass. In the extreme southern coun-
ties, where the altitude is but four hundred feet above

200

POTENTIAL GREATNESS OF NEVADA

sea-level, and where the warm breath of the Gulf of Cali-
fornia is received through the canyons of the Colorado
river, figs, olives, pomegranates, almonds, English wal-
nuts, and, in sheltered places, even oranges, may be pro-
duced, according to the testimony of old residents. The
climate of Nevada, as the products would indicate, covers
a wide range. Like all parts of the arid region, it is dis-
tinguished by pure, dry air, an extraordinary amount of
sunshine, and consequently a very high degree of health-
fulness. It is a climate fit to breed a robust and vigor-
ous race.

These are not the popular impressions of Nevada, but
the traveller who has left his hot and dusty car to breathe
the cool fragrance of the little oasis at Humboldt, to
walk for a few moments within the shade of its trees,
and to hear the music of its waters, should not hesitate,
to accept them as true. The little patch of green which
a hill-side spring has spoken into being here is a sample
of what millions of desert acres will become. Farther
on the traveller catches a twilight glimpse of the thriv-
ing farms of Lovelock or of the green Truckee mead-
ows. But the larger examples of irrigation lie off the
beaten path. Such an instance is the Carson Valley,
hidden between the sheltering shoulders of the Sierras.
To appreciate the possibilities of this derided State, the
critic should visit that valley in the perfect Nevada
spring-time, and look upon its farms, its homes, and its
villages. There he would behold a memorable picture of
thrift, of beauty, and of peace, from the white blossoms
in the door-yards to the white summits of the mountains.
And there he might read the true prophecy of Nevada's
future.

201

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

If, then, this State is "flickering out/' it is emphati-
cally not due to the fact that it "has nothing to attract
people/' Resembling Utah and, less closely, Colorado
in climate and resources, there are reasons which account
for its poverty of population and backwardness of devel-
opment in comparison with those growing States. It is,
perhaps, worth while briefly to review them.

The men made rich by the mines of Colorado had the
gratitude and patriotism to spend their money where
they made it. Tabor gave Denver its first important im-
pulse by erecting splendid buildings as monuments to his
faith in the city's future. Hagerman planted the Mid-
land Railway on the Continental Divide, and invested
millions in reclaiming arid lands tributary to Colorado
commerce. General Palmer, the railroad pioneer, found-
ed Colorado Springs, encouraged improvements in every
direction, and built his home in the State which had re-
warded his daring enterprise. Such was the spirit of
most of the successful Coloradans towards the country
which gave them their opportunities. The wealth taken
from the mines and railroads of Nevada, on the other
hand, contributed nothing to the embellishment of its
cities or the conquest of its waste-places. It went to
build palaces in San Francisco, New York, and London,
and to increase the social gayety of Newport and Paris.
It would not be just to infer that the difference in the
attitude of the two sets of millionaires was wholly due
to their individual characteristics. Circumstances had
much to do with it, notably the fact that in Nevada the
mining industry was mostly concentrated in a single
great camp, which enhanced its speculative character,
and the fact that the superlative attractions of California

202

POTENTIAL GREATNESS OF NEVADA

lay within a few hours' ride of Virginia City. But the
difference, nevertheless, wrought momentous results in
the fortunes of States.

The railroad situation is another important factor in
the backwardness of Nevada. Whenever a single rail-
road controls the inlet and outlet of a State, the indus-
trial and commercial destinies of that State are, to a large
extent, committed to the keeping of that railroad. These
facts are further emphasized when it happens that the rail-
road runs through agricultural territory and possesses a
land grant covering every other section for a distance of
twenty miles on both sides of the track. Development
necessarily hinges on the policy of the railroad, both as
to rates and as to the encouragement of enterprise. The
only alternative is to build a competing line, and this is
extremely difficult if the construction of the first has
not resulted in the development of the country and the
growth of its population. Nevada in a flourishing con-
dition would invite competition not merely for its own
business, but also for the rich spoil of California's traffic.
Nevada as a stretch of hopeless desert, on the other
hand, constitutes a perfect insurance against competi-
tion for the larger prize on the farther side of the
Sierras. It has not been the policy of the Central
Pacific to make this "risk" extra-hazardous, or to in-
crease its cost, by developing the territory between Utah
and California. It is sometimes charged that the Cen-
tral Pacific is distinctly hostile to Nevada. The prob-
able truth is that, having the interest of their whole great
system to consider, the managers arrange their policies
according to the dictates of shrewd business sense, and
that Nevada has merely the ill- for tune to be pinched in

203

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

the process. If it would have paid the Central Pacific
better to develop the State than to let it remain a wil-
derness, it would have been developed. Just criticism
should be directed to the system which permits the pri-
vate ownership of public highways, and not against indi-
viduals, since human nature is everywhere much alike.

Utah was developed without the aid either of rail-
roads or millionaires, but Utah has had a colonization
policy from the beginning down to the present hour. If
Brigham Young had not recalled his colonists from
the valleys of the Carson, the Walker, and the Truckee
during the fifties, no one would now complain of de-
creasing population — a sin never charged against the
Mormons. The difference between the sister States of
the Great Basin is not an affair of raw materials. It is
the difference between the results of speculative mining,
on one hand, and of the patient development of agricult-
ural resources by methods of sober industry, on the
other.

Nevada is the victim of circumstances. Rich in the
potentialities of material greatness, and therefore strong
in the capacity to support a social structure, it presents
the baffling paradox of declining population- in a west-
ern State. If it were located in South Africa, the na-
tions of Europe would plot and struggle for possession of
its minerals, lands, and waters ; if in New South Wales,
the colonial government would employ the public capi-
tal to reclaim its deserts and to enable the surplus popu-
lation of Adelaide to make homes upon its soil ; if in
Germany, the Imperial government would charter "rent
banks " to operate under a commission in preparing the
land for settlement and building humble houses, to be

204

POTENTIAL GREATNESS OF NEVADA

purchased by home-seekers on generous terms ; if in Hol-
land, the servants of the little Queen would extend the
admirable colonies which have nourished for seventy-five
years, graduating thousands of needy men from beggary
to tenantry, from tenantry to proprietorship. But Ne-
vada is in the United States, and the remedy for its mis-
fortune is — to deprive it of its Senators !

If anything is to be done for Nevada the impulse must
come from without. Ninety-five per cent, of her great
area is public land and the property of the nation. The
present land laws were made in ignorance of the con-
ditions imposed by aridity, and are practically unsuited
for any honest and intelligent purpose of home-making.
The citizenship of the State is composed of miners, who
care nothing for agricultural expansion ; of farmers, who
are not anxious to foster competition ; of stockmen, who
want undisturbed possession of water privileges for their
herds ; and of merchants and professional men who are
helpless to turn the wheel of progress. Congressman
Newlands made an elaborate effort to awaken interest in
irrigation development a few years ago, offering to back
it with his large means, but it came to nothing because of
public indifference and subtle opposition. The same con-
ditions prevented the strong effort of the late Governor
Jones — a man who had the progress of his State deeply at
heart — from reforming the water laws and providing an
irrigation administrative system. It would not be diffi-
cult to suggest palliative policies which would help to
turn the tide in the right direction. For instance, cer-
tain favored districts might be withdrawn from settlement
under present laws, and granted under special induce-
ments to organizations like the Salvation Army, or Com-

205

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

mancler Booth's Volunteers, who might reclaim and
colonize them in co-operation with philanthropic persons.
But the truth is that Nevada's decadence is due to
economic evils common to the arid region — to evils which
call for deeper and broader measures than can be applied
to any single locality.

CHAPTER VII
WYOMING, LAW-GIVER OF THE ARID REGION

A SINGLE railroad traverses the length of Wyoming,
taking the traveller through that portion of the State
possessing the least attractions in the way of scenery and
development. As a consequence, thousands of people
who have made the transcontinental journey think of
this new commonwealth as a barren wilderness of withered
grass and stunted sage-brush, with an abundance of
rugged mountain views along its southern horizon, but
without visible means of support for population save a few
cheerless trading towns and grimy coal-mining camps.
These tourists find the altitude disagreeably high and the
atmosphere generally chilly, if not cold. They behold no
cultivated fields, no homes framed in trees and vines ;
hence do not marvel that the population of this vast
State is no larger than that of fourth-class cities in the
East.

Spite of this popular prejudice, which may hardly be
complained of as unreasonable, Wyoming is a very great
State in its natural resources, and must some day sustain
a population as large as that of Ohio and Illinois. If
its first railroad had penetrated its central or northern
counties it would even now be as celebrated and as pop-
nlous as Colorado. Because of its stores of coal and

207

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

petroleum it is frequently called the " Pennsylvania of
the West." Its deposits of both base and precious metals
are extensive and widely diffused,, though the present
output is small, owing to the cost of transportation and
the fact that mining capital and enterprise have been at-
tracted elsewhere by the greater fame of other localities.
It is well endowed with forests and blessed with the no-
blest scenery, of which the far-famed grandeurs of the
Yellowstone Park furnish the best example. But its
greatest resources are those of water and of land. It is
estimated that not less than ten million acres of fertile
land may be reclaimed by irrigation. Distributed rather
evenly through different portions of the State, and sur-
rounded by the wealth of mine, forest, water-power, and
natural pastures, this irrigable land will furnish the solid
foundation of a great and manifold economic life in fut-
ure centuries.

The great industry of Wyoming from the time of its
first settlement has been stock-raising. Its agriculture
has been mostly auxiliary to this. Herds of horses,
cattle, and sheep are grazed upon the enormous free
pasture or range from spring to autumn, and then fed
upon the native or alfalfa hay raised in the irrigated
valleys. This industry has been the source of local pros-
perity and enlisted great sums of eastern and foreign
capital. It is a pursuit which does not develop the
higher possibilities of the country, either in a material
or social way, and so long as its influence strongly domi-
nated the life of the community Wyoming did not fur-
nish an attractive field for settlers. There was a time
when prominent men actually deprecated the growth of
population, and boldly asserted that brute cattle were

208

WYOMING, LAW-GIVER OF ARID REGION

more to be welcomed than men, women, and children in
that sparsely settled empire. In the last few years, how-
ever, the tendency of public thought and political action,
consequently of development, has been distinctly away
from barbarism and towards civilization.

What is rather grotesquely known as " The Rustlers'
War " of 1892 had much to do with the changed con-
ditions. Properly speaking, it was not a war, but a raid,
which ended disastrously so far as its immediate purpose
was concerned. Individuals and companies owning large
herds of horses and cattle had suffered repeatedly from
the depredations of thieves or "rustlers." They had
often apprehended the culprits and sought by every
means in their power to punish them through the courts.
But the cases were tried in counties where public sen-
timent strongly opposed the great cattle-owners. The
result was that no jury could be found to convict. After
a long and exasperating experience of this kind the
large stock interests determined to try a heroic remedy.
They fitted out an expedition, consisting mostly of rough
characters from Texas, and thoroughly armed it, even a
Gatling gun being included in its equipment. The ex-
pedition was led by prominent and wealthy citizens and
accompanied by a young English lord in search of a new
sensation.

A considerable number of " rustlers," who were settlers
living in lonely places with small bands of cattle or horses,
were marked for "removal," or, plainly speaking, for
murder. The expedition set out blithely enough, har-
boring no doubts of its complete success and not dream-
ing that any obstacle could be interposed to its formi-
dable array. The first two "rustlers" encountered were
o 209

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

fonnd conveniently at their cabin doors and promptly
despatched, though they died with their guns in their
hands and were able to make a feeble response to the
overwhelming numbers. But beyond these two assassi-
nations the expedition was unsuccessful. The small
settlers throughout the region were in sympathy with the
men marked for death. The news of the "invasion"
spread with incredible swiftness, and before the expedition
could reach the homes of other intended victims the
" rustlers" and their farmer allies, under the aggressive
leadership of Jack Flagg — a noted character in the neigh-
borhood— rallied in large numbers. They surrounded
the "invaders" at a farm-house, and would have exter-
minated them to the last man except for the timely ar-
rival of a troop of United States cavalry from the nearest
fort. After several months of delay, the powerful politi-
cal influence of those who had organized the expedition
succeeded in setting its members free without serious
punishment.

Public opinion differed much as to the justice of this
bold effort to dispose once and for all of the annoying and
costly evil of cattle - thieves. By some it was regarded
as the irrepressible conflict between the irrigated farm
and the free range. These thought that the real animus
of the affair lay not in the just complaint against a few
thieves, but in the fixed determination of those who
profited from the unrestricted use of the public lands to
prevent, at any cost, further settlement by honest farmers.
On the other hand, there were many good citizens, men
who had not hesitated to risk their fortunes in construct-
ing irrigation works for the very purpose of opening
certain valleys to settlement, who did not hesitate to

210

WYOMING, LAW-GIVER OF ARID REGION

defend the expedition as the only possible means of end-
ing an intolerable condition in the State. The writer

o

has taken pains to gather testimony years after the
event, when angry passions had wholly passed away, and
found excellent evidence of the fact that those who were
selected for extermination at the hands of the " invad-
ers" were actually cattle - thieves ; that it was clearly
impossible either to end the evil or to stop its growth by
appeal to the courts; and that farmers who settled in
good faith were never molested by the large stock in-
terests.

However, the political control of Wyoming speedily
changed hands as the result of this dramatic episode.
The party in power at the time of the event was voted
into retirement, and the party which denounced the
" invasion" as a savage and unmanly attempt to make
widows and orphans of the wives and children of those
who honestly sought homes in the public domain was
installed in the Capitol at Cheyenne. The probable
truth of the matter is that wealthy cattlemen had a real
grievance which they could not adjust peacefully with-
out years of patient waiting. They felt perfectly justi-
fied in their consciences in resorting to violence. They
believed the result would be favorable to the prosperity
and good name of the State. This actually proved to be
the case, but in a very different way from what they had
anticipated. It drew attention in a startling manner to
certain evils inseparable from the open range and put
these evils on the road to ultimate settlement through
Congressional action. It broke the power of what was
doubtless justly known as "The Cattle Ring" in State
politics. It gave an impulse to better forms of develop-

211

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

ment and a healthier tone to public thought. Above
all, it taught the men of the frontier the great lesson
that this is a government of laws and institutions, and
that nothing is to be gained in the end by resorting to
violence, at least when nothing more precious to human-
ity than the ownership of dumb brutes is the issue in-
volved.

The irrigation development of Wyoming is distributed
over a wide area. As has already been said, it has grown
up mostly as an adjunct to the cattle business. The
water supply is very abundant, and admitted of the con-
struction of many cheap canals by settlers, without the
assistance of outside capital. Grass, grain, and vege-
tables are the principal crops, but the State annually
sends from half a million to one million dollars beyond
its borders for agricultural products. This is due in
part to the fact that the chief farming centres are wide-
ly separated from the principal towns and not connected
with them by railroads. It is due also to the fact that
small-farming has not yet been undertaken to any extent,
and that farmers produce mostly only what they can feed
to cattle or sell to others having cattle to feed.

The most active agricultural region is in the north-
central portion of the State, in Johnson and Sheridan
counties. It was from this district that the marvellous
wheat, barley, and oats were sent to the World's Fair at
Chicago — products which astonished Eastern farmers and
won the highest prizes. Here, as indeed throughout the
State, the farmers are highly prosperous. They have
never known the miseries of their drought - stricken
neighbors so close at hand in Nebraska and Dakota.
Selling their product at home, they have not felt the bur-

212

WYOMING, LAW-GIVER OF ARID REGION

den of transportation charges, nor had their prices much
reduced by the glut of cereals in the world's market.

The earliest irrigation work of great importance was
that at Wheatland, sixty-five miles north of Cheyenne.
This was undertaken by local capitalists, headed by
ex -Senator Carey. After surviving many difficulties, it
has at length entered upon a period of real prosperity
and created the finest agricultural colony in the State.
It is interesting to note that many of its people repre-
sent the overflow of the famous Greeley Colony in neigh-
boring Colorado. Although less than a generation from
its founding, Greeley already has surplus people to send
forth for the conquest of waste places a little farther
off.

The most notable recent enterprise in Wyoming is that
undertaken in the Big Horn Basin by the famous scout
William F. Cody, familiarly known as "Buffalo Bill."
This energetic and ambitious man, who has twice won
fame — first as a daring and successful scout, and then
as exhibitor to two continents of the life, people, and
customs of the Wild West — is laying broad and deep the
foundations of a stronger claim to remembrance. He
conceived the idea of planting civilization in one of the
wildest regions which he had first known as hunter and
Indian-fighter. The money which the public has poured
into the coffers of his Wild West Show, Cody has used in
reclaiming and colonizing two hundred thousand acres
in the valley of the Shoshoue river in northern Wyo-
ming, twenty to sixty miles from the Montana line and
immediately east of Yellowstone Park. The altitude
here is only about four thousand feet, and the climate
suited to the production of diversified crops, including

213

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

hardy fruits. It is also the finest of cattle countries,
and is surrounded by an abundance of mineral and tim-
ber. Its products find ready sale in the large and grow-
ing mining-camps of the neighborhood, as well as of Mon-
tana. In time the region must acquire a large popula-
tion and support a many-sided industrial life. It will
be a very substantial monument to William F. Cody and
his work for the West.

Wyoming possesses a distinction entirely apart from
its rich endowment of mineral resources and different
from that of any of its sister commonwealths. It is rec-
ognized as the law-giver of the arid region. It is the
State which has contributed most to working out the
legal institutions on which a great future civilization will
rest throughout western America. In this respect its
position of leadership is alike unapproached and un-
challenged.

Those who live in the humid portions of the United
States cannot realize the full significance of this 'fact.
In the arid West water is gold. The struggle for its
possession has been marked by dramatic interest and even
pathos, wholly apart from its economic character. In-
deed, the control of water for irrigation is so inter-
woven with the existence and well-being of society in
the West that it may almost be said to include every
human interest. Men may own estates of equal size and
fertility lying side by side. The one who came earliest
claims the water supply, which may be barely sufficient
for his own land. With this water supply he makes his
place blossom with large and regular crops, and is rich.
His neighbor, with the same kind of soil and climate, is
doomed to perpetual poverty. Water has made all the

214

WYOMING, LAW-GIVER OF ARID REGION

difference between success and failure — between plenty
and starvation. Under these conditions it becomes a
matter of the highest possible moment to provide for the
just distribution and the economical and proper use of
so much water as may be* available. In the arid region
as a whole there is at least five times as much land as
water for its reclamation. There are certain valleys
where the water supply is more than sufficient for the
amount of land it can command, but these are rare ex-
ceptions.

It would be natural to suppose that the first object of
western statesmanship would have been to provide laws
and methods of administration calculated to conserve
and protect the water supply, to the end that it might be
used for the greatest good of the greatest number. No
perfection of laws which a State may confer upon its citi-
zens in any other respect can make amends for any in-
justice it may inflict, by acts either of commission or
omission, in connection with this most precious of all
natural gifts. Of land, minerals, timber, sunshine, and
air there is plenty and to spare; of water there is lit-
tle enough, even in the early stages of settlement, and its
value must increase with the gain in population. It is
true public policy — aye, the very measure of the growth
and wealth of communities — to have the water so granted
and so applied that it may serve for the permanent rec-
lamation of the utmost acre of land ; for the building
of the utmost home; for the sustenance of the utmost
family.

Our statesmanship failed almost entirely to take into
account this most vital concern of western civiliza-
tion. It imposed upon the arid region the common laws

215

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

of England, framed for a country which needs drainage
rather than irrigation, and suffers from too great an
abundance of water in the clouds above and the earth
beneath. The result has been the most disheartening
struggle among farmers and settlers which could be im-
agined. Lawyers have grown rich upon it, but the pro-
ducing classes have been impoverished, and the men of
enterprise who sought to broaden the foundation for civ-
ilized society in our western valleys have been discour-
aged and driven out of business. Stream after stream
has been appropriated over and over again, and, in com-
pliance with stupid laws, courts have calmly confirmed
grants to water aggregating many times the entire vol-
ume in the channel. Then they have left the farmers
to fight it out among themselves, sometimes with rival
attorneys, sometimes with shot-guns. Cases have gone
from court to court, and the same issues have been tried,
retried, and tried again. Litigants defeated upon these
trials have ignored judicial decisions and taken out their
neighbors' head-gates and dams in defiance of injunc-
tions and decrees. So the battle has gone on from year
to year, with victory at last for those who could longest
withstand the drain for legal expenses.

This was the condition in Wyoming when Elwood
Mead came upon the scene and assumed the duties of
Territorial Engineer. A native of Indiana, he had
moved to Colorado in earliest manhood and was at once
attracted by the irrigation possibilities of the country,
in which he saw opportunities for usefulness and dis-
tinction. He served for a time as a member of the
faculty of the Agricultural College of Colorado, and
there learned the science of irrigation in its relation to

216

WYOMING, LAW-GIVEE OF ARID REGION

the growth of crops. He also became an assistant in
the office of State Engineer, which gave him an insight
into water laws and practice. The moment of his arrival
in Wyoming was most fortunate. The Territory was
about to become a State, and its fundamental laws and
institutions were to bo made out of hand. The young
engineer had already formed strong convictions as to the
laws which should govern the appropriation and use of
the water supply. These convictions he succeeded in im-
pressing upon the work of the Constitutional Conven-
tion, and, later, upon the acts of the Legislature. He
became the first State Engineer of Wyoming, and suc-
ceeding Governors kept him in office, with the strongest
public approval, until the Agricultural Department at
Washington called him into its service in order that his
abilities and experience might be applied in a wider
sphere.

Mr. Mead insisted that with tho birth of the new
State every old water-right should be adjudicated upon
the basis of the amount of water actually applied to a
beneficial use. It mattered not how much the appro-
priator had originally claimed by posting a notice on the
bank of the stream and placing it upon the county rec-
ords. He may have claimed ten times the amount of
water he put upon his land, and so prevented others from
obtaining it to develop new farms. Or he may have put
upon his land twice as much water as the crop really
required. Whether he did this through ignorance or
through greed was of no consequence, since the result
was equally detrimental to the community in either
case. By means of this vigorous action the evil which
has caused so much suffering and cost so much money

217

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

in other western States was cured at a stroke in Wy-
oming.

The State Engineer then proceeded as rapidly as pos-
sible to measure every stream used for irrigation, and to
prepare diagrams showing their flow at different seasons
of the year. When new appropriations were filed, these
diagrams and records became very useful, as showing
the amount of water unused and therefore available for
the needs of new settlers. Thus there was no danger
that more water would be granted away than flowed in
the stream, which is the ridiculous condition in many
other localities. The same rule was applied to the en-
largement of old canals. Such enlargements could not
be made without the consent of State authority, and be-
fore this would be given it must be demonstrated that
there was actually a surplus in the stream to fill the en-
larged canal.

Elsewhere reservoirs, dams, and canals are construct-
ed without any public supervision. In Wyoming all
plans and specifications must first be submitted to the
State Engineer, in order that he may judge as to whether
they are in accordance with public policy, by making the
best use of the water supply and by conserving life and
property.

These wise laws could be of little effect unless en-
forced and carried out by an adequate system of adminis-
tration. This was also provided under Mr. Mead's influ-
ence. The State Engineer is the head of the system, and
he has two assistant engineers. The State is divided
into four large divisions, corresponding to natural hydro-
graphic districts, and over each a division superinten-
dent is placed in charge. These divisions are then

218

WYOMING, LAW-GIVER OF ARID REGION

organized into several subdivisions, with a water commis-
sioner over each. In Division No. 1 there are fourteen
subdivisions ; in Division No. 2, six ; in Division No. 3,
two; in Division No. 4, three. The water commission-
ers are vested with police powers, and personally see that
the water is turned into the head-gate of each canal in
accordance with its legal claims. There is no oppor-
tunity for neighbors to go to law, or even to shoot each
other. The exact amount of water to which they are en-
titled, upon the basis of beneficial use under economical
methods, was determined at the beginning, and this
amount is meted out to them by officials having no in-
terest in local contentions.

These laws and this administrative system have not
only given peace and prosperity to the irrigation industry
of Wyoming, but are regarded as models the world over.
Other States have copied them extensively, and there
can be no question that in the end they will become
common to the entire arid region. Colorado was also a
pioneer in this same field, but neither its laws nor its
administrative system are equal to those of Wyoming.
There constant litigation has caused loss and hindered
development, yet, with the exception of Wyoming, no
other State has done so much to illustrate the better pos-
sibilities of water control than Colorado. Idaho, Nebras-
ka, South Dakota, Kansas, and Washington have en-
acted portions of the Wyoming laws. In all the other
States, with the single exception of California, the ex-
ample of Wyoming has produced results, and there is
hope that even California will learn in time that irriga-
tion and litigation are not necessarily synonymous terms.

When Wyoming, in common with the other arid
219

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

States, received a grant of one million acres, to be re-
claimed under State control, Mr. Mead proceeded at
once to apply his ideas of public supervision to this
grant. Upon his recommendation the legislature pro-
vided that these lands should be reclaimed by con-
struction companies upon conditions which furnished
the best security to the capital employed, yet provided
at the same time for the sale of lands to actual set-
tlers and for their ultimate ownership of the canals.
A maximum price was fixed for water - rights, which
were made inseparable from the land. Other States
copied the law verbatim from the statute-books of Wy-
oming.

Aside from the great work accomplished by Mr. Mead
in reforming the irrigation laws and customs of the West,
Wyoming has made another contribution of large im-
portance to the country's progress along this line. Two
of her United States Senators, Joseph M. Carey and
Francis E. Warren, have identified themselves conspic-
uously with great measures calculated to create homes
for millions. Senator Carey was the author of the Act
of 1894, commonly known as the Carey Law, which gave
one million acres to each of the western States upon con-
dition that the land be reclaimed and settled within ten
years. Senator Warren is the leader of the new and grow-
ing movement which aims at Federal appropriations to be
used in the construction of great reservoirs beyond the
reach of private enterprise. With signal ability and de-
votion these two Wyoming statesmen have labored for
years to open the arid public domain to settlement ; to
solve the vexed questions arising from the unrestricted
use of the open range ; and to provide enlightened legis-

220

WYOMING, LAW-GIVER OF ARID REGION

lation for the protection of the forests so important in
connection with irrigation.

Wyoming's place as the law-giver of the arid region is
due neither to geographical location nor to superior
natural resources. Certainly it is not due to large pop-
ulation. It owes its commanding position solely to the
character and ability of a few public men who happen
to have found in this line of work their best opportu-
nities for usefulness. As a result of this fortunate cir-
cumstance, Wyoming occupies among western States at
the beginning of the twentieth century a relation not
unlike that which Massachusetts and Virginia held to
the States of the Atlantic seaboard at the beginning of
the nineteenth century.

CHAPTER VIII
THE PROSPERITY OF MONTANA

MONTANA is a State of magnificent resources. The
first white men who ever saw it — French explorers in
the middle of the eighteenth century — called it "The
Land of the Shining Mountains." The appellation is
true as well as poetic, for it is the possession of its snow-
capped ranges, reflecting the light of the brilliant sky,
which differentiates Montana from the adjoining prairie
States of the Northwest. It is the mountains which hold
the wealth of waters and minerals and make the charac-
ter of the climate.

Montana ranks third in point of area among American
States, and third in the value of its annual mineral out-
put. It is yet too early, by many years, to estimate its
final place in extent of population and agriculture. To-
day mining is the first of its industries, stock-raising the
second, agriculture the third. Mining gave the impulse
to its settlement and is the backbone of its prosperity.
The forty millions of dollars annually taken out in cop-
per, lead, gold, and silver make it one of the most pros-
perous of western communities. The discovery of new
mining districts steadily continues, and the flow of wealth
from this item of the State's resources will endure in-
definitely. The conditions of the stock industry are

222

THE PROSPERITY OF MONTANA

very similar to those which we observed in Wyoming.
Of the total population of about two hundred thousand,
the farmers are a small minority. Nevertheless, irriga-
tion is recognized as one of the most important interests
of the State, and the field open to settlement offers many
attractions.

The first ditches in Montana were made for the pur-
pose of washing gold-bearing gravel along the bars and
gulches. When their usefulness in this direction was
exhausted they were turned into irrigation canals by the
farmers who came close upon the heels of the early miners.
For many years development was limited to works of this
humble character. Farmers had their own individual
ditches, or combined their labor in making canals suffi-
cient to water small districts. In this manner most of
the mountain streams capable of easy diversion were util-
ized. As in Wyoming, irrigation was largely used as
only an adjunct to stock-raising. In recent years le-
gitimate agriculture has begun to make rapid progress.
Large capital has been invested in a few comprehensive
irrigation systems, notably in the valleys of the Dearborn
and the Sun rivers, north of Helena.

Montana is divided into three natural drainage areas —
those of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers on the east
of the main range of the Rockies, and that of the waters
tributary to the Columbia on the western slope of the
mountains. The eastern slope embraces the fertile val-
leys of the Yellowstone, the Gallatin, the Madison, the
Jefferson, the Beaverhead, the Prickly, and the long val-
ley of the Missouri, with the Milk-river system in the
extreme north, on the border of Canada. The western
slope is mountainous and heavily timbered, with com-

223

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

paratively small though fertile valleys. The principal
streams are the Flathead, Clarke's Fork of the Columbia,
and the Kootenai. The ultimate extent of irrigable land
within the boundaries of Montana is purely speculative,
estimates ranging from ten to thirty million acres. In
the matter of water supply the State is among the most
fortunate in the West, though its full utilization will
require vast expenditure for the construction of storage-
works and of long canals. Some of the largest rivers,
like the Missouri and the Yellowstone, are enclosed by
high bluffs, and water can be taken to the elevated
plains, comprising the larger areas of valuable land,
only by means of diversions made high up upon the
streams.

The opportunities which Montana offers to settlers
have not been appreciated as they deserve. This is
doubtless due to the severity of the climate, which is
generally misunderstood. The State is in a high lati-
tude, and does, indeed, experience cold winters. But its
valleys are comparatively low, averaging much lower
than those of Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah,
and its climate decidedly healthful. The thermometer
goes twenty or thirty degrees below zero in the winter,
but this degree of cold in the dry air of Montana is
much less disagreeable than ten degrees above zero in
any of the cities on the borders of the Great Lakes. On
the other hand, the State enjoys a remarkably even pros-
perity, and no other localities offer better certainty of
home markets, where the products of the farm can be
disposed of at good prices.

There are many large and growing towns, and two or
three cities of considerable size. The mining popula-

224

"9 >
O *

S CB

s

=3 3

THE PROSPERITY OF MONTANA

tion is destined steadily to increase., white manufactur-
ing must begin in earnest during the next decade. The
wheat, rye, oats, and vegetables produced in the irri-
gated valleys are remarkable both in quantity and qual-
ity. The brewers of Brooklyn, New York, selected the
Manhattan Valley for important agricultural operations,
because they found it would grow the finest barley in the
world. Small fruits are prolific and of fine flavor.

Even the orchard fruits, especially apples and plums,
are produced successfully in the more sheltered valleys.
The exhibits which one sees at county fairs, particu-
larly at those on the western slope in valleys like the
Bitter Root, make surprising revelations of the fruit
possibilities in this northwestern State. But the settler's
chief opportunity will be found in supplying the com-
mon farm products required by the large and growing
population in the cities and towns. Of the present local
consumption, forty per cent, of the flour, ninety per
cent, of the pork, bacon, and ham, ninety-two per cent,
of the lard, thirty per cent, of the butter, ninety-eight
per cent, of the cheese, and forty-three per cent, of the
eggs are now brought in from elsewhere. When these
facts are considered in connection with the cheap land,
abundant water supply, and healthful climate, it is ap-
parent that Montana offers great attractions to colonists.

The Gallatin Valley, southeast of Helena, on the main
line of the Northern, Pacific, is the most famous agri-
cultural district of Montana. It is well settled, with a,
class of thrifty farmers engaged in producing a variety of
ordinary crops. Bozeman, the county seat, is the home
of the State Agricultural College, and this institute has
done much to raise the standard of irrigation and of
p 225

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

farming in the locality, and thus to enhance the valley's
prestige. The Missouri Valley, in the neighborhood of
Great Falls, and the Bitter Root Valley about Missoula,
are other well-developed districts. Crops are generally
planted in April or the first half of May, though some-
times in March. The spring rains continuing until the
middle of June, irrigation does not begin until that date.
Cattle, sheep, and wool are shipped to eastern markets,
but other products are consumed within the State.

While copper and the precious metals are the chief
mineral products of the State, it is rich in lead, iron,
coal, building materials, and precious stones. It is esti-
mated that an area of not less than fifty thousand square
miles is underlaid with bituminous or lignite coal of good
quality. Coke is a growing product. The State is also
rich in forests and abundantly supplied with natural
water-power. It has, in a word, all the materials of a
diversified industrial life.

The social and political life of Montana is vigorous
and interesting. Both the climate and the industries
are calculated to breed a sturdy and self-reliant people.
Helena, the capital, located in what was formerly known
as Last Chance Gulch, has long enjoyed the reputation
of being the richest city in proportion to its population
in the world. Butte is still larger— the largest mining
camp in the United States. These two leading towns
present radically different aspects of western life.
Helena is the political and social capital, Butte the
grimy centre of industry. Both have enjoyed phenom-
enal prosperity, and escaped, to a large degree, the re-
lapses which have afflicted other ambitious western
cities at various times.

220

THE PROSPERITY OF MONTANA

The truth is that Montana has been, and is yet, a
marvellously substantial State. It has enjoyed a steady
stream of wealth from the mine, the range, and the farm.
Its mercantile enterprises have naturally thriven under
these conditions, and labor has been busy and well paid.
It has not been the policy of the people to encourage
immigration on reckless lines merely to increase the
population. On the contrary, the public sentiment has
been notably conservative, and has only urged those to
come who could be self-supporting by tilling the soil or
establishing other industries.

Great Falls, located at the most eligible water-power
of the Upper Missouri river, has enjoyed a remarkable
growth of population, and promises to become in time
one of the great cities of the West. In addition to the
water-power, it has the advantage of being surrounded
by the raw materials of manufacture, in the shape of
coal, iron, timber, and the products of the range — such
as wool and hides — while large agricultural districts are
tributary to it. There are many important towns along
the line of the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern
railroads. Of these Missoula is a prosperous mercantile
point on the western slope, and Billings is the focus of
agriculture in the Yellowstone Valley.

Viewed as a whole, Montana is a State of substantial
achievement and of splendid promise.

CHAPTER IX

THE AWAKENING OF NEW MEXICO

IN the southwestern Territories modern methods of
reclamation are asserting their influence in the midst of
historic and prehistoric irrigation scenes.

In 1539 Fray Marcos de Nija, the earliest European
who trod the soil of New Mexico, travelled for five days
through a "valley well watered and in a high state of
cultivation, so that three thousand horsemen might have
been sustained there." Another sixteenth-century visit-
or saw corn-fields " watered by a small river which flowed
near by, along the banks of which were growing great
beds of roses, similar to those of Castile." Many a tour-
ist on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad has seen the in-
dustrious Pueblo Indians at work in their fields about
Laguna. The travellers of three hundred and fifty years
ago looked upon these same fields, which were irrigated
then precisely as now, and as they probably had been for
centuries before.

New Mexico is much less favored in its water supply
than the northern States of the arid region. Many of
its streams are torrential and intermittent in character,
carrying water in floods at some seasons and exhibiting
dry channels when moisture is most needed. A large
portion of the water supply, when the irrigation indus-

228

THE AWAKENING OF NEW MEXICO

try shall be fully developed, will be obtained by storage
and from underground sources. This process has al-
ready begun, but its operations will be much extended.
Scattered all over the territory are the petty ditches of
that numerous Mexican and Indian population which
lives in serene peace and comfort upon the fruits of its
unambitious efforts at tilling the soil.

The important streams are the San Juan in the north-
western corner of the Territory, the Bio Grande, which
flows through the central portion from Colorado to Mex-
ico, and the Rio Pecos in the southeast. These streams
and their tributaries furnish, the basis of the modern ir-
rigation industry of New Mexico.

The northwestern part of the Territory is a pictu-
resque and promising region, fortunate alike in mineral
and water resources, in the fertility of its soil, and the
charm of its climate. A number of small irrigation
systems have been constructed, but storage will be re-
quired before the opportunities of the district can be ex-
tensively realized. The rivers are the San Juan and its
tributaries, the most important of these being the Pine,
the Animas, and the La Plata. When these are fully
utilized, thousands of small farmers will be able to estab-
lish profitable industries, including the culture of finely
flavored, delicate fruits. The}7 will find home markets
in surrounding mining camps and in supplying feed for
sheep and cattle which range upon the public pastures.
Although this portion of the Territory is now remote
from the main lines of railroad travel, its superior advan-
tages must attract the attention of enterprise and im-
migrants in the future and make it one of the most
prosperous parts of the future State.

229

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

New Mexico is distinguished by large land grants
dating from the days of Spanish control. They were
naturally located along the watercourses, in what ap-
peared to be the most attractive portions of the field
open for selection. These enormous grants have ma-
terially retarded development, for the reason that their
titles were in dispute for many years arid their owners
generally "land poor."

One of the most important of these properties is now
known as the Maxwell Land Grant, and constitutes a
principality in the northeastern part of the Territory,
encroaching slightly upon Colorado. Large capital has
been used in the development of the mineral and agri-
cultural resources of this grant. Its principal streams
are the Vermejo and the Cimarron. Both have been
utilized extensively in connection with systems of reser-
voirs and canals which are notable for some of their
engineering features. Large areas have been irrigated
and are cultivated in various crops.

The waters of the Rio Grande have been diverted
at many points along its course. This river rises in Col-
orado, where a large portion of its supplies are taken
out for use in the San Luis Valley. This interferes with
New Mexico irrigation during the stage of low water in
the summer. When the stream reaches old Mexico it is
still further diminished, with the result of making in-
ternational complications on the south even more vexa-
tious than the interstate troubles which it creates in the
north. The solution of both difficulties will be reached
through extensive storage arrangements at favorable
points in the valley, and some wise administrative plan
looking to the equitable distribution of the much-vexed

230

THE AWAKENING OF NEW MEXICO

stream. The building of great reservoirs along the
lower course of the Rio Grande, just north of El Paso,
has long been under consideration and must surely
sometime be accomplished, either by private or public
enterprise. The soil and climate are exceptionally fa-
vorable to the higher forms of the irrigation industry,
and its possibilities will be quickly realized when the
question of storing and distributing the water shall be
settled in the right way. The character of these possi-
bilities may already be dimly discerned in the place
where Texas reaches out a slender linger of prosperity
below El Paso. Here the Mexicans have made a beauti-
ful agricultural and horticultural district, and live with
an enviable degree of comfort and thrift, though their
methods are crude and ancient.

Much the most notable irrigation development in New
Mexico is that which has been accomplished since 1890
in the Pecos Valley. It is in the southeastern quarter
of the Territory, bordering upon the Staked Plains of
western Texas. No other locality in the arid region has
had the benefit of such daring enterprise and dauntless
faith as have been lavished upon this, originally one of
the most forbidding and unpromising of western valleys.
By sheer force of money it has been translated from a
semi-barbarous stock-range, fit only to support lean cat-
tle, to an attractive field for settlement, where thousands
of families can make their homes and win a certain living
from the soil.

Before irrigation was invoked the region was a social
and moral desert as well as a waste of arid land. It was
the home of outlaws and the scene of frontier conflict.
"Billy the Kid" was the perfect fruit of the old con-

231

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

ditions, and it was here that the youthful desperado lived,
fought, and died. While his kind are not yet wholly
extinct in the neighborhood, cattle and cattlemen have
"fallen back before the advance of irrigation and railroads,
of towns with schools and churches, and of planters and
home-bnilders. Civilization has laid its hand on the
Pecos Valley, and a crop of new institutions has begun to
sprout from its soil.

The valley is fortunate beyond any other part of the
Territory in its water supplies. The Pecos river and its
tributaries drain a vast watershed and furnish a perennial
flow of large dimensions. This has been reinforced by
huge reservoirs, of which one is the second largest irriga-
tion reservoir in the world. Besides these facilities, the
valley is blessed with extraordinary springs of flowiog
water, with artesian basins, and with underground supplies
that may be lifted to the surface at comparatively small
expense. With splendid disregard for immediate finan-
cial returns, these supplies have been utilized and led
over the valley by a thousand miles of canals and ditches.
The same liberal enterprise built a railroad from the
Texas and Pacific line northward for a distance of two
hundred miles, and later still farther; to a connection
with the Santa Fe system, established towns with mod-
ern facilities, and acquired large tracts of irrigable land.
These improvements have succeeded one another in rapid
succession, and cost, in the aggregate, over five million
dollars.

Lying in an altitude varying from three thousand to
three thousand five hundred feet, but in the latitude
of the extreme south, the Pecos Valley enjoys a good
climate. Its winters are short and not severe, though

THE AWAKENING OF NEW MEXICO

the mercury falls below freezing and thin ice is formed
on still water. The summer days are hot, as throughout
the Southwest, but the nights are invariably comfortable,
owing to the elevation of the country, which is on the
high plateau of the Rocky Mountain region. Fields can
be cultivated almost continuously and early crops, of
vegetables and small fruits are grown. The drawback
about the climate is the wind, which sometimes de-
velops into sand-storms of considerable severity. With
the extension of the cultivated area and the growth of
trees this disadvantage will be minimized.

The valley is yet so new to cultivation that it is im-
possible to determine the limitation of its products. The
chemical qualities of the soil have been the subject of
careful study by experts, and gradually the people aro
learning to what uses different districts are best adapted.
In the upper portion of the valley, in what is locally
known as the lioswell country, there are several ranches
which have been cultivated for many years. These
have demonstrated beyond question the capabilities of
soil and climate for the production of the finest apples,
perfect in form, flavor, and coloring. This fruit is so
superior to that which is seen in the eastern market
that there can be no question but what it will be a source
of profit to the small planters of the region. The lower
valley seems more favorable to delicate fruits, such as
peaches and apricots. All the grasses, cereals, and vege-
tables are successful throughout the length of the valley.
Sorghum and Egyptian corn are favorite crops, being
raised for fodder.

One feature of the country is especially worthy of the
attention of settlers. This is the fact that the best of

233

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

free pastures adjoins the irrigable lands on either hand,
so that fine cattle, sheep, and horses could be profitably
raised in connection with the small-farming industry.
Raising winter fodder on their irrigated acres, the set-
tlers could readily co-operate in the management of
their herds during the range season. For the finest
beef and mutton there is abundant demand at remu-
nerative prices.

The latest and most promising industry of the Pecos
Valley is the sugar-beet culture and manufacture. A
series of experiments demonstrated that the conditions
of soil and climate were particularly favorable to the
growth of beets. It had already been demonstrated in
Utah that irrigation permits the most scientific culture
of the crop. As this valley has wanted for nothing that
money could buy, a sugar factory was erected near Eddy
in 1896, and the farmers gladly co-operated by planting
considerable areas to beets. The result of the first year's
crop put the Pecos Valley at the head of sugar countries
in the matter of the quality of its production. The gen-
eral average of all beets delivered at the factory in car-
load lots showed seventeen per cent, of sugar in the beet,
with an average purity of over eighty - four per cent.
This is a higher percentage of actual extraction of
pounds of sugar to pounds of beets than has been real-
ized anywhere else in the world. The result points un-
mistakably to the development of a " sugar belt "in this
region, which will be a striking economic advantage if
producers do not make the mistake of getting into tho
fatal groove of the single crop, as has been so largely the
case elsewhere with the growers of wheat, cotton, corn,
raisins, and oranges.

234

THE AWAKENING OF NEW MEXICO

The chief town of the valley, formerly Eddy, but now
called Carlsbad, enjoys a rising popularity as the resort
of invalids. Valuable medicinal springs have been dis-
covered, and, in connection with the climate, render the
locality quite ideal for those suffering with certain dis-
eases.

The resources of New Mexico, while probably not as
rich as those of more northerly States, are yet diversified
and largely undeveloped. The annual output of gold
and silver is increasing, and seems likely to do so in-
definitely. A fine quality of coal is found in large
quantities, and is an important item of regular income.
The forest area is considerable, and that of woodlands,
useful for fuel and fencing, much more extensive. The
mining of precious stones, which dates back to the
Spanish conquest, is a flourishing and growing industry.
The turquoise mines are particularly rich and profitable.
Though the amount of production is closely guarded, it is
known to be large, while the quality of the stone is quite
equal to that of Eussia, Persia, and the East Indies.

The social fabric of the Territory is a curious blend-
ing of Mexican peons, of town-building Indians, of hardy
frontiersmen engaged in mining and stock-raising, and
of enterprising new-comers who believe in the future of
the country. Of these elements the Mexicans are much
the most numerous. They do not differ materially from
their kinsmen on the southern side of the Rio Grande.
Living in scattered settlements along the mountain
streams, they enjoy a comfortable existence in return for
their humble labor. The Indian population includes
the Pueblos, the Zunis, and the Navajos, and is mar-
vellously interesting, and usually peaceful and industri-

285

THE CONQUEST OF AHID AMERICA

cms. The growth of the white population has been slow,
but will increase rapidly with the development of irriga-
tion and the settlement of vexatious problems which
have long surrounded the land grants and water appro-
priations.

New Mexico is one of the American communities
whose greatness is of the future. Well endowed with
raw materials, it awaits the impulse to be imparted by
a new century and the pressure of an outreaching civ-
ilization.

CHAPTER X
THE BUDDING CIVILIZATION OF ARIZONA

ARIZONA is a land apart. With the single exception
of southeastern California, it differs in many respects
from all other sections of western America. This is es-
pecially true of all those portions of the Territory which
will sustain the densest future population and develop
the characteristic institutions of the country.

Speaking of its atmosphere — the product of its pe-
culiar climatic conditions and physical environment —
Whitelaw Reid has said : " It seems to have about the
same bracing and exhilarating qualities as the air of the
Great Sahara Desert in northern Africa, or of the des-
ert about Mount Sinai, in Arabia* It is much drier
than in the part of Morocco, Algiers, or Tunis usually
visited, and drier than any part of the valley of the Nile
north of the First Cataract. It seems to me about the
same in quality as the air on the Nile between Assouan
and Wady-Halfa, but somewhat cooler."

This description of the Arizona air, which is remark-
ably happy, may be accepted as a key to the true char-
acter of the country. It is a semi-tropical desert, like
the region about the southern and eastern shores of the
Mediterranean, where civilization was born of the ancient
art of irrigation. This is said with reference to the

237

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

southern and western parts of the Territory, which are
drained by the Gila and Colorado rivers. Northern Ari-
zona is distinguished by its mines, its notable forests,
and the indescribable grandeurs of the famous Colorado
canyon. The southeastern quarter, which adjoins New
Mexico, is a great pasture, bearing scanty or generous
crops of nutritious wild grasses, according as the season
is dry or wet.

The Salt River Valley is the glory of Arizona. Ap-
proaching it from either of the transcontinental rail-
ways the traveller sees naught but the gray desert soil,
marked by the gnarled branches of the mesquite and the
slender pillar of the cactus. Even the mountain-sides
appear to be devoid of verdure and tanned to a dark
brown by the sunshine of centuries. But suddenly all
the beauties of the Garden of Eden burst upon the aston-
ished gaze of the visitor. Wherever the waters of irri-
gation have moistened the desert, and man has planted
the seed of grass, flower, or tree, the most luxuriant
vegetation has sprung from the soil to revolutionize the
appearance of the country.

The capital city of Phoenix — risen from the ashes of a
forgotten people — is the pulsating heart of the new life
of Arizona. Here are modern business blocks, hand-
some public buildings, busy stores, a promising uni-
versity, and hundreds of beautiful homes resting under
the shade of palm, magnolia, and pepper-trees. Tucson
and Yuma, though thriving and populous, are Mexican
in architecture and habits. Prescott, Flagstaff, and nu-
merous other communities in the higher altitude are the
products of the mining industry. But Phoonix is distinct-
ly modern, and almost wholly the offspring of irrigation.

BUDDING CIVILIZATION OF ARIZONA

The Salt river is the largest tributary of the Grila. It
has been the scene of active irrigation enterprise since
18G7, but particularly during the last ten years. It is an
interesting fact that the works first built followed the
lines of prehistoric canals. Reclamation has been ex-
tended to both sides of the valley, but cultivation is
oldest and much the most extensive on the northern
side, around Phoonix. Here a number of canals were
consolidated into a single system, the managers of which
have made improvements and extensions year by year,
and gradually evolved a work of great perfection and
completeness.

On the south side of the river a similar consolidation
has occurred. Here settlement was begun in 1878 by
Mormon colonists, who founded the charming plack now
known as Mesa City. There are several independent
irrigation systems upon this side of the valley, the most
important of which is the Highland Canal, which runs
along a high level and waters thirty thousand acres of
valuable land. Water-power is obtained in coiiae^tion
with the irrigation canals on both sides of me vallejX
and electrical power is applied both to lighting and
transportation.

Tributaries of the Salt river flowing from the moun-
tains on the north, notably the Rio Verde and the Agua
Fria, will furnish water for new and large enterprises.
Storage is the feature of these works, and reservoirs
have been constructed in a number of instances. Both
on the upper and lower courses of the Gila river im-
portant irrigation canals are planned, and a number
have been completed. Much difficulty has been experi-
enced in building enduring dams along this erratic

239

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

stream. Sudden and powerful floods sweep down the
valley during the season of melting snows, and it is the
nicest engineering problem to make constructions which
will stand the test.

Alike in the Gila and Salt river valleys the agricult-
ural districts suffer for lack of water during the dry
summer season, when water is most needed. The only
possible solution of the problem will be the construction
of large reservoir systems at the mountain sources of
the streams. Nature has provided phenomenal facilities
for such storage works, but the opportunity has not been
utilized, owing to the large cost involved and to the fact
that no single company could afford to make improve-
ments which would be equally beneflcial to all who
draw* supplies from these streams. The work is of such
importance as to justify an expenditure of public money,
especially as large areas of public lands would be made
habitable in consequence.

The enormous water supply which now flows uselessly
to the Gulf of California through the channel of the Col-
orado river must be extensively availed of in time. Mor-
mon settlers have reclaimed small valleys on the Little
Colorado in the northern part of the Territory, and ex-
tensive plans, looking to the use of the larger river, have
been made. Thus far the most notable development in
this region is at Yuma, where water is elevated to the
heights above the town by pumping machinery. Enough
has been done in this locality to demonstrate the value
of the soil and climate for the production of the finest
fruits, including table grapes, which are laid down in San
Francisco before the California product is in the market,
and the best varieties of oranges and lemons.

240

BUDDING CIVILIZATION OF ARIZONA

The climate of Arizona varies widely with different
altitudes. In those portions of the Territory most favor-
able to settlement, including the Salt river and Gila
valleys, the summer weather is as trying as the winter is
charming. People get used to it, but it is rather a dis-
tressing process. While the summer heat is by no means
unhealthful or a fatal obstacle to settlement, it is un-
questionably a serious drawback.

In the Salt River Valley all classes of fruits have been
tested sufficiently to furnish reliable conclusions as to
the range of production. The climate is semi-tropical
and the products similar to those of the lowland districts
of California and the region about the Mediterranean.

The government reports show that the highest and
lowest temperatures at Phoenix averaged for eight years as
follows : November, 78Jand43 ; December, 73|-and 36 J ;
January, 65J and 32 ; February, 71 J and 35| ; March,
81£ and 41; April, 86J and 46. Orange -trees success-
fully withstand a temperature of 28° above zero. Hence,
it is no surprise to find them growing successfully in the
Salt River Valley, at Yuma, and elsewhere in central and
southern Arizona. The determination of the exact lim-
its of the citrus belt is a nice problem in any country. A
certain elevation above the river, and a certain amount
of protection from the wind and from the rising sun
are essential. The most favored spots are usually those
which are screened from the first rays of the morning
sun by a background of eastern hills. This condition
permits a gradual warming of the atmosphere, so that if
there has been a slight frost during the night no serious
damage is done to fruit or tree.

Wherever oranges can be grown at all, the area suitable
Q 241

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

for their production is likely to be exaggerated by those
who sell climate by the acre. While the orange districts
of Arizona are not as yet perfectly denned, there is no
longer any question of the production of citrus fruit,
nor as to its quality and the early date at which it ripens.
It anticipates the southern California crop in the market,
though not the crop of northern California, which is sev-
eral weeks ahead of the southern product.

Wherever the orange can be cultivated, the less tender
semi-tropical fruits — figs, olives, almonds, pomegranates
— may be certainly counted upon to grow even more sure-
ly and over a large area. The largest fig orchard in the
United States, and one of the largest in the world, is
located in the Salt River Valley. This industry has not
yet proven profitable, either in Arizona or California,
speaking broadly, for the reason that our people have
not entirely mastered the art of curing and packing.
The other products which have been mentioned are
thoroughly successful. So also are the finest qualities
of raisin, wine, and table grapes, and of the deciduous
fruits, such as peaches, apricots, prunes, pears, and ap-
ples. All vegetables and small fruits yield largely. With
better railroad facilities and rates, Arizona would be a
strong competitor of Florida and the West Indies in the
shipment of early vegetables to eastern and northern
markets.

The major proportion of the irrigated land is tilled in
large farms devoted to grasses and cereals. Alfalfa is
the favorite fodder crop, and the valleys are becoming
great feeding grounds for cattle, horses, hogs, and sheep.
While this phase of the agricultural industry has been
prosperous, it by no means represents the better possi-

242

BUDDING CIVILIZATION OF ARIZONA

bilities of Arizona. The conditions of climate, of soil,
and of irrigation are all extremely favorable to the in-
tensive cultivation of small areas.

Ten acres in southern Arizona constitute a good-sized
farm. Variously planted to vegetables, small fruits, or-
chard, and grass, and cultivated by the most scientific
methods, such a farm should yield a far better living,
and make a surer provision for old age, than one hun-
dred acres in the eastern and middle States, which
depend upon rainfall, and consequently produce the
cheaper class of crops.

Lacking nothing in general advantages, Arizona is
deficient in the higher forms of industrial and social
development, which have made portions of California
the paradise of the common people, and which are be-
ginning to shape institutions throughout the arid region.
.The explanation is that the Territory is just passing
from the frontier stage into the first period of real civ-
ilization. The conquest of the desert has been well be-
gun, and the broad foundation of an intense economic
life substantially laid. It remains for the future to
build the superstructure.

The people of Arizona have been drawn from many
different sources, and from more than one race, but
the pushing American element is distinctly dominant.
While there are many of the lower class of Mexicans,
they are much less numerous here than in New Mex-
ico, and much less widely diffused over the Territory.
The Indians, who are seen everywhere, even in the
best settled districts, are now mostly inoffensive, and
even industrious in many cases. Like the Mexican
peons, they are useful laborers in the simpler agricult-

243

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

ural tasks. The warlike tribes are closely confined to
their reservations, and 110 longer constitute a menace to
settlement.

Arizona is developing a spirit of intense local pride as
marked as that of Colorado. This is the best guaranty
of its ultimate greatness. It is a good recommendation
for any country when those who know it best exhibit
the most confidence in its future.

part ffourtb
THE ARMY OF THE HALF-EMPLOYED

"Your fate I believe to be certain, though it is deferred by a
physical cause. As long as you have a boundless extent of fertile
and unoccupied land, your laboring population will be far more
at ease than the laboring population of the Old World. But the
time will come when New England will be as thickly populated as
the Old World. Wages will be as low and will fluctuate as much
with you as with us. You will have your Birminghams and
Manchesters, and in these Birminghams and Mauchesters hundreds
of thousands of artisans will assuredly be sometime out of work.
Then your institutions will fairly be brought to the test." — LORD
MA.CAULAY to an American friend.

CHAPTER I

THE SURPLUS PEOPLE

THE settlement of the United States has been largely
a story of foreign immigration. While the movement
of population from the Old World to the New has not
ceased, the settlement of new areas during the coming
century will be in marked degree a movement of do-
mestic immigration. Foreign population no longer set-
tles extensively upon the agricultural lands of the West.
It remains in the cities of the seaboard, making New
York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco cosmopolitan
communities, and submerging the Puritan traditions of
Boston under a wave of Celtic dominance. It fills the
coal-mining districts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois
with Hungarian and Bohemian laborers. It replaces the
native artisans of New England manufacturing towns
with Canadians, Italians, and Armenians. It swells the
population of the Lake Cities, such as Buffalo, Cleve-
land, Detroit, Chicago, and Milwaukee. It is thus that
the strong current of foreign immigration, which had a
large part in making the Middle West and gave a pow-
erful impulse to the growth of interior cities, expends
itself in these days.

There is a surplus population chiefly in cities and
towns east of the Mississippi river. While much has

247

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

been said of the Army of the Unemployed, the fl actuat-
ing numbers of the utterly idle is no true measure of our
surplus population. There is an infinitely larger element
of half-employed and semi-prosperous, and it is from the
ranks of these that the colonizing hosts of the future will
mostly be drawn. The very poor constitute a small ele-
ment in all communities, and however urgent their claim
upon charity, their situation is of far less importance to
the peace and stability of society than the conditions
of life and labor for the masses who do the world's
work. The future civilization is to be discovered at
neither of the social poles — that of the very rich or that
of the very poor — but in the continental expanse of hu-
man life that lies between these two extremes.

The surplus population who will occupy and develop
the waste-places during the coming century are the men
and women of overcrowded eastern industries, stores,
and professions, and, in smaller measure, of unprofitable
eastern farms. To a very large extent they are of the
best native stock. Their presence in the ranks of the
half - employed and semi -prosperous is due to several
leading causes — to the wonderful invention of labor-sav-
ing machinery, which does the work of human hands
without charge for food or clothes ; to the competition
of foreign immigrants content with less wages and a
lower standard of living ; to the concentration of capi-
tal and the conduct of all lines of business upon so largo
a scale that small men cannot survive in the race with
them; to the cessation of the rapid settlement of new
areas in the West, which made constant demands upon
the products of eastern spindles, looms, and lathes; to
the natural movement of the greater manufacturing lines

248

THE SURPLUS PEOPLE

from old industrial centres nearer to raw material and to
consumers.

Some of these causes are so well known as to make it
unprofitable to do more than barely suggest them, but
others have not been generally studied in the light of
causes of future domestic emigration. For instance, it
is often claimed that invention and labor - saving ma-
chinery create a demand for as many new workmen as
they displace. Grant that this is so, and we do not sat-
isfactorily answer the question as to what is to become of
the men and women who lose their means of livelihood.
Some of them are readily absorbed into the new indus-
tries, but by no means all. One hundred printers may
be suddenly thrown out of work in a given community
by the advent of type-setting machines. They cannot all
turn immediately to employment in a bicycle or automo-
bile factory. The displaced printers may be in Kansas
City and the new factories in Baltimore. Besides, it is
the young mechanic, with no trade and habits to un-
learn, who is in most demand for the new industry.

These conditions make life constantly harder for those
best equipped with experience and most likely to be pos-
sessed of a little capital in the shape of a home or sav-
ings-bank deposit — that is, the rniddle-aged. So it hap-
pens that the ingenious machine which may lighten the
cost of an article of common necessity, and by so cheap-
ening production even cause the enlargement of a factory
and enhance the prosperity of a given local community,
almost inevitably creates recruits for the Army of the
Half -employed. This process has been going on rapidly
during the past generation, and made thousands of peo-
ple discontented and apprehensive — hence, ripe for some

'249

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

new movement of colonization like those which, during
the past two centuries, peopled different sections of the
United States. For it is ever the intelligent discontented
who make colonies and plant institutions.

As with labor-saving machinery, so with the concen-
tration of capital, which is the phenomenal economic
movement of the hour. Fifty factories under one con-
trol ; a few great and attractive stores dealing in all lines
of merchandise; ten railroad systems consolidated into
one, and that one stretching its arms from ocean to
ocean — all this may, and probably does, make for cheaper
goods and better service, for more scientific business
methods, and for the progress of civilization in the end.
But the intermediate process of adjustment to new con-
ditions is a hardship to multitudes of men and women
in many ways. It lessens the demands for labor in nu-
merous local instances, and the result is a large aggre-
gate of discontent. What is infinitely more important,
it makes it increasingly difficult for men to lead inde-
pendent lives and make independent livings.

The startling and disturbing aspect of our new eco-
nomic development is the downfall of th,e small man.
Modern production demands the large factory and ex-
pensive machinery ; hence, great capital. Modern trade,
especially in the principal cities, requires an immense de-
partment-store, with a host of poorly paid employes;
hence, great capital. Modem transportation requires
railroad systems so extended and diffused as to give
absolute control of a certain territory!; hence, great
capital.

When production was conducted upon a small scale
men of small means found no difficulty in becoming

250

THE SURPLUS PEOPLE

manufacturers. The enterprising shoemaker — to illus-
trate— could build a little shop in his yard, purchase a
cheap kit of tools, and manufacture in a small way. If
he had taste, thrift, and industry, he prospered, and
perhaps built up a large business. The man who did
that thirty years ago could not hope to do it to-day,
simply because the conditions are such as to prevent him
from getting his first foothold. As a petty manufact-
urer he could not possibly compete with the great man-
ufacturers employing large capital and costly machin-
ery. His only recourse is to become an employe of a
richer man or corporation. He is denied even the chance
to bring himself to the test of the rule of the survival
of the fittest among employers and manufacturers, be-
cause he cannot- be born into that exclusive family. The
unborn have no opportunity of survival. As with the shoo
industry, so with most other common lines of production.

The decline of the small tradesmen in great cities is a
pitiful, even if familiar, spectacle. Sixth Avenue in
New York furnishes a luminous instance. This thor-
oughfare used to be a paradise of small merchants, deal-
ing in their several lines of goods, and winning a fair
average prosperity in the midst of lively competition.
To-day a few great stores stand like monuments in that
graveyard of small merchants. Competition between
the old conditions and the new is impossible.

Even the professions are not exempt from the influ-
ences which have wrought such changes in the lives of
small capitalists and skilled workmen. Self-respecting
young men and women do not willingly and deliberately
set out upon lives which deny them independence of
thought and action, and no opportunity to rise except as

251

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

salaried employes, submissively doing the will of other
men. Multitudes of them avail themselves of the chances
of liberal education which benevolence has so plentifully
scattered over the land. They prepare to win what they
conceive to be the easy rewards of professional careers
as lawyers, physicians, teachers, musicians, and so on.
While there is yet plenty of room at the top, it is much
easrcr to find the way to the middle or the bottom of
the list. The result is a surplus of professional people
in every walk, especially in cities and towns of our older
States. Religious journals complain of an over-produc-
tion even of preachers, ministers, and missionaries.

Of the fact of surplus people available for the con-
quest of Undeveloped America there is, therefore, no
question whatever. Never was there an army better
equipped or more eager for its task. In character it is
almost cosmopolitan, but with the strongest Anglo-
Saxon predominance. It has been educated to a stand-
ard not dreamed of by any colonizing host of the past,
thanks to a s}^stem of common and high schools of
which the latter approximate the university education of
fifty years ago. Collectively, it is by no means destitute
of pecuniary resources, for it represents a vast aggregate
of savings and property. It is animated by the moving
cause of all successful and epoch-making emigrations,
the desire to better the conditions of living for its indi-
vidual members.

So conditioned and equipped, these children of a race
of world-conquerors and republic-builders — these sur-
plus men and women of America — stand with their faces
to the morning of the new century, magnificently fit to
do the work of their day and generation.

252

CHAPTER II
WHY THE PEOPLE DO NOT GO TO THE LAND

FLANKED upon one side by economic conditions which
deny them prosperity, and upon the other by great natu-
ral resources which only await human genius and energy,
why do not the surplus people go to the surplus land ?

First and chiefly, because they lack the necessary capi-
tal. To move across the continent and make a new
home in a new country requires a working fund of one
thousand or two thousand dollars — and the latter is much
the safer sum. It may almost be said that those who
need to move cannot do so, while those who can move
do not need to. This is not literally true, because there
are doubtless thousands of families commanding a capi-
tal insufficient to enable them to engage in trade or
manufacture under modern conditions, and likewise in-
sufficient to yield support when invested, yet quite
enough to establish them comfortably as settlers on
irrigated land, provided their capital be supplement-
ed by the wise use of their own labor. But there are
thousands — perhaps millions — of families who have ev-
ery qualification required for successful settlers except
money. Their ability to perform productive labor is,
indeed, capital of a most essential kind, but without a
certain amount of cash it is capital which is unavailable.

253

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

Popular ignorance of the West is another potent cause
which keeps the willing men away from the waiting
land. Undeveloped America is a vague and mysterious
quantity to the masses of our people. It curiously hap-
pens that they are better informed about Africa and the
regions of the North Pole. So much as is known about
these latter localities has been published in attractive
form and generally read by intelligent people. Then,
too, somewhat upon the principle that every boy finds
another's sister more interesting than his own, foreign
lands have a claim upon the attention of our people su-
perior to that of our own. It is doubtful if the senior
class at Harvard or Yale could pass a good examination
as to the history and resources of such mighty States as
Montana, Idaho, or Nevada, yet there would be little
risk in asking them for a good account of the lives and
surroundings of Paul Kruger and Cecil Rhodes, or for
the details of Nansen's voyage to the Pole. If this bo
true of the liberally educated, who are surrounded by
all facilities for studying the undeveloped parts of their
own country, no apology need be made for those who
enjoy no such opportunities.

But if there is lack of information about the West,
there is no lack of misinformation. Vast quantities of
advertising matter have been sent broadcast by railroads,
land companies, and commercial organizations. This
class of reading matter has always been prepared in the
interest of certain localities, and comes under the head
of "boom literature." While some of it has been of
high character of its kind, the general effect of such ad-
vertising has been disappointing both to those who issued
and to those who read it.

254

THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND

What a new country needs is gradual growth and
sober development of its resources on sound economic
lines. What a settler wants is a calm and candid state-
ment of the opportunities existing in the locality tow-
ards which he is looking, and a perfectly truthful account
of the experience of the people who preceded him there.
It is as important for him to know the drawbacks as the
advantages ; to learn of the failures, and the reasons
thereof, as of the successes. In the advertising matter
sent out by interested individuals, companies, and com-
munities, intending home-seekers get only partial and
misleading information as a rule. They learn only of
the advantages of soil, climate, and location. The ex-
amples held up for their consideration are exceptional
instances of prosperity rather than average results. Of
the failures and disappointments nothing whatever is
reported. Thus it happens that the masses of our peo-
ple who would gladly make homes in the undeveloped
parts of the country suffer about equally from lack of
good information and surfeit of misinformation.

There is another reason which accounts for the back"
wardness of western settlement, depriving even the class
who have the financial ability to move of the necessary
courage and confidence. This is the fact that great
numbers of people who went West in the past incurred
failure or disappointment. This is an influence which
may be observed in every eastern State. There is
scarcely a community which has not sent at least a few
settlers west who reported later that they were sorry
they left home. It is true that millions of eastern peo-
ple have settled between the Mississippi river and the
Pacific Ocean, and prospered. On the other hand, it is

255

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

true that other millions have remained in the East and
failed to prosper. Nevertheless, as failure in this line is
more widely advertised than success, the disappoint-
ments encountered by families and individuals drawn
from widely scattered eastern communities constitute a
most serious obstacle in colonization work.

What are the causes of failure on the part of eastern
settlers who started out with high hopes, and frequently
with abundant capital, to make new homes in the West?
There are a variety of reasons, but they may be broadly
divided under two heads. There have been numerous
attempts to realize impracticable dreams of social and
economic reforms. These were usually undertaken by
excellent people who sincerely desired to make the world
better. California has been a favorite field for such
efforts. Madame Helena Modjeska and a little party
of her talented compatriots tried to found a social and
artistic paradise in the vicinity of Los Angeles many
years ago. They failed because they had no comprehen-
sion of the prosaic problems of land and water, and were
unable to do the hard work which success required.
There was a dress-reform colony which aimed to simplify
feminine attire, and provided that when its women desired
new dresses they should submit the matter to a committee
and be governed by its action. When the committee re-
ported adversely to any woman's hopes, her male friends
generally took her part, and it was not long before the
colony was disbanded. There have been numerous at-
tempts to realize very advanced ideals of Socialism. Al-
most without exception these were undertaken with in-
adequate capital, and failed before they could reach the
point of possible success, however sound the theory upon

256

THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND

which they worked. There is reason to fear that dissen-
sion and lack of strong leadership might have defeated
them even if there had been sufficient working capital.

The aggregate of these unsuccessful dream colonies is
small, but their influence upon settlement is in inverse
ratio to their numbers. Such great examples of success-
ful colonization as we have seen in Colorado, Utah, and
southern California have commanded far less attention
than the abortive efforts of little handfuls of people who,
at different times and places, have tried to found institu-
tions which were either intrinsically impracticable or
ahead of their day. Co-operative associations in certain
parts of the West, doing an annual business of millions of
dollars, and co-operative industries and stores in Great
Britain and other European countries which have
achieved a degree of success even more unquestionable,
are less known by popular report and apparently less
influential in the economic life of our times than many
a little colony of enthusiasts that ended in failure.
Brook Farm in Massachusetts is a striking instance.
Volumes have been written upon it, and each successive
generation of New-Englanders will hear of it and smile,
as their fathers and grandfathers did before them.

It would be wholly unfair to say that the disappoint-
ment of settlers is limited to the very few who belonged
to this class of idealistic colonies. Large numbers of
people have gone out alone, settled in western cities or
towns, encountered failure or disappointment, and either
returned to their original homes, or advised their friends
to remain there.

Those who settled in cities may be disposed of in a
sentence. Attracted by temporary booms, they found
ii 257

TEE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

that western cities are as overcrowded as those in the
East. In one respect the condition of business and em-
ployment is frequently more discouraging in the West.
Many people in poor health are sent out by their phys-
icians, and, since they must live in the new country to
save their lives, are willing to work for any wages they
can get. This introduces an element of competition in
the ranks of employment which has a blighting effect
upon wages. Very few western cities are in need of
more people to reinforce either their commercial or pro-
fessional life. There is plenty of room for those who are
willing to develop and use the vast resources of natural
wealth — for those who are willing to till the soil, fell the
forest, arid open the mine. There is no demand for more
young men to measure tape or more young women to run
type-writers. What is wanted is millions of sturdy men
and stout-hearted women to conquer the waste places and
to work for themselves.

A large proportion of those who went west in recent
years engaged in the fruit industry. This was painted
as a sure and easy road to wealth and an ideal occupa-
tion in the midst of ideal surroundings. The hard work
and constant vigilance which success in this industry de-
mands were seldom mentioned in the glowing advertise-
ments which attracted these settlers. Nothing was said
of the economic folly of the farmer who buys all he eats
and sells all he produces. As a natural consequence,
people who went west, particularly to California, paid
high prices for their land, waited years for trees to come
into bearing, and discovered that there could be no profits
without skill and hard work. They found that there are
such evils as over-production, high freight charges, and

258

THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND

the extortions of the commission system. Tens of thou-
sands of people failed in their efforts to make homes in
the semi-arid regions of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas,
and Texas because of having neither rain nor irrigation
facilities to moisten their fields. The isolation of farm-
life, and the lack of the enjoyments and refinements
available even to the poor in the older States, have been
fruitful causes of heart-sickness.

The chief reasons, then, why the surplus people do not
go to the surplus lands are that they have not the capital
to do so ; that they do not know where to go ; that they
do not know how to organize their industry in order to
prosper ; that they fear the lack of good society and the
refinement which this should furnish to them and their
children. The plan of domestic colonization which shall
be of broad and enduring effect, and so give to the nation
the incalculable gains which may be won from the devel-
opment and use of its waste resources, must solve all
these problems. Nothing short of this will meet the de-
mand and open the gates of the West to the vast mul-
titude Avho would gladly enter at this wide portal if they
could believe that economic independence lay beyond.

CHAPTER III
COLONIZATION WITH CO-OPEIIATIVE CAPITAL

THE problem of making homes in the West for the
masses is the problem of bringing together surplus land,
surplus labor, and surplus capital. The first two factors
have been discussed in previous chapters. It remains
to consider the question of surplus capital and of its
utilization in connection with the conquest of unused
natural resources.

Of the fact of surplus capital there is, of course, no
more question than of the fact of surplus land or the
fact of surplus labor. Just as there are great areas of
unemployed land and great numbers of half-employed
people, so there are vast amounts of idle and unpro-
ductive, or of half-employed, capital all over the United
States and in foreign countries. The difficulty is that
those who own the land do not possess the necessary
labor, and that those who have the labor do not possess
the necessary capital. Each of these factors is impotent
without both of the others. To bring them together
upon a basis of mutual security and profit is to solve so-
cial and economic questions of world-wide extent and
importance.

The evils of over-population, and the consequent fierce
struggle for existence, are not peculiar to the United

260

CO-OPERATIVE CAPITAL

States, one of the newest of nations. They are com-
mon to nearly all other countries. Nor is this the only
continent which offers an inviting field for expansion
and development. The same problems and the same op-
portunities, capable of solution and of use by the same
methods, exist everywhere. If it be possible to effect
colonization by means of co-operative capital in western
America, then it is equally possible to do the same in
Africa, Australia, and the Orient. If this method will
open a door of escape for the swarming populations of
Boston, New York, and Chicago, it will accomplish the
same result for the over -crowded people of London,
Paris, and Rome.

Looking at the matter in the light of its world-wide
possibilities, we see at once that if capital is to be em-
ployed in the work of colonization apart from its own-
ers, as is done in railroads and other industrial enter-
prises, it must be employed upon the soundest business
principles. These principles must be applicable to a
great variety of conditions — to different kinds of people,
of soil, of climate, of markets, of surrounding resources.
First of all, there must be security. Second, there must
be earning capacity at least equal to the demands of cur-
rent interest on safe investments. Any plan that falls
short of this will not meet the exigency.

Our settler has only his labor to start with. He must
buy land of one man and borrow capital of another. Then
he must pay for both with the proceeds arising from the
wise use of the land he has bought and the money he
has borrowed, plus the capacity to labor, which was his
only original capital. The element of charity cannot
enter into the matter at all. Philanthropy in its true

201

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

sense — concern for the welfare of mankind — may furnish
an impulse to such a work, as >it has done for many
another business enterprise, such as life insurance,
building and loan associations, and workingmen's hotels.
But these enterprises rest on sound and enduring business
principles, or they could not long exist or widely extend.
We must find equally sound and enduring business prin-
ciples upon which to rest the idea of colonization by
means of co-operative capital, or it can contribute noth-
ing of value to the progress of civilization.

In the seventeen western States and Territories there
are to-day eight million acres of fertile land lying under
completed irrigation systems. There are millions more
lying under half-finished works. They represent an un-
productive investment, counting interest charges, of two
hundred to three hundred million dollars. The chief
reasons for the fact that they are not utilized by those
who need them have been stated in the foregoing chap-
ter. Additional reasons are the unsatisfactory condi-
tion of water-rights in numerous instances, and the pop-
ular prejudice against arid lands. These lands have
every element of potential value. They have the pe-
culiar fertility arising from aridity, as described upon
scientific authority in an early chapter of this book.
They are fortunate alike in climate and in the surround-
ing resources of mine, forest, and grazing lands. They
represent the highest productive capacity upon the small-
est area, and are thus capable of sustaining the densest
agricultural population. All these conditions make
these lands extremely valuable, but only in case the cap-
ital and labor be supplied to awaken their sleeping po-
tentialities.

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CO-OPERATIVE CAPITAL

Here is a field which stands ready and waiting. The
costly work of preparation was done during a speculative
era, when it was believed that it was only necessary to
build reservoirs and canals in order to induce a stampede
of settlers to the newly reclaimed regions comparable to
that which peopled a State in Oklahoma almost in a
night. But those who reckoned thus did not understand
certain fundamental differences between the humid and
arid regions, and how these differences affected not
merely the process of colonization, but the habits, cus-
toms, and institutions of the people engaged in the work.
As the irrigation speculation of the early nineties turned
out, it seems almost as if a special Providence had pro-
vided a field for co-operative colonization, and then per-
mitted it to lie fallow until men should see the light.

There are plenty of surplus people who would gladly
occupy these surplus lands. The missing link is the
necessary capital. Supposing this be supplied and the
willing people sent forth upon their task, what are the
elements of security and the sources of profit for the
capital which must be employed ?

First, there is security in the land and water sup-
ply. This is of the most permanent and stable charac-
ter. It cannot burn up, nor blow away, nor be stolen,
nor does it deteriorate with use. It grows more valua-
ble with the passing years, with development, with the
increasing pressure of population. The improvements
made upon it are likewise fixed in character. Every
dollar of money and every hour of labor expended upon
the land remain there, permanent and inalienable addi-
tions to the value of the property.

There is a second element of security not inferior to
263

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

the land itself. It is the element of human labor. This
is the soul of the security, as land and water are its physi-
cal body. Labor is the creative force which alone gives
value to any form of security. Behind government and
municipal bonds is the labor of bodies politic. Behind
railroad and other industrial stocks and bonds is the labor
of an army of employes. Behind co-operative coloniza-
tion bonds would be the labor of earnest men and women,
selected for their intelligence, industry, and ambition —
of men and women working under competent leadership
to make homes and achieve independence for themselves
and their children. There can be no better security than
good irrigated land occupied by industrious people under
these conditions.

The foregoing statements apply with equal force to
the question of earning capacity. There is no failure of
crops upon irrigated lands when cultivated. There never
will or can be such failure until water forgets to run
down hill and the earth forgets to yield her increase.
The productive capacity of irrigated lands, under the
conditions of soil and climate obtaining in the arid
regions, is superior to that of any other lands. Under
the industrial plan outlined in the following chapter it
is impossible for the colonists to fail of a living. Under
that plan it is likewise impossible for them to fail of
a surplus above a living, sufficient to earn interest and
make regular contributions to the sinking fund upon the
basis of such a capitalization as is ample for the under-
taking.

We have here, then, in the irrigated but idle valleys of
the West, all the elements of a first-class security, includ-
ing the capacity to earn profits and pay off the principal.

204

CO-OPERATIVE CAPITAL

We have, first, a great investment which has prepared
the land for occupancy; then, fertile land and reliable
water supply ; intelligent and interested labor to do the
work; the improvements made by the use of the labor
and capital. The very important question of wise and
honest administration of the enterprise is dealt with in
a subsequent chapter.

Having considered the general principles of invest-
ment which enter into the problem, we are now ready to
discuss its details. The lands and works required for the
undertaking should be purchased on the shrewdest busi-
ness terms. They can generally be had for at mosb the
amount of the original investment, and often for a good
deal less. In many cases a large part of the investment
has been eliminated by foreclosure, and it is only neces-
sary to reimburse the bondholders, or those who bought
at forced sale. There is no occasion, therefore, for the
settlers to pay a sum which would represent a profit upon
the lands and works. If they pay six per cent, upon tho
capital borrowed to acquire and develop the property on
the favorable terms now possible, they can readily com-
mand all the capital needed for future operations. The
price of lands would vary in different parts of the West,
ranging from five to twenty dollars per acre. This would
include the appurtenant irrigation systems and perpetual
water-rights. With labor and capital to develop them
under wise plans and good leadership, these lands and
improvements would soon have a value, on the basis of
earning capacity, of fifty to one hundred dollars per acre,
and in some instances much more.

The cost of transporting settlers from their present to
their new homes should be borne by themselves or friends.

265

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

It would not be a legitimate use of the investment fund.
What is paid for land, labor, and resulting improvements
remains as a permanent part of the security and facilities
of production. But every dollar paid for moving people
and household goods is lost and can add nothing to se-
curity or income. Labor supplies should be drawn from
the nearest point where available, or if brought from a
distance should bear their own transportation charges.

The first expenditure of the investment fund, after
paying for the land, would necessarily be for shelter ; the
next for implements and live stock, seed, and fruit-trees.
After that the entire fund Avould be available for labor
and its maintenance. This labor would be used to clear
and plant the land and bring it to the highest possible
stage of production. Settlers in the West build com-
fortable houses for two or three hundred dollars, and even
less. Many a prosperous colonist points to a shanty in
the shadow of a comfortable residence which is full of
interest to him as a monument to his humble start. He
and his family built it with their own hands, perhaps
paying no more than fifty dollars for the materials. It is
amazing how comfortable a family can be in the poorest
shelter when they think they see property and financial
independence a few years ahead of them. It is not profit-
able to go into all the items of cost in detail, since con-
ditions vary with different localities, but it may be said
that one thousand dollars per family would be the mini-
mum and two thousand dollars per family the maximum
sum to be provided where settlers drew their entire capi-
tal from the investment fund. Farms should not be
smaller than ten acres, nor larger than forty, and twenty
acres would be a reasonable average.

266

CO-OPERATIVE CAPITAL

It is highly necessary to set apart a certain proportion
of the investment fund — say ten per cent. — to be used by
the colony for common purposes. They should own and
improve the town-site and have the profits arising there-
from. "We have seen the benefits of this plan in the his-
tory of Horace Greelcy's famous Colorado colony. They
should own various small industries, the possession of
which represents the difference between large profits and
small ones for their labor and crops; the difference be-
tween selling finished product and selling raw material ;
the difference between commercial independence and de-
pendence. They should own or control range facilities,
that they may engage in the remunerative cattle and
sheep industries. In many cases they will find it profit-
able to cut and manufacture their own lumber. No single
thing can contribute so much to their independence and
prosperity, and, consequently, to their peace and happi-
ness, as a fund available for those things which are beyond
the reach of the individual, yet highly essential to the
individual as a part of the community. The manage-
ment of this common fund and the various properties to
be created with it is dwelt upon in the next chapter.

Returning now to the financial proposition, we see that
the settler who borrows one thousand dollars to improve
a twenty-acre farm incurs an obligation of fifty dollars
per acre. A part of this he has paid for land, and an-
other part contributed to the colony fund for the general
purposes. The balance is an improvement fund, availa-
ble to bring his farm to a productive state. If he is to
pay back his borrowed capital in ten years, and pay six
per cent, interest in the mean time, he must have three
dollars per acre each year for interest and five dollars per

267

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

acre for the sinking fund. In other words, he must
earn and lay aside the net sum of eight dollars per acre
over and above the cost of his living. No one familiar
with the productive capacity of irrigated land, and with
the markets which fortunately surround nearly every fer-
tile valley in the arid region, will doubt that this is easily
possible. But by what methods can this result be best
assured ? Is the average settler drawn from the urban
life of the East able to expend his borrowed capital and
direct his untrained energies surely to this end ? "Will
the investor be willing to trust him to do so ? Both
questions may be emphatically answered in the negative.
How, then, is the thing to be done ?

The labor is handled as a unit. While each man is
working for himself he does not work by himself. He
works in co-operation with his fellows, under the direc-
tion of expert superintendence, at least until all the
farms have been brought successfully through the pre-
liminary stage to a paying condition, and until the de-
mands of intensive cultivation make it more profitable
for each man to devote his time largely to his own
place. This is only reducing to a science the method of
"swapping work" which already prevails in new coun-
tries— that is, where there are a number of settlers, they
help each other in clearing lands, building houses, and,
later, in planting and harvesting crops. They find it
profitable to do this, especially in the early years of their
settlement, because there are so many things to be done
about a farm which are beyond the strength of a single
individual. By helping each other the work of all is
done expeditiously, without cash outlay for hired hands.
It is the old story of more economical production and

CO-OPERATIVE CAPITAL

less waste by doing things on a large scale instead of a
small one.

The advantages which settlers obtain by the crude
method of "swapping work " among themselves would
be vastly greater in the case of co-operative colonists
working with sufficient capital under trained leadership.
In clearing, planting, and reaping they would be able to
use machinery too expensive for one small farm, but very
cheap indeed when the expense is divided among many
small farms. The quality of their work and the esprit
de corps would be much higher. It would represent the
difference between a regiment and a mob. Kaw recruits
would soon become as effective as the best-trained farm-
ers under this teaching and discipline. But the chief
advantage would be the financial one. This would result
from the prevention of waste of money, time, and ener-
gies which characterizes individual settlement, especially
where the conditions of industry are so new to most of
our race and nationality as they are in the land of irriga-
tion. It would result also from the fact that those who
had furnished capital for the work would be able, through
their representatives, to keep their hands on the purse-
strings, and so control and direct the expenditure of
their money to the accomplishment of their ends — the
making of productive homes which will enable the bor-
rowers to pay interest regularly and principal at maturity.

If the labor is to be handled as a unit and the settlers
to work under guidance, by what method is the improve-
ment fund to be made available for them, and how are
the investors to be assured of the proper collection of
their share of the proceeds arising from the joint use of
the land, labor, and capital ?

269

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

The improvement fund is paid out regularly each week
or month in the form of wages. Out of these wages the
settler pays a regular sum each month, equivalent, at the
end of the year, to six per cent, interest on the amount
he has borrowed. After the first year he would be re-
quired to make an additional monthly payment into the
sinking fund, equal, at the end of the year, to ten per
cent, of his borrowed capital. But after the first year
the settler has something besides his wages on which to
depend for his payments.

All the profits of the work above fixed charges are
credited to the settlers in proportion to their wages,
which are supposed to fairly measure the value of their
work. The fixed charges are cost of labor and materials
and six per cent, interest on the capital employed. The
profits above these charges should be large and increase
with each year, especially as trees come in bearing. It
is for the settler's interest to have these profits begin as
soon and grow as large as possible, since they are all ap-
plied to the reduction of his debt. The accumulations
of the sinking fund are applied by trustees to good in-
vestments, in connection with the colony, such as cattle
or sheep, the erection of needed industries, or the pro-
vision of facilities for the sale and distribution of prod-
ucts. If circumstances permitted, the entire borrowed
capital could be paid off before the time of its maturity,
or the money retained for profitable use in other ways,
as seemed best to those charged with the care of the in-
vestment.

Wages vary with different occupations, but common
labor would receive thirty to forty dollars per month,
out of which the family living would be paid. An ad-

270

CO-OPERATIVE CAPITAL

ditional charge would be made for life insurance, to pro-
tect both the loan and the settler's family in case of
death. It is not expected that the wages will be such
as to provide for anything except the bare necessities of
life. The co-operative settler must be economical and
thrifty and work hard. It is not a case for the eight-
hour day. Men who are working for themselves rather
than for other men can afford to work long hours, as has
been done by most of those who have made themselves
independent. An incidental advantage of handling the
labor as a unit under good management is that it can be
employed effectively throughout the year in developing
the colony and its surrounding resources, which is not
generally the case with individual settlers.

There are two other striking advantages which result
from preserving the solidarity of both the labor arid the
capital under this plan. All the supplies consumed by
the community, from potatoes to mowing-machines, can
be purchased at wholesale and at a great saving of cost.
Then the products of the land can be sold under a single
management and in large quantities. The result is a
great saving in the cost of living and a better net result
in selling. Both of these things enhance the settler's
prosperity and enable him to repay his borrowed capital
the sooner. It is not expected that all settlers will pay
out in the same time. Some will do so years earlier than
others, because more economical and ambitious. In
fixing the term of the loan at ten years, the maximum
period is taken.

In estimating the settler's ability to repay borrowed
capital, one thousand dollars is taken as the unit of
the loan, and twenty acres as the unit of the farm.

271

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

When the loan is twice the amount the farm will bo
double the size. In the former case the annual in-
terest charge is sixty dollars, and the contribution to
sinking fund one hundred dollars, or a total of one hun-
dred and sixty dollars per year. To meet these charges,
as has already been pointed out, profits and savings
from wages must be equal to eight dollars per acre. It
is the problem of the management to make the labor
produce the amount of its moderate wage and something
in excess. Careful estimates lead to the conclusion that
five dollars per month, or sixty dollars per year, is all
that need be deducted from the wages of the settler who
borrows one thousand dollars on twenty acres, and that
ten dollars per month would be deducted from the wages
of the settler who borrowed two thousand dollars on
forty acres. It seems to be perfectly safe to count upon
a net annual profit of five dollars per acre to make up
the balance of one hundred dollars on the twenty-acre
farm, and of two hundred dollars on the forty-acre farm.
Considering the immense advantages arising from the
purchase of supplies at wholesale, the sale of products in
large quantities, and from working under able and expert
management, this would appear to be a reasonable and
conservative calculation.

This chapter is intended to treat only of the utilization
of surplus capital in making homes for surplus people
upon surplus lands. It touches upon the employment
and organization of labor only so far as necessary to
show how the capital may be used, conserved, compen-
sated, and finally repaid.

The use of co-operative capital in making homes for
those who live and work in cities and towns is well

272

CO-OPERATIVE CAPITAL

known. There are nearly five thousand building and
loan associations in the United States. They have more
than one million six hundred thousand members, and
a paid-in capital, gathered mostly in very small sums, of
over six hundred million dollars. They have put roofs
over the heads of two hundred and sixty thousand Amer-
ican families.

Both for the lender and the borrower colonization
with co-operative capital is safer and better than urban
house-building with co-operative capital. A twenty-acre
irrigated farm, with an industrious family working upon
it under good direction, is better security for a loan than
a twenty-five foot lot in the suburbs of New York with
a house upon it. It is such because of its greater and
more certain productive capacity, and because the man
who has borrowed the money to make a farm is more
certain of employment than he who has borrowed merely
to build a house.

The man who borrows to build the house is usually
dependent upon others for his living, in the sense that
he is employed to work for wages. His income may be
interrupted at any moment by the strike, the lockout,
or financial panic. His employer may die or become
insolvent. A new labor-saving machine or a new ship-
load of Italian immigrants may send him into the streets.
When he gets old the house does not sustain him. When
he dies it does not sustain his loved ones.

The man who borrows to make a home on the irri-
gated lands of the West works for himself and cannot
be discharged. He is on the road to complete eco-
nomic independence. Even in hard times he is sure of
his living. Labor-saving machinery works for him and
s 273

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

not against him. The coming of new swarms of foreign
immigrants into the cities does not alarm him, for he
feeds and clothes them. When he has passed the years
of greatest activity the kindly soil goes on producing,
and constitutes his old-age pension. When he dies the
soil still continues to produce and to support his fam-
ily, for it is his life-insurance policy. Viewed from every
stand-point, co-operative capital can be employed to bet-
ter advantage in colony - making than in urban house-
building. Financially, economically, and socially — it may
not be extravagant even to say politically — the results
will be better and more far-reaching.

The City and Suburban Homes Company of New
York, under the successful presidency of Dr. Elgin R.
L. Gould, with the generous financial backing of some
of the wealthiest citizens of New York, as well as of
many small investors, is erecting model tenements in
the great city and making model country homes in its
suburbs. While the motive of this work is philan-
thropic, the method is distinctly commercial. It pays
five per cent, dividends, yet serves the highest social
purposes. Mr. D. 0. Mills builds workingmen's hotels,
and his praises are upon the lips of thousands who have
enjoyed their comfortable shelter, yet he makes them
pay four per cent, as regularly as government bonds.
Many other instances of the safe and profitable use of
capital in ways which benefit mankind might be quoted.

There lies the beautiful West, with room for one hun-
dred million people. The people are in existence, and
need the lands as badly as the lands need them. But
their hands are tied. Only capital can untie them, and
at the same time unlock the stores of natural wealth now

274

CO-OPERATIVE CAPITAL

imprisoned in desert soil and forest and mountain.
Without co-operative capital the people cannot move,
and without co-operative industry it would be idle for
them to do so. It is not only new settlers for new lands
that are wanted, but new institutions for new times.

CHAPTER IV
COLONY PLANS AND INSTITUTIONS

IF surplus labor and capital are to be directed to the
systematic development of surplus lands, they must work
upon well-considered industrial and social plans and
create institutions adapted to the times and the sur-
roundings.

We have seen how the famous colonies of Colorado,
Utah, and southern California were thoughtfully planned
by their founders, how well they succeeded, and how
their success exerted a wide and beneficent influence
upon the regions in which they were planted. In our
brief references to Holland we have observed the effect
of natural environment upon the habits and institutions
of the people, not only in their industry, but also in
their society, and perhaps in their politics. In our study
of irrigation as an economic force we have seen how im-
periously it compels the small-farm unit, with its correl-
ative effect of near neighbors and social advantages ; how
it commands the organization and association of labor in
large ways, yet favors individual proprietorship of the
many small units of land which make up the aggregate
of a successful community. These are our landmarks in
planning the wise use of land and labor and capital in
the fertile valleys of the Far West.

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COLONY PLANS AND INSTITUTIONS

Before we can satisfy capital we must show that there
are security and earning capacity. In like manner there
are certain fundamental requirements essential to sat-
isfy labor. There are three things which human beings
want — first, the certainty of a living, which includes
food, clothing, and shelter ; second, surplus means above
a living for the improvement of the home, the educa-
tion of the children, and provision against old age ;
third, satisfaction for the social instincts. These three
things are as necessary to the contentment of labor as
security and interest are vital to the satisfaction of
capital.

The corner-stone of the colony's industrial system is
the small, diversified farm, producing the variety of
things which the family and community consume.

Wo have seen how the Mormon farmers prospered for
fifty years by following this plan. They lived well in
good times and bad, kept out of debt, and steadily ac-
cumulated a surplus to invest in banks, factories, stores,
and temples. In certain years they would have realized
larger cash returns if their lands had been exclusively
devoted to corn, wheat, or hops. Southerners speculate
in cotton ; middle-westerners in grain ; Californians in
fruit. They enjoy brief periods of flood -tide, but at
least half the time the tide is running out, and at reg-
ular intervals they find themselves stranded on the rocks
and shoals left by its ebb. In the long run the Mor-
mon workers have distanced them by steadfast adherence
to the policy of collecting their living first from the soil,
and having a surplus afterwards to dispose of in the
markets. It is beyond question, then, that self-suffi-
ciency is the first essential of a true industrial system in

277

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

the arid region. Nothing should be purchased for cash
which can be economically bought with labor.

Every valley of the West is surrounded by large and
growing home markets, in the way of lumber and min-
ing camps and railroad towns. Not a single State be-
yond the Rockies raises enough agricultural products to
supply its own wants. The trade of the Pacific Ocean is
expanding by strides and bounds. Under these fortu-
nate circumstances it is an easy matter to plan profitable
lines of industry for new colonies.

There are three lines of production which should be
systematically followed, having first been carefully adapt-
ed to local conditions of soil, climate, and surrounding
markets. These lines are as follows : First, the things
consumed by the farmers themselves ; second, the things
now imported, but capable of home production; third,
the things which distant communities consume but can-
not produce, which will therefore bear the burden of
transportation and are susceptible of profitable export.
The first list consists of what the community eats, wears,
and uses for shelter, or in its arts and industries. The
second list includes almost everything grown from the
soil or manufactured by skilled labor and machinery.
It also includes poultry and dairy products and cured
meats. The third list varies with different localities.
The semi-tropical parts of California and Arizona find
their surplus for export in oranges, lemons, olives, and
fresh and dried fruits of all deciduous kinds. The
more temperate regions in the West export the hardier
fruits, such as apples, pears, peaches, and primes. Fer-
tile valleys, surrounded by Uncle Sam's great free past-
ures, produce a surplus of cattle and sheep, hides and wool.

278

COLONY PLANS AND INSTITUTIONS

Great sources of future profit may be found in a va-
riety of simple industries, which demand only cheap
machinery and a small amount of skilled labor. These
are such industries as every small colony may have if
possessed of a common fund for industrial purposes.
They include creameries, canneries, pork - packeries,
starch factories, and the like. Lumber and planing-
mills, and various other small industries closely related
to the life of an agricultural community, are also profit-
able and wholly feasible under these plans. Time and
prosperity, with their gradual accretion of men of talent
and experience, would open the way for the larger and
more complicated industries, as they did among the
Mormons. Wool and hides should not forever be shipped
to Boston, and cloth and shoes forever imported from
that place, so remote from all the raw materials it uses.
If no capital were available except the savings of trans-
continental freight, it would build many shoe factories
and woollen mills in the regions where wool and hides
are cheaply produced, and where millions must always be
clothed and shod.

Having shown how labor may be employed so that it
can never fail of its living, nor of a surplus above its
living sufficient for the reasonable demands of human
beings, we come now to the question of the organization
and management of labor.

The system of labor should rest upon the indepen-
dence of the individual. All that he can well and effec-
tively do for himself he should be permitted to do. Such
advantages as he may win by individual thrift, industry,
and skill he is entitled to obtain and enjoy and to trans-
mit to his children. He should not suffer from the in-

279 '

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

dolence or incompetence of other men, or ask others to
pay the penalty of his own shortcomings. The individ-
ual home, family, and farm constitute the unit of indus-
try and society in the colony. But there is a sphere be-
yond the reach of the individual.

It is impossible for each small capitalist and proprietor
to maintain his own store, so that he may purchase sup-
plies to the best advantage ; to operate his own selling
agency, so that he may dispose of surplus products in
the best markets and on the best terms ; to erect and
conduct his own industrial plants, so that he may con-
dense and manufacture raw products into the most mar-
ketable form ; to purchase and manage a large stock-
ranch, so that he may pasture and fatten a small herd of
cattle or flock of sheep. All these things require capital,
special knowledge, and an amount and kind of labor which
the individual and his family do not usually possess.

We have passed from the sphere of the single man or
family to that of associated man. It demands the use
of the aggregate capital of the community and the wise
organization of labor. We must now have either com-
petition or co-operation — competition, in which the few
of large capital shall employ and exploit the many ; or co-
operation, in which the many shall organize their capital
and their labor for mutual advantage and protection.

We may now apply the larger lessons learned from the
Mormon system of stock companies, from the fruit ex-
changes of California, and from the co-operative societies
of Europe. The modern corporation, and even the mod-
ern trust, point the way to prosperity for the army of
producers who will occupy the now vacant West in the
coming century. These are simply a means of combin-

.280

COLONY PLANS AND INSTITUTIONS

ing tlie capital of many owners so that they may accom-
plish collectively what could not be done as well, or at
all, individually. The advantages of this method are
now so generally recognized that it is unnecessary to
dwell upon them. It is important to remark, however,
that the expert ability which a corporation with large
capital can command, and the saving of waste which it
can effect by eliminating competition and doing things
upon a large scale, is as vital to a colony as to a railroad,
a gas company, or a group of sugar refineries. The prin-
ciple upon which aggregations of large capital are made
applies as well to aggregations of small capital.

The colony capital should be handled by a local com-
pany owning the town-site, store, industries, and such
other properties as experience proves to be useful and
profitable to the community. In this company all of the
colonists would be equal stockholders at the beginning,
and every safeguard should be erected to make transfers
of stock as difficult as possible, since it is desired to pre-
serve equality of ownership in everything which is be-
yond the sphere of strictly individual control. So long
as the settlers are under obligations to the founding cap-
ital— which will be until they have paid off their loans —
the trustees of this capital will control the local company
and its operations, as also the labor and land. The man-
ner and advantages of this control are discussed in the
next chapter.

We have, then, a community composed of a multitude
of small landed proprietors working for themselves, under
the direction of superior ability and experience, and equip-
ped with sufficient working capital for both their private
and public enterprises. It is an organized community,

281

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

operated upon industrial plans thoroughly vindicated by
the experience of the arid region during the past half-
century. The financial plan does not differ materially
from that of building and loan associations, nor the plan
of conducting stores and industries from that of the suc-
cessful co-operative institutions of Great Britain. There
is nothing novel or experimental in the plan as a whole,
except the application of old and proved principles to
new conditions.

The project of co-operative colonization sometimes
incurs the criticism of Socialists, on the ground that it
does not provide a sure method of preserving equality
in men's possessions. The fear is expressed that the abler,
thriftier, and more grasping among the settlers will grad-
ually acquire large means and make their fellows pay
tribute to them. Such a result would be theoretically
possible, bat is hardly a practical danger. Though the
twenty -acre irrigated farm has never yet produced a
pauper, neither has it grown a millionaire, nor any-
thing approaching a capitalist of ominous proportions.
The tendency in colonies where irrigation is used, as we
saw m an early chapter of this book, is towards the di-
vision of lands rather than in the direction of acquiring
more. It is difficult to see how Socialism would give to
an agricultural population any important advantages
over this plan of co-operation, which preserves individ-
ual independence while providing for the solidarity of
the community.

We come now to the social side of colony institutions.
We have seen how the isolation of country life has
driven multitudes to the already crowded cities. In the
history of the most successful settlements ever made on

COLONY PLANS AND INSTITUTIONS

irrigated land we have observed a simple method of
giving to the owners of small farms most of the advan-
tages of town life. This is accomplished by assembling
their homes in village centres with outlying farms. This
is an old custom in Europe, is the most universal plan
in Utah, and has been adopted in many other western
localities. It is not free from drawbacks, and should
not be made obligatory upon the settlers, but experience
has proven that in much the greater portion of the year
the advantages are decidedly in favor of living in the
town.

Most men are willing to consult the convenience and
happiness of their families as much as their own. When
they do this they realize what it is worth to have neighbors
close at hand, and to live near to the school, church,
store, post-office, and all else so essential to civilized
life. The farmers who live in the town have the bene-
fit of clubs, libraries, and various forms of instruction
and entertainment. They and their families enjoy a
full and rounded life compared with the lean existence
of those whose society is mostly limited to quadrupeds.
The farmer's village home must be ample. Not less
than an acre is really satisfactory, but this is quite suffi-
cient, considering that the farm is distant but a few
minutes' drive, and that he participates in facilities else-
where for the care of live-stock, if he has any consider-
able number. Furthermore, the farmer is interested in
the growth of the town-site, and the more it gains in
population and appearance the more he will realize from
the sale of its business and residence lots.

A colony needs no political institutions other than
those ordained by the State in which it is located. But

283

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

the stockholders' meetings should be frequent and largely
attended, resembling a town-meeting in New England.
The colonists should advise about all their affairs, and
exercise control in everything which does not affect
the security of the founding capital. After the prelim-
inary period of development is passed and the loans
paid off, they will, of course, have absolute control of
everything. But before this stage is reached they will
have served a good apprenticeship under competent and
sympathetic leaders, and have gradually grown up to
the full size of their opportunities and responsibilities.
Their town-meetings will furnish a parliamentary train-
ing of no mean value, especially to the young, as has
been the case in New England. All should serve upon
committees, and so gain personal familiarity with every
phase of the colony business. These committees should
be very numerous, and members should be rotated, so as
to give them experience upon each.

Who shall estimate the future influence in the life of
America and the world of a generation reared under such
conditions and in the midst of such surroundings ?

CHAPTER V
THE ADMINISTRATION OF CO-OPERATIVE SETTLEMENT

GIVEN favorable location, industrious settlers, and
abundant capital, there is yet another element absolute-
ly essential to the success of co-operative colonization.
This is able and honest management. Good leadership
is as necessary as sound principles, and executive capacity
at the head as vital as earnest and faithful labor in the
ranks.

This is the teaching of all past experience, not only in
colonization effort, but in all co-operative undertakings,
especially where capital has been supplied by one class
for the use of another. The leadership required is of a
rarer quality than that usually found at the head of
financial and industrial enterprises. It calls not mere-
ly for brains, experience, and special aptitude, but for
devotion, and almost for consecration, as well. There
must be heart as well as head in the management of such
affairs. A man with only large human sympathies
would not succeed, but neither would a man with only
business acumen. Both qualities are required for the
successful management of men and money in a work
which aims at the production of homes and institutions
along with dividends.

When such leadership has been secured it should "be

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

given f nil control. It should have the power and be held
to the responsibility. This responsibility should not be
divided among subordinates, still less shared with the
rank and file. The leader has placed in his hands, say,
one hundred thousand dollars, and the destinies of one
hundred families. The care of the money is an impor-
tant trust, but the care of the families is a more sacred
responsibility. The man who is willing and able to
assume the burden of such a task should have the power
necessary to its accomplishment, and the praise or blame
which will follow the result. No man fit for the work
would undertake it upon any other conditions. But the
chief reason for vesting control in superior and responsi-
ble leadership is the welfare of the people themselves.

Almost without exception successful colonies have
been ruled with the strong hand. Sometimes the power
proceeded from religious superstition or fanaticism,
sometimes from financial or legal obligation, and some-
times from sheer force of genius on the leader's part;
but, without exception, the colonies which have succeeded
have worked under one guiding brain and hand, while
those that have failed did so through the dissensions and
incompetency of the general membership. This has not
been peculiar to our race and country, but to all races
and countries. It was true of Plymouth, New Amster-
dam, and Jamestown. It was pre-eminently true of the
Utah settlements, and only a little less so of those of
Colorado and California. It is worth while to glance
briefly at recent foreign efforts to observe the working of
the same principle.

Soon after the close of the Napoleonic wars, eighty
years ago, the streets and roads of Holland were filled

286

CO-OPERATIVE SETTLEMENT

with idle and homeless veterans. A certain Dutch general
'suggested the employment of this labor in reclaiming
agricultural lands and creating farms and homes, believ-
ing that it would be better to help the workless to inde-
pendence than to extend charity. From this suggestion
came the Beggar Colonies, and subsequently the Free
Colonies, which have ever since absorbed the surplus
labor of Holland. They have graduated thousands from
beggary to tenantry, from tenantry to proprietorship.

The enterprise is purely governmental, and under the
rigid control of able and responsible men. The man who
asks for alms is taken to the Beggar Colonies and put at
work. If he will not work he is flogged until he does, or
until he escapes across the boundary of the industrious
little nation which has no patience with the wilfully idle.
In this beneficent colony the people are systematically
taught the art of agriculture. After five years, if they
have proven earnest and intelligent, they are transferred
to the Free Colonies, where they are supplied with a very
small farm and the necessary implements and live-stock,
and with a house and lot in the village. They are given
ample time in which to pay for the property, and charged
very low interest on the use of the capital. The plan
has been a financial, economic, and social success. The
result is unquestionably due to the fact that men of
superior intelligence and experience made the plan and
administered it to the last detail up to the moment when
the settler became a full-fledged proprietor.

The experience of the German government in dividing
and settling with small farmers great landed estates in
Prussian Poland furnishes an equally striking illustra-
tion. This work was undertaken for the triple purpose

287

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

of relieving the congestion of cities, staying the decline
of rural life, and preventing the further emigration of
useful citizens to foreign parts. It is practically a gov-
ernment enterprise, conducted through a system of land-
banks.

When the owner of a large estate desires to sell, the
government sends a commission to examine and report
upon its fitness for colonization. If the report is favor-
able the land-bank buys the estate with an issue of bonds,
which the government has guaranteed. A part of the
fund is paid to the owner and another part reserved to
assist settlers. All the work of subdivision, drainage,
and other preparation for settlement is done by the gov-
ernment, even to the erection of houses and other build-
ings. Successful applicants are supplied with seed, live-
stock, and provisions until their farms become self-sus-
taining. They are asked only to repay the actual cost of
their homes and farms and low interest on the invest-
ment, the payments extending over many years. In
the mean time the bonds are secured by lands and im-
provements. The control of the entire enterprise, from
start to finish, is held in firm and experienced hands, and
it is needless to say that these colonies are successful.

Australia furnishes an instance of a different kind.
Young as it is, its chief cities already feel the pressure of
over-population. Such was the case with Adelaide, the
capital of South Australia, in 1894.

In that year the Parliament of South Australia passed
the Village Settlement Bill, setting apart for coloniza-
tion certain arid public lands on the Murray river. The
measure provided for an advance of two hundred and
fifty dollars for each member of the colony, but vested

CO-OPERATIVE SETTLEMENT

the management largely in the settlers themselves. They
were to be accompanied by a government official, but his
power was that of moral influence rather than of legal
authority. Under this plan several settlements were
started, and for a time seemed to promise excellent re-
sults. But the most recent information the writer has
been able to obtain is to the effect that the colonies
went to pieces upon the rock of internal dissension, as
has so often been the case in the absence of strong, re-
sponsible leadership.

The experience of the Chaff ey Brothers, of California,
who went to Australia to found colonies at the request
of the government, was quite similar. As long as the
people worked upon plans the projectors had learned
from their valuable experience in California, and accept-
ed direction, they prospered. When the people took
full control for themselves, dissension and demoraliza-
tion quickly ensued, to be followed by disappointment,
and at least partial defeat.

Wherever the conditions of settlement were such as
to call for organized industry and society, all experience
teaches the absolute need of superior brains and charac-
ter at the head of affairs. This is not strikingly true of
the settlement of the vast country between the Alleghany
and the Rocky Mountains during the past one hundred
years. In that case both the locality and the times
favored individual effort. But the waste-places which
remain to be conquered, not only in the United States,
but in nearly all other parts of the world, present con-
ditions which demand the association and organization

o

of both labor and capital. Even if physical conditions
did not make this demand, existing economic facts would
T 289

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

be equally imperative. The small capitalists and pro-
ducers must choose between organizing themselves and
being crushed by the organizations of other men.

Recurring to the matter of co-operative colonization,
we see that colonies cannot be made without capital ;
that capital cannot be had without security and divi-
dends ; that security and dividends cannot be assured
without able and experienced management ; that able
and experienced management cannot be obtained with-
out absolute authority in all essential matters, at least
while the farms, industries, and institutions are in the
formative stage and working upon borrowed means.
Thus the conclusion is forced upon us, alike by world-
wide experience in colonization effort, by economic con-
ditions of the time, and by the consideration of the de-
mands which capital will justly make before lending
itself to such enterprises, that the road to independence
for surplus people on surplus lands lies first through the
field of discipline, obedience, and submission to the au-
thority of some form of administration.

What should this form of administration be ? In Hol-
land and Germany we have seen the power exercised by
the government, and in Utah by the church. In the
colonial days of the Atlantic coast it was exercised by
civil government closely dominated by the church and,
even more extensively, by chartered companies formed
for the purpose of colonization and development. Where
colonies have succeeded without guidance from govern-
ment, church, or chartered companies, the result has
been due to the ascendency of extraordinary men, and,
more rarely, to the character, spirit, and temperament
of the people themselves. These latter instances furnish

290

CO-OPERATIVE SETTLEMENT

no light for our present problem, since capital will not
invest upon the mere chance of finding extraordinary
men or colonists of rare character and spirit.

The current history of Ireland furnishes us with a les-
son of great importance. In that country economic im-
provement has recently superseded political agitation in
the popular mind. The result is an industrial and social
uplift which has not yet attracted the world-wide atten-
tion it deserves. The movement is the result of the
earnest labors of the Eight Hon. Horace Plunkett, Mr.
Thomas P. Gill, Mr. K. A. Anderson, and their colleagues
in the Irish Agricultural Organization Society. Their
methods are not exactly parallel to those which could be
used in the settlement of a new country, but the only
difference is that which obtains between building a new
house and rebuilding an old one.

Before the present movement was started Ireland was
about as hopeless a place for the small farmer as could
be discovered upon the map of the world. Those who
produced the wealth from the soil bought their provisions
and sold their crops to the poorest possible advantage,
and borrowed money at crushing rates of interest. Their
natural markets were occupied by Belgian, Dutch, and
French farmers, who had been so fortunate as to learn
at an earlier day the value of organization on co-oper-
ative lines. In the face of much opposition on the part
of his countrymen, especially of the professional poli-
ticians, Mr. Plunkett set out upon the career of indus-
trial reformer and up-builder. Knowing Ireland by heart,
and thoroughly informed of the methods and results of
co-operation in other countries, he set out upon a cru-
sade for the industrial regeneration of his countrymen.

291

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

He urged the virtues of the higher agriculture, the bene-
fits of organization for the purchase of supplies and sale
of products, and the incidental social advantages to be
gained through commercial co-operation. He preached
to the lord in his castle as well as to the peasant in his
cottage. He urged upon the rich the duty they owed to
their country and their fellow-men, calling upon them to
give of their means, their education, and their experience,
in organizing the people to use labor, capital, and land to
better advantage. The movement strictly avoids politics,
but has brought representatives of all other elements of
Irish life into the great society of which Mr. Plunkett is
president and Mr. Anderson secretary.

The society has dotted the map of Ireland with co-
operative institutions of every kind. Its own relation
to these institutions is not that of stockholder or man-
ager, but is purely advisory and paternal. The society
sends out lecturers to talk to the people and show them
the way to prosperity. It publishes books, pamphlets,
and an entertaining weekly newspaper. It supplies ex-
perts to conduct experimental farms, establish and equip
various small industries, organize commercial associa-
tions, and supervise the bookkeeping of the various en-
terprises. In a word, it puts at the disposal of the poor
farmers of Ireland the brains and experience of superior
men. Working with the benefit of these brains and ex-
perience, a population which once seemed the most dis-
couraged and hopeless in Europe is rising steadily and
grandly in the industrial and social scale.

It is borrowing from village banks, at four per cent,
annual interest, money which it formerly had of usurers
at two to five per cent, a month. It has smashed the ring

292

CO-OPERATIVE SETTLEMENT

which formerly made its own exorbitant price for fertil-
izer, and now buys this material, so necessary to the pro-
ductiveness of the Irish soil, at wholesale rates. It mar-
kets its products in large lots in the best markets, and,
to some extent, dictates the cost of transportation. It
raises more various and profitable crops, and converts
them into finished product in its own factories. It fur-
nishes itself with co-operative credit, so that it is possi-
ble to prevent the sacrifice of products for ready money
and to hold them until the market is most favorable. As
an inevitable consequence of this remarkable industrial
uplift, the social and intellectual life of the people is
steadily rising.

It is impossible in this brief reference to the work of
Mr. Plunkett and his associates to even hint at all the
ways in which they are striving to show their country-
men that the road to prosperity lies through co-opera-
tion. Already the economic gain is vast, and the prom-
ise even more so. It goes almost without saying that
the results will be such as to prevent the further de-
population of the island by misery and famine, and per-
haps even to recall thousands of its sons and daughters
from over the sea.

Ireland had no problem of reclaiming and settling new
lands. Her vexed question was how to make comfort-
able and happy the people who already crowded her
small territory. But the experience which has been re-
ferred to illustrates two points wholly pertinent to this
chapter — the virtues of organized production and ex-
change, and the necessity of enlightened and devoted
leadership.

We may go back to the seventeenth century and get
293

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

light for a portion of our present problem from the his-
tory of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Chartered by
royal grant and given possession of large tracts of vir-
gin land, mostly covered with dense forests, this com-
pany planned settlements that still flourish. It laid out
colonies, or "plantations," obtained and organized par-
ties of settlers, appointed leaders, developed trade, planted
institutions. The economic conditions of that day dif-
fered so widely from those now prevailing that we can
learn from this experience only the abstract advantages
of good leadership and a willing following. But the or-
ganization which should do to-day for the surplus peo-
ple of the Atlantic coast and the surplus lands of the
Far West what the Massachusetts Bay Company did for
the surplus people of England and the surplus lands of
New England nearly three hundred years ago, would in
some respects follow closely upon the lines of its distin-
guished prototype.

After this hasty but world-wide glance at the experi-
ence of the past, we are prepared to consider what is re-
quired for the successful administration of a broad work
of co-operative settlement in the waste-places, partic-
ularly of our own continent.

The people of the United States are not yet ready to
have their government engage in a work pertaining so
closely to the lives and fortunes of a few thousand, or hun-
dreds of thousands, out of their many millions. There
would be great opposition to the use of the national means
or credit in founding homes, industries, or society for a
comparatively few. On the other hand, it is not in ac-
cord with our best traditions or the genius of our institu-
tions that it should be done by a church, or by any num-

294

CO-OPERATIVE SETTLEMENT

ber of churches, nor that it should be undertaken as a
matter of charity. It is work for such a company as Dr,
E. R. L. Gould founded in New York to build comfort-
able suburban homes for those who could gradually pay
for them. It is a work worthy to command such popular
support as Mr. Plunkett has won for his cause in Ire-
land. It is a work which calls for a combination of busi-
ness sagacity, administrative talent, and humanitarian
impulses.

An organization which should meet the present needs
of the American people in this respect, and rise to its
full opportunity, would acquire as much of the idle irri-
gation property in the West as was needed for its pur-
pose, and might gradually absorb the larger portion of
such properties. It would prepare to found colonies in
different localities capable of expansion, so that after a
time its plans would be in operation under different con-
ditions of climate, soil, and markets. It would demon-
strate the demand for its existence by receiving appli-
cations from indefinite thousands of good families, who
would be glad to put their labor against necessary land
and capital. It would set apart from its 'property, by
deeding outright to a responsible trustee, such of its
lands as were best adapted to settlement, issuing against
these lands bonds bearing six per cent, interest and fall-
ing due in ten years. Thus these bonds would be spe-
cifically secured upon the lands to the improvement of
which the labor and capital would be applied, and would
have the further guaranty of an organization owning
valuable property created by former investments.

The organization would then proceed to obtain its set-
tlers by a process of careful selection and conduct them

295

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

to the colonies. It would intrust the work of adminis-
tration to men of great ability and experience, who
would systematically direct the labor to the highest im-
provement of the land and the speediest repayment of
the capital. In a previous chapter we have seen the in-
dustrial and social organization of the colony, the man-
agement of the labor, the sources of profit, and the method
of paying interest and gradually providing for the sink-
ing fund from wages and profits.

This plan meets every requirement of the situation,
and will solve the problem of bringing together the sur-
plus land, labor, and capital, if the writer's deductions
from the world's experience are correct. No other plan
seems feasible for this time, this people, and this country.

It is necessary to say a closing word under this head
to those who will object to the feature of a strong con-
trol of the colonists on the ground that it is not demo-
cratic, and that it violates the true spirit of co-operation.

The whole history of the past shows that those who
set out upon the work of colony -building must make
themselves amenable to leadership in order to succeed.
The writer regrets that this conclusion has been forced
upon him as the result of patient studies of colonial
effort in our own and in foreign countries. It would
be far more agreeable to say that all the people need is
sufficient capital, then access to the land, and that when
these are provided they are perfectly capable of work-
ing out their own salvation. But such is not the fact.
They will waste their time and squander their resources
in learning how not to do it. They will fall into hope-
less dissensions, break up into warring factions, and so
defeat their own precious ends. They will set the stamp

296

CO-OPERATIVE SETTLEMENT

of failure upon the very institutions they are so anxious
to establish and perpetuate. They will even set back for
a time the development of the only portion of the United
States which now invites them to homes and indepen-
dence.

The time may come when all men will be equal finan-
cially, intellectually, morally, and socially. It has not
come yet. The many must still seek the leading of the
few, and happy are they who can receive it under con-
ditions which guarantee to them the full fruits of their
individual labor in small things and of their co-operative
work and capital in large things.

A colony, under modern conditions, is an organized
community. Whatever is organized requires competent
leaders and obedient followers. No man who followed
Dewey at Manila, or Roosevelt to the heights of San
Juan, was ashamed to take the commands of his superior
officer. Neither in the capital city of the Philippines
nor upon the rugged hills of Cuba were there prizes so
precious to humanity as those which lie fallow in the
voiceless valleys of the West. The man who will not in-
cur discipline to plant his flag upon the shores of pros-
perity or the heights of success deserves no better fate
than to be trampled under the feet of his stronger fel-
lows in the struggle for existence. The pride which will
not serve in the ranks is a pride that will never wear the
star or the epaulet.

CHAPTER VI

ADJUSTING OLD IDEALS TO NEW CONDITION'S

WE have now scanned the wide field open to domes-
tic expansion and considered the methods by which it
may be conquered and occupied by the masses of our
people. We have observed the character of institutions
which are growing up in conformity to the physical con-
ditions and environment of the West, and have dwelt
upon the amplification and extension of these industrial
and social principles as the means of planting a wide-
spread civilization in the vast regions to be colonized in
the future.

It remains to ask ourselves these vital questions : Do
these methods and institutions accord with the traditions
and economic ideals of the dominant race ? Are they
suited to the changed conditions under which we live
and to the fateful struggle between machinery and capi-
tal on one hand and individual man on the other ?

We have dealt with our subject almost exclusively
from the stand-point of agriculture. It has been truth-
fully said that "the farmer is the only necessary man."
Agriculture is the foundation of civilization. The insti-
tutions of every people are chiefly influenced by the man-
ner in which the soil is owned. The race which sprang
from the Saxons has always clung closely to the ideal of

298

OLD IDEALS AND NEW CONDITIONS

individual proprietorship. When this race planted itself
in England it immediately took firm possession of the soil.
It was thus that it was able to overcome the Celts, to
absorb the Angles, to buy off and then repel the Danes,
and even to survive the Norman conquerors.

When the children of the Saxon farmers and small
tradesmen first settled in America they proceeded to
make immediate provision against the possibility of land-
lordism and great estates. They did this by rejecting the
law of primogeniture, by distributing the land equally
among all the children of the deceased, and by mak-
ing transfers of land among the living as easy as pos-
sible. So they rooted their democracy in the owner-
ship of the soil. Individual proprietors owned homes
and farms, and rose or fell according to their thrift and
industry, or their lack of these qualities. Individual in-
itiative was left untrammelled, yet in things beyond the
reach of the one man the colonists acted upon a plan
of natural and simple co-operation. Fishing was their
first industry, and here they worked in groups, each man
sharing the catch in proportion to the value of his ser-
vice. The social and religious life of the community
was highly organized for the time and place.

The tendencies of development in the West, and the
definite plans of colonization suggested in previous chap-
ters of this book, are distinctly in line with the traditions
of the Anglo-Saxon race so far as land ownership is con-
cerned. There are, and there are to be yet more in the
.future, vast multitudes of men secure in the possession
of small landed estates. These men are free to use their
land as they see fit, and to have the exclusive enjoyment
of the fruits of their own labor. They do not depend

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

upon the community, but the community depends upon
them.

Social science has clearly demonstrated that when condi-
tions encourage dependence upon the community or State,
self-reliance and individual ambition and energy diminish
in proportion, and that this result inevitably lessens the
power of the State to assist those who are more and more
inclined to lean upon it. There is no such danger in this
programme of social progress. "The only necessary man"
is here entirely dependent upon himself. The community
will neither water his lands nor reap his crops. He works
or he perishes. He thrives according to his intelligence
and industry, or fails to thrive because of his ignorance
and sloth. For his ignorance and sloth he is himself solely
responsible, because he has the facilities of a good educa-
tion and every incentive to intelligent and regular labor.
The community of which such men are the units is cer-
tain to be healthy and strong, because their independence
and prosperity will constantly feed rather than draw upon
it.

In providing for the co-operative ownership of stores,
factories, commercial associations, and other instrumen-
talities of manufacture, distribution, and exchange, do we
depart from the traditions of the race ? If so, it is not
the race nor its ideals which have changed, but the con-
ditions of industry and commerce.

The settlers of the seventeenth century, and even of
fifty years ago, had little need of co-operative industries.
Their women spun the flax and wove the wool. Their
men made the shoes and furniture. Their relations to
outside trade and industry were very slight. They took
from their fields, their woodlands, and their herds nearly

300

OLD IDEALS AND NEW CONDITIONS

all which they used for food, clothing, and shelter. In
almost nothing did they pass beyond the sphere of the
individual man.

To-day expensive machinery manufactures in great
factories what the simple tools and crude art of the fore-
fathers supplied. Every part of the world is in close
touch with every other part, and all production beyond
the power of the individual man must be organized
either as a private, a public, or a co-operative enterprise.
The choice lies in the servitude of the masses to great
employers and their transformation into a kind of fac-
tory peasantry, or in state Socialism, or in proprietor-
ship vested in a multitude of small shareholders. Which
of these three most nearly accords to Anglo-Saxon habit,
thought, and ideals ?

Clearly it is the third method, since the fundamental
idea of this race and people has always been that each
man is entitled to the fruits of his labor. The ideal is
that each man shall receive exactly what he produces —
no more, no less. Under the conditions prevailing be-
fore the advent of labor-saving machinery and the ac-
cumulation of great private fortunes, it was not diffi-
cult to realize this supreme aspiration of our race. But
in planning new institutions it is highly essential to take
the changed conditions into account.

If the operation of stores, factories, and other lines of
business requiring large capital is left to purely private
enterprise, it is impossible for the vast majority of men
to, obtain and enjoy the full fruits of their own labor.
Massachusetts industrial statistics show that the aver-
age product of the factory - worker in that State is
about two thousand dollars, and the average wage less

301

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

than five hundred dollars. It is thus apparent that the
operative produces four times as much as he receives,
and that three-fourths of the fruits of his labor is used
to feed, clothe, and educate other men's children rather
than his own. This result is not clue to the greed or in-
humanity of employing capitalists, but is the natural re-
sult of individual enterprise under modern business con-
ditions.

A system which transfers to a few the fruits of labor
performed by the many is a system which should $ot de-
liberately be chosen as a part of the economic struct-
ure we are planning for regions which remain almost
wholly to be settled in the future. Wise men do not
repeat the blunders of their fathers when the evil con-
sequences have become apparent.

Socialism, though it may be the ultimate goal, is a
remedy for which the world is not yet prepared, and least
of all the Anglo-Saxon world. The present strength
of its propaganda is not among those who speak the
English tongue. We may admit the evils of unrestrained
individualism applied to large enterprises under the new
business conditions, without flying to a system which
obliterates the individual. The surpassing virility of
our race and people in economic and political ways is
doubtless largely due to the scope which their institu-
tions have permitted to private initiative, energy, and
ambition. We cannot safely take these essential quali-
ties out of our life. They are more necessary to the de-
velopment of new countries than to the established rou-
tine of old communities.

What is needed is a true adjustment of the relations
of individual to associated man. Socialism cannot fur-

302

OLD IDEALS AND NEW CONDITIONS

nish the solution of this problem until education and
Christianity shall have vastly raised the common stand-
ard of intelligence and morals. Under Socialism some
men would receive more than the fruits of their labor,
while others would receive less. This result would be
due not only to differences of talent, but of industry
and character. The divine injunction was, "In the
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," not, "In the
sweat of other men's faces shalt thou eat bread," nor
even, " Partly in the sweat of other men's faces." Jus-
tice is satisfied, according to the Anglo-Saxon ideal,
when men are given equal opportunities. Neither So-
cialism nor unrestricted private control of large indus-
trial affairs meets this fundamental condition under the
circumstances of modern life.

Let us see how co-operative enterprise adjusts itself to
all the circumstances of the business situation, as well as
to the racial tradition so precious to our people.

In the operation of a factory there are the two neces-
sary elements of capital and labor — the one representing
buildings, machinery, and working funds ; the other,
productive power. Under co-operation the capital is
supplied by a large number of shareholders who have
saved the money from the proceeds of their own labor.
It is perfectly true that "capital is stored labor," but
the problem is to have it stored in the hands of those
who performed it. Just here is the essential difference
between the private and the co-operative factory. The
former is mostly capitalized by those who organized and
exploited the labor of others, while the latter is capital-
ized by those who actually worked and saved, so that
their factory investment represents the fruits of their

303

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

labor, and they are as much entitled to receive its con-
tinuous results as if they had invested it in poultry or
cows.

It is neither necessary nor desirable that stockholdings
in such an enterprise be exactly equal, since men differ
both in their earning and their saving capacities. The
important consideration is that all shall have the same
opportunity to earn, to save, to invest, and to reap the
reward of investment. Private enterprise denies men
this opportunity and restricts it exclusively to those who
have large capital, generally acquired by exploiting the
labor or taking advantage of the necessities of others.
Co-operative enterprise opens the door to all and permits
every man to participate in the profits of those industries
which are beyond the reach of individual strength or
capital. It is easy to erect safeguards to prevent control
from falling into the hands of a few individuals.

Co-operation shares its profits with labor as justly as
with capital. While the wage-scale must necessarily con-
form to the world's standard in cost of production, the
worker has the opportunity to invest his savings in the
industry and to share in a premium paid to all who at-
tain a quality of work above a fixed standard. Skilled
labor must receive higher pay than unskilled, and men
fitted by ability, knowledge, and experience to fill places
of high responsibility must command the same wages in
co-operative as in private employment.

Co-operation thus furnishes a method by which the
masses of men may obtain the benefits of labor - saving
machinery and of modem production upon a large scale
and preserve themselves from degradation or ruin at the
hands of those new economic forces. It is a method

304

OLD IDEALS AND NEW CONDITIONS

which adjusts itself to the old ideal of individual in-
dependence and of giving the laborer the full fruit of
his toil, yet provides for that economic solidarity which
forms so conspicuous and reasonable a part of the de-
mands of radical social reformers. In this case, unlike
Socialism, solidarity is effected without weakening the
power of the community by first weakening the power
of the individuals who compose the community.

Co-operation is no idle dream or vague speculation.
It is one of the fixed facts in the world's economy. In
one form or another it flourishes in many countries, but
it has found most fertile soil among English-speaking
peoples. Keference has already been made to what has
been accomplished in Utah and in Ireland among agri-
cultural populations, and by building and loan societies
in cities and towns throughout the United States. In
England co-operation has assumed enormous proportions,
and is extending rapidly in every direction. It conducts
stores, farms, and all varieties of shops, factories, and
mills. In some instances it even maintains railroad and
steamship lines. It has surplus profits to invest in new
enterprises, in model town and suburban homes for the
workers, and even in a delightful summer retreat for
convalescents among the Scottish Highlands. Mr. Henry
D. Lloyd's recent book on Labor Copartnership did much
to enlighten the world concerning the wonderful but si-
lent movement which is enabling the British masses to
help themselves and each other along the upward path
of improved social and industrial conditions.

The growth of co-operative fruit exchanges in Califor-
nia is another luminous instance which goes to prove the
capacity of our race to settle its own problems through
u 305

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

associative effort. These exchanges are doing an annual
business of many millions and performing the various
functions of collecting, packing, shipping, and marketing
a vast product over a large area. They were the out-
growth of conditions which had become intolerable, and
furnish further interesting proof of the fact that when
an intelligent and self-reliant people have suffered suf-
ficiently they will find the way out.

In the plan of co-operative settlement outlined in a
previous chapter, attention was chiefly directed to agri-
culture and small industries closely related to the soil.
The same business principles are applicable to larger in-
dustrial plants and to the utilization of natural wealth
other than the land. With co-operative capital and la-
bor, valuable forests, quarries, and mines of both base
and precious metals could be made to yield their profits
for the enrichment of the many rather than of the few.
But this movement is yet in its early stages, struggling
to vindicate the truth of its fundamental principle of
the combination of surplus land, labor, and natural re-
sources under conditions which furnish security and
profits to each. Its horizon will constantly expand until
it shall include the world-wide sky.

The common objection to co-operation is that it does
not furnish the ultimate remedy for all social ills. It is
said that it will do little good to put a thousand com-
peting co-operative factories and farms in place of a
thousand competing private factories and farms. In the
first place, it is a gain to have the profits of industry and
trade distributed more evenly throughout the commu-
nity. In the second place, when competition and over-
production shall lead to the federation of co-operative in-

306

OLD IDEALS AND NEW CONDITIONS

dustry, as is already the case with private enterprise, the
result can only operate to the benefit of the masses. A
trust or series of trusts which should include the entire
public would be wholly harmless, since it would be organ-
ized for the people rather than against them.

It is not important to speculate as to what lies beyond
co-operation. The thing itself is a distinct forward de-
velopment in the work of economic evolution. It comes
as the natural product of a wonderful era of competition,
which has ended in the union of competitors as the
price of self-preservation. During the closing years of
the nineteenth century Capital has taught Labor the great
lessons of combination, association, and organization. It
remains for Labor to put these lessons into practical
effect during the twentieth century, and to make that
period luminous with the rise of the common man.

CHAPTER VII
LOOKING FORWARD TO THE GREATER REPUBLIC

IMAGINE the Kepublic of the twentieth century, all
its magnificent resources under process of development
on lines of enlightened co-operation, approved alike by
the sane business sense and the humanitarian instincts of
the people !

Behold the out-swinging gates of the West, opening at
last the wealth of surplus resources to the throngs of
surplus people — the gates unlocked by the magic of sur-
plus capital !

See how the "uneasy" have "planted new colonies,"
as Edward Eggleston said they did in all past stages of
the American emigration ; how, under the impulse of this
new forward march, the Republic has again surpassed
the monarchies of the Old World "with giant strides,"
as Andrew Carnegie has shown that it did in a past
era; how "the desert has blossomed with the homes of
men," as Thomas B. Reed predicted ; and then observe
how all these things have defeated the grim prophecy of
Lord Macaulay ! But the material triumph is only tho
poorest aspect of the new achievement.

Here are millions of free men who live upon their
own soil, tinder their own roofs, and work for them-
selves. Here is a society which has mastered the ma-

308

LOOKING TO THE GREATER REPUBLIC

chine and made it work for man rather than against
him. Here is a people who have organized capital so
that it works for the many rather than the few.

Here is the finest flower of Anglo-Saxon civilization,
with personal independence and ambition still preserved
as the robust inspiration of all progress, but with every-
thing beyond the sphere of the individual firmly held
by associated man.

Here are communities which have averted catastrophe
by adjusting old ideals to new conditions— by building
their economic edifice on the three foundation-stones of
private ownership of homes and farms, co-operative
ownership of stores and industries, and public owner-
ship of public utilities.

Instead of crowded cities festering with vice and pov-
erty, throughout Arid America are farms that blend into
beautiful towns, and towns that shade almost impercepti-
bly into peaceful farms. Here are country people who
enjoy all the advantages of town life, and townspeople
who know the independence of the country. Here are
social conditions where the entire population enjoys the
privileges of the club and the blessings of the public
library.

Here are schools and colleges training young men and
women not only in the arts and sciences, but in the
equally valuable lessons of co-operative production and
administration.

In a word, here is America, under the powerful domi-
nance of the ancient Saxon spirit, engaged in the con-
quest of its waste-places and the making of new forms
of civilization worthy of the race, the place, and the age.

In this vision of the future there is nothing impracti-

309

THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA

cable. The field, the opportunity, and the people are
ready. The hour is ripe for the advance. The silent
command that speaks to men's minds through resistless
economic forces has gone forth.

The American people will press on, not through blood-
shed or violent change, but wisely, patiently, and surely
— by gradual industrial and social evolution — to the real-
ization of their great destiny,

That destiny is to illustrate the highest possibilities of
democratic institutions.

APPENDIX

NOTE AS TO METHODS OF IRRIGATION

To those who are unfamiliar with the life of the arid region
the actual process of irrigation seems a deep mystery. They
regard it as an effort to overturn the laws of nature, and
think it must be accompanied by a struggle as severe as it is
inscrutable. But irrigation is, after all, a perfectly natural,
and even a familiar, process. The man who waters his plat
of grass and the woman who waters her door-yard pansies
are irrigators in a rude and humble way. The citizen who
grumbles at the sight of withered lawns in a public park
during a dry summer yearns for irrigation without knowing
it. A generation which has harnessed the lightning should
see nothing incongruous in the ancient expedient of storing
the rain and distributing it to meet the varying needs of
plants which nourish human life.

The control of water for irrigation in the West presents
about the same problems to the engineer as the control of
water for domestic purposes in large cities and towns. The
water must be diverted from a flowing stream at a level suf-
ficiently high to command the territory to be irrigated ; or it
must be impounded in reservoirs at a season of floods or un-
usual flow, such as occurs everywhere when the ice and snow
are melting ; or it must be sought in the bowels of the earth
by means of wells and lifted to the surface by pumps, except

311

APPENDIX

in the case of artesian waters, which flow out of the mouth of
the well by reason of their own pressure.

The principal difference between securing a supply for do-
mestic and for agricultural purposes is that in the case of the
former the water must be as pure as possible, while in the
case of the latter the impurities which gather in ponds and
streams have a distinct commercial value as fertilizers. The
sewage of Paris is used for irrigation purposes with wonder-
ful effect. The same thing is done at Los Angeles, and
doubtless will be done in many places hereafter. Neither is
it necessary, as a rule, to make such elaborate provision for
the distribution of water through underground pipes in the
case of agriculture as in that of domestic water supply. In
the vast majority of instances irrigation water flows in open
channels. Where it is otherwise it is because the precious
fluid is scarce, and therefore dear, so that every drop must be
guarded against loss by evaporation or by seepage into the
ground.

Irrigation works in the West range from rude and simple
ditches, taking their supplies from mountain brooks where
the water has been diverted by means of small brush dams, to
great masonry walls which block the outlet of deep canyons,
holding back the water, which is transported through pipes,
flumes, and cemented ditches to rich lands miles away. In the
one case the works have been constructed by a small association
of farmers, using their own labor and teams ; in the other,
millions of eastern and foreign capital have been invested.
In both cases the water is led through main canals to central
points in the territory to be reclaimed. These mains are of
all sizes, depending entirely upon the volume of water re-
quired. They are frequently not more than six feet wide,
though some of the canals in the San Joaquin Valley are one
hundred and twenty feet in width. From these mains lat-
eral ditches reach out in various directions. The individual
farmer taps the lateral with a shallow ditch, usually made

312

APPENDIX

with a plough, and thus conducts the water where he wants it
through his own private system of distributers. The man-
agement of the waters, when the system has once been per-
fected, is so simple that a child can attend to it. Furnishing
arid lands with irrigation facilities is really a less formidable
task than supplying cities with water for domestic and fire
purposes. The one process is no more mysterious and un-
natural than the other.

Although irrigation is both ancient and universal, the
Anglo-Saxon never dealt with it in a large way until the last
half-century, when he found it to be the indispensable condi-
tion of settlement in large portions of western America, Aus-
tralia, and South Africa. Through all the centuries of the
past the art has been the exclusive possession of Indian,
Latin, and Mongolian races. Its earliest modern traces in
this country are found in the small gardens of the Mission
fathers of southern California. They brought the method
from Mexico and taught it to the Indians. But the real
cradle of American irrigation as a practical industry is
Utah.

In the hands of the Indians and Mexicans of the South-
west irrigation was a stagnant art, but the white population
studied it with the same enthusiasm it bestowed upon elec-
tricity and new mining processes. The lower races merely
knew that if crops were expected to grow on dry land, they
must be artificially watered. They proceeded to pour on the
water by the rudest method. The Anglo-Saxon demanded to
know why crops required water, and how and when it could
best be supplied to meet their diverse needs. He has thus
approached by gradual steps true scientific methods, which
are producing results unknown before in any part of the
world.

The earliest method of irrigation is known as " flooding,"
and is generally applied by means of shallow basins. A plot
of ground near the river or ditch from which water is to be

313

APPENDIX

drawn is inclosed by low embankments called checks. These
checks are multiplied until the whole field is covered. The
water is then drawn into the highest basin, permitted to
stand until the ground is thoroughly soaked, and then drawn
off by a small gate into the next basin. This process is re-
peated until the entire field is irrigated. This is the system
practised on the Nile, where the basins sometimes cover sev-
eral square miles each, while in the West they are often no
more than four hundred feet square. There is both a crude
and a skilful way to accomplish the operation of flooding, and
there is a wide difference in the results obtained by the two
methods. The Indian and Mexican irrigators, in their igno-
rance and laziness, seldom attempt to grade the surface of the
ground. They permit water to remain in stagnant pools
where there are depressions, while high places stand out as
dusty islands for generations. All except very sandy soils
bake in the hot sunshine after being flooded, and the crude
way to remedy the matter is to turn on more water. Water
in excess is an injury, and both the soil and the crops re-
sent this method of treatment.

The skilful irrigator grades the soil to an even slope of
about one inch to every hundred inches, filling depressions
and levelling high places. He "rushes" the water over the
plot as rapidly as possible, and when the ground has dried
sufficiently cultivates the soil thoroughly, thus allowing the
air to penetrate it. The best irrigators have abandoned the
check system altogether, and have invented better methods
of flooding the crops. Cereals and grasses must always be
irrigated by flooding, but the check system seems likely to
remain only in the land of Spanish speech and tradition, where
it was born. In Colorado wheat and grass are generally irri-
gated by a system of shallow plough furrows run diagonally
across a field. The water is turned from these upon the
ground, and permitted to spread out into a hundred small
rills, following the contour of the land. Some farmers be-

314

APPENDIX

stow great pains upon this method, and succeed in wetting
the ground very evenly. Another method of flooding fields
is now much used in connection with alfalfa, a wonderful
forage plant extensively cultivated throughout the arid region.
This produces three crops a year in the north and six crops
in the south, and is not only eaten by stock, but by poultry
and swine. To find the best method of watering this valua-
ble crop has been the object of careful study and experiment
in the West. It is now accomplished by means of shallow
indentations or creases, which are not as large as furrows, but
accomplish the same purpose. These are made by a simple
implement at intervals of about twelve inches. They effect a
very thorough and even wetting of the ground.

The scientific side of irrigation is to be studied rather in
connection with the culture of fruit and vegetables than with
field crops. It is here that the English-speaking irrigators
of the West have produced their best results. California lias
accomplished more than any other locality, but nothing was
learned even there until the man from the North had sup-
planted the Spanish irrigator. The ideal climatic conditions
of California attracted both wealth and intelligence into its
irrigation industry. Scarcity of water and high land values
operated to promote the study of ideal methods. Where
water is abundant it is carried in open ditches, and little
thought is given to the items of seepage through the soil
and loss by evaporation. Under such conditions water is
lavishly used, frequently to the injury rather than the bene-
fit of crops. But in southern California water is as gold,
and is sought for in mountain tunnels and in the beds of
streams. A thing so dearly obtained is not to be carelessly
wasted before it reaches the place of use. Hence, steep and
narrow ditches cemented on the bottom, or steel pipes and
wooden flumes, are employed.

This precious water is applied to the soil by means of
small furrows run between the trees or rows of vegetables.

315

APPENDIX

The ground has first been evenly graded on the face of eacli
slope. The aim of the skilful irrigator is to allow the water
to saturate the ground evenly in each direction, so as to
reach the roots of the tree or plant. The stream is small,
and creeps slowly down the furrow to the end of the orchard,
where any surplus is absorbed by a strip of alfalfa, which
acts like a sponge. The land is kept thoroughly cultivated,
and in the best orchards no weed or spear of grass is ever
seen; the water is too costly to waste in the nourishment
of weeds. Moreover, it is desired to leave the soil open to
the action of air and sunshine. Nowhere in the world is so
much care given to the aeration of the soil as in the irrigated
orchards and gardens of the West. Too much water reduces
the temperature of the soil, sometimes develops hard-pan, and
more frequently brings alkali to the surface. For these rea-
sons modern science has enforced the economical use of
water, reversing the crude Mexican custom of prodigal waste-
fulness. The success of the furrow method depends some-
what upon the texture of the soil, and there are places where
it cannot be used at all. Such localities are not considered
favorable to fruit culture.

Of late years in California the application of water by fur-
rows has been brought to a marvellous degree of perfection.
What is known as the " Redlands system " is the best type
of irrigation methods known in the world. Under this sys-
tem a small wooden flume or box is placed at the head of
the orchard. An opening is made opposite each furrow, and
through this the water flows in the desired quantity, being
operated by a small gate or slide. The aperture regulates
the flow of water accurately, and the system is so simple that,
after it is once adjusted, its operation is as easy as the turn-
ing of a faucet. The farmer who grows his crops on a fer-
tile soil, under almost cloudless skies, with a system con-
trolling the moisture as effective as this, may be said to have
mastered the forces of nature. The quality of the fruit has

316

APPENDIX

improved immensely since the California methods were per-
fected. Every fruit-grower realizes that the profit in his
business comes mostly from the first grade of fruit. Scien-
tific irrigation makes it possible for him largely to increase
the percentage of the best fruit, and the difference which
this makes in the earning capacity of his acres is surprising.

/WENUE

UKM TBf E 6TArf>:> CM« A LfTTuC
HHX 00 nKXI <\C- To PtiEVENT
IrtB WATtft TOUtMINO IT.

Other methods of furrow irrigation have been devised
which are Scarcely less perfect than those used in the Cali-
fornia orange districts. One of the best of these is the re-
sult of the labors and experiments of Professor A. E. Blount,
of the Agricultural College at Las Cruces, New Mexico, and
is illustrated in the accompanying diagram. In this case the
water is carried in small open ditches, and the furrows are

317

APPENDIX

extended in circles around each tree, but the water is never
allowed to touch the bark. This method is, perhaps, better
adapted to the general needs of the arid region than the
more expensive plan of the Californians. It is interesting to
note that the modern New Mexico method was developed in
the midst of Indian and Spanish settlements, which still pur-
sue the methods of antiquity without the slightest abatement
of their evils.

One of the most interesting results of irrigation, in a social
and economic way, is its influence upon the density of popu-
lation. The densest population in the eastern States obtains
in Rhode Island, where there are two hundred and seventy-
six persons to each square mile. In a representative locality
of southern California, which is in the midst of the older
settled irrigated districts, there are five hundred persons to
the square mile, practically all of them engaged in horticult-
ure by means of irrigation. The Nile lands of Egypt sup-
port a population of twelve hundred and twenty-seven persons
to the square mile. There is, therefore, no risk whatever in
predicting that the arid lands of the West will ultimately
sustain much the densest population in the United States.

While the perfect conditions for the irrigation industry
exist only in an arid land, there is no doubt that the same
methods can and will be used largely in the eastern portion
of the United States. There is seldom a year when large
districts east of the Mississippi do not suffer heavy losses
from the lack of rain at the time when it is needed. What
irrigation can accomplish under such conditions has been
strikingly illustrated by Dr. Clarke Gapen, Superintendent of
the State Insane Asylum at Kankakee, Illinois. This gentle-
man became convinced that if he could control the moisture
during the dry period of the Illinois summer, he could readi-
ly produce, on the farm operated in connection with the pub-
lic institution, the large quantities of late vegetables which

318

APPENDIX

lie had been in the habit of purchasing for cash. He ob-
tained an inexpensive pumping -plant and engaged the ser-
vices of a practised irrigator. The result was the saving of
an annual expenditure of fifteen thousand dollars for farm
products, so that the irrigation system more than paid for it-
self the first year. Dr. Gapen has stated that the experiment
convinced him " that if land is worth one hundred dollars
per acre in Illinois without irrigation, it is worth five hundred
dollars with it." If this enterprising official had suggested
ten years before that irrigation was necessary in Illinois, he
would have been regarded as a proper subject for one of the
padded cells in his own asylum.

The local application of irrigation is now frequently dis-
cussed in the farm journals of Ohio, New York, and other east-
ern States. The art has been employed for a number of years
in the most profitable market-gardens about Boston. The
western friends of irrigation have the utmost confidence that
during the next century their methods will be extensively
adopted in the East, resulting in a very great reduction of the
average farm unit, in the assurance of much larger and better
crops, and in wonderful social gains.

INDEX

ADAMS, EDWARD F., quoted, 130.

Africa, 13.

Agua Fria River, Arizona, 2'39.

Anaheim, founding and character
of, 94.

Ancient Canals in Arizona, 35.

Anderson, 11. A., 291.

Animas River, New Mexico, 229.

Antelope Valley of California, 140.

Aridity: — Effect on settlement of
Middle West, 17 ; key to institu-
tions of the West, 30.

Arizona : — Likeness to region of the
Nile, 237 ; northern part of terri-
tory, 238 ; Salt River Valley, 238 ;
its irrigation systems, 239 ; im-
portance of storage plans, 239-
240 ; climate and orange culture,
241; a great fig orchard, 242;
large farms of the present and
small ones of the future, 242-
243 : the people of the territory,
243.

Arkansas Valley, 155.

Asia Minor, 32.

Austin, Nevada, 195.

Australasia, 13.

Australia, Village Settlement in, 288.

Aztecs in Mexico, 34.

BAILEY, Professor L. H., quoted,

177.

Baldwin, Historian, 34.
Bear Flag, California's day of, 94.
Beaverhead Valley, Montana, 223.

Big Horn Basin, Wyoming, 213.

Billings, Montana, 227.

"Billy the Kid," 231.

Bitter Root Valley, Montana, 225.

Blue Grass Region of Kentucky

compared with arid region as to

fertility, 39.

Boise City, capital of Idaho, 183.
Boone, Daniel, 15.
Boyd, David, historian of the Gree-

ley Colony, 88.
Bozeman, Montana, 225.
Brisbane, Albert, 77.
Brook Farm, 78-257.
Bruneau River, Nevada, 199.
Budd, Governor, 131.
Bully Creek Valley, Oregon, 192.
Butte, Montana, 226.

CACHE LA POUDRE Valley, Colorado,
155.

Caldwell, Idaho, 183.

California : — Why so little under-
stood, 121 ; influence of former
literature on the subject, 123 ;
speculative tendencies of the past,
128 ; burdens of fruit-growers be-
fore co-operation was employed,
130 ; valuable lessons of the last
twenty years, 131; compared with
France, 131 ; agricultural settle-
ment in 1880-90, 132; profitable
lines of production, 133 ; future
of the olive industry, 134; com-
petitors in fruit-growing, 135;

321

INDEX

the mining industry, 136 ; ten-
dencies of future growth, 187;
the coast region, 137; the Santa
Clara Valley, 138; Southern Cal-
ifornia, 139 ; Antelope Valley,
140 ; Sacramento Valley, 141 ; ir-
rigation in Sacramento Valley, 143;
the San Joaquin Valley, 143 ; birth
of raisin industry, 144; effects of
fall in wheat prices, 144 ; possi-
bilities of transportation canals,
145 ; eastern slope of Sierra Ne-
vada, 146; future of Colorado
Desert, 147. See "Evolution of
Southern California," 92.

Gammas Prairie, Idaho, 179.

Campbell, Douglas, quoted, 32.

Carey, ex-Senator J. M., 213-220.

Carlsbad, New Mexico, 235.

Carson City, Nevada, 201.

Carson River, Nevada, 199.

Carthaginians, 34.

Chaffey Brothers in Australia, 289.

Chipman, General N. P., 141.

Cimarron River, New Mexico, 230.

City and Suburban Homes Company,
274.

City Creek in Salt Lake Valley,
Utah, 51.

Cody, William F., 213.

Clarke's Fork of the Columbia, 176-
224.

Coeur d'Alene Lake, 176.

Colonization : — Three great eras of,
12; impulse of American move-
ments, 12 ; settlement of Atlantic
Coast, 14 ; the movement beyond
the Alleghanies, 14; settlement of
Mississippi Valley, 17; causes of
emigration movements, 49 ; ten-
dencies of present movement from
abroad, 247.

Colorado : — The new day in, 150 ; ef-
fect of railroad building in, 151 ;
scenery and climate of, 153; min-
eral resources of, 154 ; the Arkan-
sas Valley, 155; San Luis Valley,
155; the Western Slope, 156; the
land of peaches, 158 ; local pa-

triotism, 160; present economic
tendencies, 161.

Colorado Canyon, 238.

Colorado Desert, 147.

Colorado Springs, Colorado, 152.

Columbia River Valley, 188.

Comstock lode, production of, 195.

Co-operation : — Influence of aridity
in favoring, 31 ; comparisons with
conditions in Holland, 32; Utah
commercial examples, 64 ; as em-
ployed in the Greeley Colony, Col-
orado, 89 ; experience of the Ana-
heim, California, settlers, 95 ; how
utilized at Riverside, California,
97 ; California fruit exchanges,
104 ; colonization with co-opera-
tive capital, 260 ; the principle im-
portant to new communities, 281 ;
the recent experience of Ireland,
291 ; its adaptation to Anglo-
Saxon instincts and traditions,
300 ; its relation to future civil-
ization, 309.

Creoles, French, early settlement of,
in Ohio Valley, 15.

Cuba, 13.

DAKOTA, growth of, 17.
Dakota, irrigation in, 117.
Damascus, the effects of irrigation

in, 41.

Deccan, Lands of the, 36.
Denver, Colorado, 150, 154, 161.
DCS Chutes River, Oregon, 193.
Dewey, Admiral, 297.

EDEN, Garden of, the result of irri-
gation, 42.

Eggleston, Edward, quoted, 50.
Egypt, 34.

Elko County, Nevada, 195.
Kllcnsburp;, Washington, 187.
El Paso, Texas, 231.
Emigration Canyon, Utah, 63.
Esmeralda County, Nevada, 195.
Eureka, Nevada, 195.

FAYOOM, Province of, 36.

322

INDEX

Finney County, Kansas, 109.
Flagg* Jack, in the Bustlers' War,

210.

Flagstaff, Arizona, 238.
Flathead River, Montana, 223.
Fourier, Fransois Marie Charles, 77.

GADSDEN PURCHASE, 22.

Gallatin Valley, Montana, 223-225.

Garden City, Kansas, 109-118.

Germany, labor colonies of, 287.

Gila River, Arizona, 238.

Gill, Thomas P., 291.

Gould, Dr. Elgin R. L., 274-295.

Grand Junction, Colorado, 157.

Grand River, Colorado, 1 57.

Great Falls, Montana, 227.

Great Plains, rise of irrigation on, 106.

Greeley, Horace : — Phalanx move-
ment supported by, 77 ; encour-
ages the Colorado project, 80 ; last
letter to Meeker, 90.

Greeley Colony of Colorado: — Its
relation to the phalanx movement
of the forties, 77; Meeker pro-
poses the undertaking to Greeley,
80 ; the colony plan compared
with the Fourier ideal, 81 ; publi-
cation of prospectus, 83; irriga-
tion troubles, 84 ; triumph of the
" Greeley potato," 85 ; social life
in, 87 ; influence of colony on de-
velopment of Colorado, 90.

Green River, Colorado, 157.

HAOERMAN, J. J., 202.

Hale, Dr. Edward Everett, connec-
tion with Plymouth Colony of
Idaho, 181.

Half employed, army of, 245.

Hall, William Hammond, 145.

Hatch, A. T., 141.

Helena, Montana, 226.

Hilgard, Prof. E. W., quoted, 33, 35,
37.

Holland, labor colonies of, 286; com-
pared to Southern California, 92.

Homestead law, effect on emigra-
tion of, 17.

Honey Lake Valley of California,
146.

Hood River, Oregon, 193.

"Horse-heaven" Country of Wash-
ington, 186.

Hudson Bay Company, 180.

Humboldt, Nevada, town of, 201.

Humboldt River, Nevada, 199.

IDAHO : — Contrast between north
and south, 174; wonderful water-
supply, 175; the forest area, 176;
the prune district,l77; climate and
health fulness, 178; Upper Snake
River, 178 ; four periods of settle-
ment, 180; new Plymouth, 181;
the "old -timer," 182; cities and
towns, 183.

Idaho Falls, Idaho, 178.

Illinois, growth of, after Revolution,
15.

Incas in South America, 34.

Indiana, growth of, after Revolution,
15.

Industrial independence secured by
irrigation, 43.

Inyo County, California, 147.

Iowa, growth of, 17.

Irish Agricultural Organization So-
ciety, 291.

Irrigation : — The miracle of, 41 ;
practical methods of, see Appen-
dix ; Damascus, the product of,
42 ; it made the beauties of the
Garden of Eden, 42 ; opposed to
land monopoly, 43 ; as an insur-
ance of crops, 43 ; unfavorable to
employment of servile labor, 44 ;
its influence on social life, 45 ;
foundation of scientific agricult-
ure, 47 ; Mormons, the American
pioneers of, 55 ; comparison of
cost of private and co-operative
systems, 86.

JEFFERSON, President, takes initiative

in Western exploration, 23.
Jefferson Valley, Montana, 223.
John Day River, Oregon, 193.

323

INDEX

Johnson County, Wyoming, 212.
Jones, Governor John E., 199.

KANSAS, growth of, 17.
Kansas, irrigation in, 110.
Kentucky, growth of, after Revolu-
tion, 15.
Kootenai River, Montana, 224.

LA PLATA RIVER, New Mexico, 229.

Lassen County, California, 146.

Lewis and Clarke, the famous jour-
ney of, 23.

Lewiston, Idaho, 183.

Libyan Desert, 36.

Lincoln, Abraham, a type of set-
tlers engaged in great era of col-
onization, 17.

Lincoln County, Nevada, 195.

Los Angeles, California, 103.

Louisiana Purchase, 22.

MACAULAY, LORD, quoted, 245.

Madison Valley, Montana, 223.

Malheur River Valley, Oregon, 192.

Manhattan Valley, Montana, 225.

Massachusetts Bay Company, 294.

Maxwell Land Grant, 230.

Mead, Elwood : — Service in Agri-
cultural College of Colorado, 215 ;
important work as State engineer
of Wyoming, 217-220.

Meeker, Nathan Cook: — Experience
with Trumbull Phalanx, 79 ; first
trip to the Far West, 80 ; origini-
ates Colorado project, 80 ; death
of, 91.

Mesa City, Arizona, 239.

Milk River Valley, Montana, 223.

Mills, workingmen's hotels of D. 0.,
274.

Minnesota, growth of, 17.

Missoula, Montana, 227.

Missouri River in Montana, 223-
226.

Modjeska, the California colony of
Madame, 256.

Modoc County, California, 146.

Moeris Lake, 36.

Mohammedans, their admiration for
Damascus, 42.

Monroe, President James, 22.

Montana : — The prosperity of, 222 ;
influence of mountain topography,
222; early ditches, 223; oppor-
tunities for settlers, 224 ; fruit
culture, 225 ; Agricultural College
of, 225 ; important valleys, 225 ;
social and political life, 226; cities
and towns, 227.

Moors, 34.

Mormons of Utah :— Their common-
wealth, 51 ; pioneers of American
irrigation, 51 ; illustrate natural
economic tendencies of irriga-
tion, 52 ; arrival of first party in
Salt Lake Valley, 52 ; system of
landownership, 57 ; plan of diver-
sified farms, 61 ; opposed to min-
ing, 63 ; financial results of their
labors for forty years, 67 ; four
leading principles of industrial
system, 70; mortgage of indebted-
ness, 71 ; relation of church or-
ganization to industrial success, 74.

Moscow, Idaho, 184.

Mountain Home, Idaho, 183.

Musser, A. Milton., 67.

NAMPA, Idaho, 183.

Navajo, Indians, New Mexico, 235.

Nebraska, growth of, 17.

Nebraska irrigation, 115.

Netherlands, civilization of, com-
pared with arid region, 32.

Nevada : — The potential greatness
of, 194 ; unfounded prejudices in,
194 ; silver production of the
past in, 195; undeveloped mineral
wealth, 196 ; agricultural resources
of, 198; unused waters of, 199;
diversion of Nevada wealth to
other localities, 202 ; the railroad
situation of, 203 ; future of the
State of, 205.

New Mexico : — Inadequacy of water
supplies, 228 ; the northwestern
counties, 229 ; the land grants in,

334

INDEX

230 ; the Rio Grande Valley of,

230; the Pecos Valley of, 231;

the social fabric of, 235.
Newell, Frederick Haynes, on water

supply of the plains, 113, 114.
Nez Perce Reservation, 179.
Nija, Fray Marcos de, 228.
Nile River, silt in, 36.
Ninety-seventh meredian, 19-21.
Nordhoff, Charles, 123-128.
North, Judge, founder of Riverside

Colony, 97.
North Yakima, Washington, 187.

OHIO, growth of, after Revolution,
15.

Olives, future of, 134.

Ontario, California, 103.

Oquirrh Mountains, 53.

Orange culture in California, begin-
King of, 100.

Ordinance of 1787, 16.

Oregon : — Humid and arid sections
of, 185 ; climata and products of,
191 ; unused water supplies of,
192; chances for development of,
193; arid region of, 190.

Owyhee River, Nevada, 199.

PALESTINE, 34.

Palestine, resemblance between Salt

Lake Valley and, 53.
Palmer, General William J., 152-

202.

Palouse country of Idaho, 179.
Parkman, Francis, author of the

Oregon Trail, 23.
Payette, Idaho, 183.
Pecos Valley, New Mexico, 231.
Pend Oreille Lake, 176.
Pendleton, Oregon, 191.
Phalanx movement, 77, 78.
Phoanix, capital of Arizona, 238.
Pike, Zebulon, 23.
Platte Valley, Colorado, 155.
Plumas County, California, 146.
Plunkett, the Right Hon. Horace,

291.
Plymouth Colony of Idaho, 181.

32

Pocatello, Idaho, 183.

Pomona, California, 103.

Portland, Oregon, 186.

Prescott, Arizona, 238.

Prescott, Historian, 34.

Prickly Valley, Montana, 223.

Prosser, Washington, 187.

Provo, Utah, 166.

Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, 235.

Puget Sound region, 185.

QUINN RIVER, Nevada, 199.

RAIN-MAKINO experiments, 108.
Raymond, Henry J., debate with

Greeley, 79.

Redlands", California, 103.
Reed, Thomas B., quoted, 119.
Reid, Whitelaw, quoted, 237.
Rio Grande River, New Mexico, 230.
Rio Verde River, Arizona, 239.
Riverside Colony of California, 97.
Robertson, James, 16.
Robinson, Solon, 79.
Roosevelt, Theodore, 297.
Rustlers' War, 209.

SACRAMENTO VALLEY of California,

141.

Salmon River, Nevada, 199.
Salt Lake City, the plan of, 58.
Salt River, Arizona, 239.
Salt River Valley of Arizona, 238.
San Bernardino Valley, 92.
San Joaquin Valley of California,

143.

San Juan River, Colorado, 157.
San Juan River in New Mexico, 229.
San Luis Valley, Colorado, 155.
San Timoteo Hills, 92.
Santa Clara Valley of California,

138.

Semi-arid region, boundaries of, 109.
Sevier, John, 15.
Shawhan, Benjamin P., connection

with Plymouth Colony of Idaho,

181.

Sheridan County, Wyoming, 212.
Shoshone Falls, the Great, 176.

INDEX

Smythe, William E., connection with
Plymouth Colony of Idaho, 181.

Snake River, 175.

Social life, effect of irrigation on, 46.

Socialism not suited to development
of new countries, 302.

Soils, effect of aridity on, 37.

South America, 13.

Southern California: — Evolution of,
92 ; character and future of, 139.

Spice Islands, 13.

Spokane, Washington, 190.

Staked Plains of Texas, 231.

Stanford, Mrs. Leland, 141.

Surplus people, 247.

TABOR, H. A. W., 161.
Taylor, L. E., 199.
Tennessee, growth of, after Revolu-
tion, 15.

Texas irrigation, 118.
Tithing-house scrip, 63.
Toltecs in Mexico, 34.
Travel, statistics of, 20.
Truckee River, Nevada, 199.
Trumbull Phalanx of Ohio, 79.
Tucson, Arizona, 238.

UINTA country of Utah, 170.

Umatilla Valley, Oregon, 192.

University of Arizona experiments
in analyzing silt of Colorado River,
40.

Utah:— The pleasant land of, 164;
the scene from Capitol Hill, 164;
Utah, Salt Lake, and Weber val-
leys, 166 ; mineral resources, 166;
the climate, 167; agricultural con-
tradictions, 168; land open to set-
tlement, 169; irrigation laws and
customs, 171.

VAN DTKK, T. SM quoted, 128.
Vermejo River, New Mexico, 230.
Virgin River, Nevada, 199.
Virginia City, Nevada, 195.

WALKER RIVER, Nevada, 199.

Walla Walla Valley, Washington,
187.

Warren, Francis E., 220.

Wasatch Mountains, 53.

Washington : — Arid region of, 185 ;
"Horse-Heaven" country, 186;
important streams, 187; soil and
climate of, 188; products and
markets of, 189.

Water Laws : — The struggle for
water, 214 ; where statesmanship
failed, 215 ; evils of litigation,
216 ; the Wyoming example,
217.

Webber, Thomas G., 65.

Wei*er, Idaho, 183.

Wells, Captain James M., 180.

Wells, Governor Heber M., 71.

Wenatchee River, Washington, 187.

Western slope of Colorado, 156.

Wheatland, Wyoming, 213.

Willamette River, Oregon, 186.

Willow Creek Valley, ; Oregon, 192.

Windmill irrigation, 111.

Woodruff, Wilford, 55.

Wyoming: — Law-giver of the arid
region, 207 ; the stock - raising
industry of, 208; the Rustlers'
War in, 209 ; products and devel-
opment of, 212; Big Horn Basin,
212; excellence of water lawa
of, 218 ; the State's influential
position in, 221.

YAKIMA VALLEY of Washington,
187. '

Ybarrola, Senor de, 105.

Yellow River of China, 36.

Young, Brigharn, estimate of char-
acter and achievements of, 72.

Yurna, Arizona, 238.

ZION'S Co-operative Mercantile In-
stitution, 65.
Zuni Indians, 235.

THE END

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