NEW ERA FQR GREAT WEST
President Roosevelt’s National Irrigation Act to
Be a Wonder-Worker.
MILLIONS OF CHEERFUL. HAPPY HOMES
Avenue of Relief to Congested Cities—Health,
Prosperity and Patriotism Fostered by
Contact with Soil—Republican
Party Leads the Way.
Even ttie Democrats are beginning to
realize something of the possibilities for
go.nl which are to come to the whole
United States through the national irri
gaiion act passed by a Republican Con
gress, and signed by President Roosevelt
June 7. 19015. The Democrats are now
claiming that they ‘‘did it." Still, the
facts remain that President Roosevelt,
by the force of his own identity, put the
measure through Congress and made it
the law of the land with his official sig
nature as President.
It is not a dream, but a fact, that the
present population of the United Stntes
can lie duplicated on the arid public do
main in the West. This can be done
without making new competitors for
those already engaged in agricultural
pursuits in the East and in the South.
On the other hand, this wonderful act
of planting a new nation in what is now
all but an unbroken desert will confer
enormous benefits on those sections
which are already covered with farms,
factories and towns.
Big Internal Problems.
In our great West, a population of
lOo.tHKMXK) might live in prosperous con
tentment. There is everything to inspire
and reward their industry—the charm of
climate and of scenery, the fertility of
soil, the unimaginable wealth of water,
forest and mine, and, across the Pacific,
new worlds to conquer. Our biggest in
ternal question to-day is the preparation
and colonization of this productive area.
This nation must keep oil with its his
toric work of civilization. It must cou
tinfte that marvelous reciprocal process
by which it has so rapidly risen to im
measurable heights of economic power—
tile making of new communities to feed
the old. tlie enlargement of old communi
ties to feed the new. The longest step
yet taken to tills end Is adoption of the
plau of national irrigation—chiefly
through the instrumentality of President
ltoosevelt. It is a new policy, only at
present in its experimental stage, but
those who know most about it believe it
Is a measure big with national fate.
Momentum New Era.
We are entering upon a new ami nio
m. iitt>tis era that calls for the higliest
qualities of constructive statesmanship.
The movement must be broadly foundetl
and lirmly and intelligently managed. We
are planning, not for ourselves but for
future generations, for we are tho fore
fathers of a mighty future in a mighty
land. If we are equal to our duty and
our opportunities, we shall make homes
for a hundred million of the freest men
who ever walked the earth.
We are living In an age of mighty
achieypmont. Engineering work* which
tlie last generation would have thought
an impossibility will be the completed
tusk of this generation. The New York
subway, the great tunnel of tho Peun
•ylrania railroad, the Isthmian canal and
the Salt Hirer reservoir in Arizona and
other mammoth irrigation projects will
noon stand as completed monuments to
tile constructive genius of our people and
this age. The future la potent with still
grander undertakings which will, in a
few brief years, also stand as accom
plished facts. Egypt was for centuries
the granary of the world. That land of
mystery and romance was the cradle of
onr civilization. For countless ages the
Sft Nile lias risen annually, to fertilize the
land which lias yielded, from year to
year, the sustenance of teeming millions.
Greatest Question of the Ag«.
The question of irrigation which now
confronts the people of the United States
* is one of the most important of the age.
It is of more importance than the lath
| mi ni canal or a deep waterway to the
•ea. It involves the solution of the for
est and flood problem. It embraces the
future internal development of the Unit
ad States. It will require years of work
to perfect the system of national irriga
tion, hut it will be the greatest benefit
aver conferred on the western people.
Men may be cruel and unfair, but na
ture is generous and utterly impartial.
The earth, the sun and the waters are
as kind to the poor as to the rich. The
roses do not stop to look up u man’s
financial standing before consenting to
bloom for him. They grow wherever
planted. They cover the poor man's cot
tage as gladly as they do the rich mau’s
I - villa
I Husbandry Makes Patriots.
Nations may spriug into being, gener
ated by the force of ideas alone, but
the vigorous manhood, the mature growth
of a State can only be nurtured and
built up upon the abundant and mani
fold productions of the earth. The very
existence and advance of civilization are
f| firmly grounded on material resources.
Nations become great and independent
as they develop a genius for grasping the
forces and materials of nature within
i\ their reach and converting them into a
steady flowing stream of wealth and com
fort.
pc; To hold a people in industrious, pro
ductive, contented habits, habits of vir
tue and of patriotism, it is needful to
give them an interest in the cultivation
of land. This fact is seen along the
shores of historic time. Wherever gov
ernment has made laws which have giv
|| ' eu the people of the land its occupancy
op Tair terms, then content ami plenty
have been on every hand. Wherever it
, has l»»en hard for the masses to obtain
the use of the land, then discontent and
j±;; difficulties have been rampant on every
5 • band, and frequently national ruin lias
beep flic result. The noblest use to which
any man or people can put history is to
take it either as warniug or wise in
struction. In the United States we have
iu quality, quantity and variety such sup
fe ' e ' ' ■ 1 ■ . -»
plies and resources as no one govern
ment in the world ever had before.
Danger in Congested Cities.
It is not without serious meaning that
so many of our people are massing in
cities, that in cities rents are going high
er, and hence people are living in fewer
rooms or smaller ones, and that the at
tendant and consequent evils, moral, phy
sical, industrial, intellectual and national,
arc seen on every hand. We are to-day
passing through a period of prosperity in
the United States without parallel in
the world's history. Judging from the
history of all nations, this may not con
tinue indefinitely. Our lenders must know
that they have to do, not with supine
men who have been trained to submis
sive obedience—a people who stand ready
to shut their eyes, open their mouths and
take whatever is given and be contented
therewith. Adversity will bring commo
tion in our cities as “cold engenders
hull.”
Remedy In Irrigated Varma.
In contemplating the dangers of the
future that may come to this republic,
the wise citizen should reach out and
seize whatever remedy may be within
his reach and apply it so that all the
years to eome may lie free from fear and
disturbing forces such as are always at
work in every nation. That remedy ap
pears to be, to put the balance of our
population back on the land and keep it
there. There seems to be no other rem
edy. The man who has his home upon
mother earth, the man who draws his
living straight from nature’s granary, the
man who i* free from all the uncertain
ties of a wage earner’s employment, the
man who gathers his wife and children
around his own heurthstone and gets his
living by his own labor from Ids own
land, is the anchorage of this country. It
behooves our statesmen to rise to the
occasion aud imbue the American people
with' a1 patriotic determination to turn
file balance of our population back to
the land and plant it there with homes
that no social upheaval can ever disturb.
This will safeguard this nation for ail
years to eome.
AH Cn> Have Homea,
The nation has land for every man
who will make his home upon it in good
faith—who will break the ao<l, plant
crops, build a house and settle down to
support his family from the soil, but the
nation has no laud—at least, it ought to
have none—for the man who merely
seeks to forestall the actual settler and i
sell out to him. at a profit, or become a
landlord, collecting inpome from his ten
ant.
Inind monopoly robs men of a large
portion of the products of their labor. It
nullifies the spirit of constitutional guar
antees which seeks to give assurance of
political freedom. No man is free in
the true sense of the term who is be
holden to another for the means of his
existence, and laud monopoly makes
rebels instead of patriots. In tlie case of
Ireland it drove more thau half the popu
lation away from its native soil. It filled
their hearts with bitterness and even
sent some of her children into tho ranks
of England’s enemies in the hour of her
great trouble.
Will Help the Beat.
The subjugation and settlement of the
great empire of public lands means that
every factory wheel in the United States
must whirl faster, that every banking
house must handle more money, and that
every railroad must transport more pas
sengers and freight. This, in turn, means
a large and busier population in every
eastern and southern town, and that of
course will quicken and enlarge the de
mand for qll the products of the soil in
the older sections of the country. In the
meantime that which is grown from the
soil, to be. conquered by irrigation in the
West, will go almost exclusively to the
feeding of new home markets to be erect
ed within the arid region itself and to
the satisfying of unlimited demands in
the Orient and lu the frozen north.
\
— **•••■ — * *vuiui * ranci
Visible increase iu American tonnage
in trade between the Asiatic East and
the Pacific coast is beyond the concep
tion of the ordinary citizen. This trans
portation issue concerns the merchant,
the manufacturer and the mechanic of
the Atlantic States, the Middle States
and the far West as well as the Pacific
coast These merchants, manufacturers
and ‘mechanics have the same interest in
tile Asiatic trade that they have in the
Irrigation development of our arid and
semi-arid land. The larger that trade,
the greater the demand for the industrial
products of the vast region east of the
Rocky mountains, the greater the etfi
ciency of trans-P&cific transportations,
the greater our trade with Asia.
In a way the merchants, manufactur
ers and mechanics east of the Rocky
mountains have more at stake than have
tile Pacific coast States. Increased trade
with Asia, especially an increased de
mand for American food stuffs, means in
creased agricultural, commercial and in
dustrial activity on the Pacific coast, a
larger population on the Pacific, and
finally, the most important of all, a
larger home market for what the people
of the Pacific coast call the American
East.
Improved Transportation.
The transportation issue is settling
itself. The traus-cootinental railway
companies face a globe circling competi
tion that forces them to raise the effi
ciency of their systems, west of Chi
cago. The steam lines of the Pacific
ocean are meeting the transportation de
mands. thus the American commerce
with the Asiatic East is iusured by that
UNCLE SAM—"I’m sorry, but I can’t use anything with a string tied to It.”
great promoter of trade known as swift
mid regular transportation.
The complement of this transportation
is u steudy and reliable flow of freight.
Here irrigation comes into play. Irri
gation insures regular crops and there
fore a fixed volume of freight: even as
i reliable transportation insures regular
trade. These phases of national life are
part and parcel of the evolutionary pro
cess that has made the United States the
trade leader of the world. The activi
ties of the country are rising to the new
economic standard. He who fails to see
this should seek a new perspective.
To the ordinary man the term Asiatic
trade lacks special significance. He
knows it relates to trade with Asia,
md that we are constantly exporting to
end importing from Asia. He does not
realize that all the leading countries of
the earth are competing for the trade of
icveral hundred million Asiatics, and that
this trade is really the greatest commer
cial prize of the day. He does not realize
that this trade may be the making of his
>wu trade, calling or business.
Vonr Personal Interest.
Farmers, ranchers, miners, lumbermen,
merchants, laborers of the West, do not
rote against your own interests, that of
rout family; and yours and their future.
V'ote for Roosevelt and Fairbanks. They
have brought you glad tidings in the na
tional irrigation act. Its workings have
ilready began. Under its operation there
will be a tendency to balance interests
and thus help in a powerful way to keep
the government steady. It will settle the
beef question, every acre irrigated would
produce more than thirty times as much
as is now produc-ed on any of our wild
grid lands. It will produce new towns
;>f moderate size, where all the vocations
of trade, of learning, literature and re
ligion will flourish. It will change the
face of the earth. It will change the
face of the sky. It will modify the at
mosphere. It will change -the climate.
It will give life, Health, joy and pros
perity to the people.
Work for Republican Party,
When we come to contemplate the
whole field of natural western re
sources, available for food, for industry
and for commerce, when we attempt to
grasp in one act of thought the length
and breadth and depth of the riches with
which Providence has loaded this sec
tion; when we try to realize how every
possible want, every material aspiration
of man can be bountifully provided for;
when we consider how measureless are
the values which will spring into being
at the touch of modern industry, and
how these values, when once created,
are solid and real and beeome incorpo
rated into the enduring structure of hu
man society, we may begin to es
timate properly the measure of re
sponsibility which rests upon this na
tion and Its chosen rulers. This is not
merely to preserve unharmed the price
less boom of civil liberty which leaves
the individual citizen free to do his share
in work of development, but to adopt
such measures as will prevent the waste
of natural resources, clear the way of
progress and promote the triumph of civ
ilization. The record of the Republican
party shows it to be a party of progress.
„ A Sign of Prosperity.
There is no better criterion of general
prosperity than the postal business.
When times are good the postal revenue
increases, and vice versa. The report of
the Postmaster General shows that for
the year ending July 1, 1895, the receipts
from postal revenue were $76,171,000.
For the year ending July 1, 1902. they
were $119,958,229, an increase of 57 per
cent during seven years of continuous
Republican rule. During the year ending
July 1. 1895, the receipts from the money
order business were $812,038; for the
year ending July 1, 1902, they were $1,
889,817, an increase of 133 per cent dur
ing seven years of Republican prosperity.
The Postmaster General in his annual
report for 1902 said: “The increase in
the postal revenues attests the wonder
ful prosperity of the people and the ac
tivity of business interests throughout
the country.” It would not have beer
proper for the Postmaster General in ai
official report to attribute this wonder
ful prosperity in 1902 to the operation o
the Dingley tariff law and other Re pub
lican measures, hut such was the fact.
WHAT IS TO BE WILL BE
Growth of the Astatic Demand foi
Products of the United States.
The Asiactic nations have lived upoi
rice—stating things in a general way
end the Teutonic races have for somi
generations lived upon flour. It ha:
become standard within the last year o:
two. that at least one of the Asiaetii
nations has come to live upon flour
Those desperate little fighters, the Jap
anese, have taken to hard tack, as dii
our own American fighters during thi
Civil War, as a part of their subsistence
and the same regard as to whatever i:
made from our wheat has already ex
tended, in a measure, to the more vasl
Asiatic empire of China. That elevei
corresponds t. William E. Curtis, speak
ing of the extent to which our flour ii
already used by Japan, says:
While the Imports of flour within th*
Inst year or so have been much greatei
than ever before on account of the prepa
rations for war, nevertheless there is rea
son to expect a continued expansion of th*
market. Japanese families generally ar<
beginning to use wheat flour for various
purposes. Nearly every household Is now
using It to make the little cakes and sweet
meats which they use with their ten sev
ernl times a day In large quantities. A
still larger amount of u cheaper quality 1:
used for paste by the manufacturers ol
screens, umbrellas, fans and other article:
of that kind. Since the war began linre
bread has been Introduced Into the army a:
an alternate ration with rice. The soldier:
relish the variety: hard tack Is easy t*
handle and carry, the nutritive value of :
pound of flour is equal to that of a pounc
of lice, and It costs less. The Japanesi
export their best rice to France, Englani
and China, where It brings big prices, belli*
of the very highest grude. They lmpori
vast quantities of cheaper rice for the < 011
sumption of the coolies and the, latiorliq
class from Korea, Burmuli, China, Slnga
pore and other parts of the East Indies
It Is entirely practicable to substltuti
cheap brands of flour for this low-gradi
rice, and It will be easy to do so whet
the soldiers come home with their appe
tites for hard tack and wheat bread.
Could there be, uuder any circum
stances or conditions, expressed a vaste
idea of the enormous trade relations tha
must henceforth exist between Americi
and the Asiatic countries! Americi
produces bread. The Asiatics have learn
ed to eat bread with the rest of tin
world. Wfe are going to supply then
with it. We have to ship it across tin
Pacific Ocean over the commercial path
way which we have made and beneati
which underlies our cable system. Then
is ootliing in the world that can sto]
the Asiatic demand for the wheat prod
ucts of the United States, and the when
products of the United States have mad
tliis country, to a great extent, the tre
niendous power it is.
They talk about "Imperialism!” Then
is no “Imperialism!” This continent i
producing what the rest of the worli
needs, and tile inhabitants of this con
tinent, under the rule of Republican aii
ministration, associated with other iutei
ligent governments on either side, pro
pose to supply Asia with these prod
nets that Asia needs. The fact tha
the United States has completed it
pathway across the vast ocean and ha
its intermediate stations, and its posses
sions close to the Asiatic coasts, is bu
an incident of events which are par
of the industrial history of the world
Does anyone imagine that the presen
majority of the American people are gc
ing to neglect their ostensible duty, no
merely to themselves but to another poi
i tion of the human race? They wi
hardly do it.
This is but talking of the products c
tho wheat fields that Asia now demand:
It has nothing to do with iron and stei
and the thousand and one other pro<
ucts of all our fields and all our fact*
ries wliieh they will otherwise demani
This is but referring to the simple a
fair of one single product, but it i
enough to afford an illustration.
And yat they talk about “Impsria
ism!” There is no “Imperialism.” We
are blit brothers who are going to as
sist in feeding the rest of our brothers
of the world; to give them the benefits of
it all and to reap ourselves the benefits
of it all. To submit to anything else
would be silly. It is but a problem of
common sense.
Export of Manufactures.
Figures recently issued by the Depart
ment of Commerce and Tabor at Wash
ington show that during the month of
July last our exports of manufactures
1 amounted to $40,000,000, against $31,
’ 000,000 of agricultural products. During
June the exports of manufactures were
nearly $42,000,000. against $37,500,000
of agricultural products. This is the first
time in the history of the country that
the exports of manufactures have ex
ceeded those of the farm. This does not
mean that the exports of farm products
are falling off, but that those of manu
factures have greatly increased. This is
due to a protective tariff which, while it
benefits American manufactures, also in
creases the home demand for American
farm products.
Democracy’s Bad Record.
When the veterans of the Civil War
were with Gen. Grant before Richmond
or with Sherman marching to the sea, a
Democratic national convention declared
the war a failure and demanded a dis
honorable peace. When the business
men, the wage-earners and honest men
of all classes were battling for sound
money and the gold standard the Demo
cratic party, as an organization, was
clamoring for free silver at 1G to 1.
When the Republican party was contend
ing for protection to American manufac
turers and workmen, its opponents were
advocating a policy destructive to both.
What good thing has the Democratic
party ever done, anyhow?
Not the Only Important Question.
Admitting that the gold standard is “ir
revocably'fixed,” as Judge Parker says,
though he did not help fix it, that is only
oue of many important financial ques
tions that may come up in relation to
financial matters. The question of the
. preservation and extension of our sys
. tem of banking and currency; the refund
ing of our national debt as it may, from
time to time, become due, and many oth.
er questions of like importance may
arise. To place the settlement of these
1 questions in unfriendly hands might re
| suit in such a disturbance of business as
would shock the whole country.
* crsuuui auusc n lit n in*
The Democratic party has been so
' long in tlie opposition and its every day
work has so long been criticism, that it
•• forgets that no battle was ever won
! by swearing at the enemy. Abuse of
Mr. Roosevelt will make votes for him.
He is a very popular man. Personal
■ criticism will not draw away from him
| any man who admires him, but It will
* stir his admirers to the more earnest sup
‘ port of him.
According to the Banker’s Monthly for
‘ August there are 7,305,228 individual
' depositors in the savings banks of the
t United States, and it is safe to say that
5 7,305,000 will vote for the Republican
5 ticket, at least all who are legal voters
- will.
t ---—
t “No more Important question can en
. gage onr attention, and none ehould
t receive more earnest and thoughtful
. consideration, than one which eeeke to
t guard and preaerve the high standard
. of onr population and citizenship.”—
I Senator Fairbanks in the Senate, January 11,1898.
The passage of the National Irrigation
f Act marked a new era for the West.
• Its effect upon actual settlement may not
1 unfairly be compared to that of the
Homestead law, signed by President
Lincoln in 1862.
Under the Wilson low tariff exports in
s creased $04,000,000; in three years un
der the Dingley tariff thev increased
I- $155,000,000.
PARKERS FAVORITE POEM.
(Alton B. Parker Is very fond of the po
etry of James Whitcomb Klley.—Current
Note.)
Uncle David Bennett Hill's at Parker’*
house to stay.
To help him fix his fences an' to tell him
what to say;
David says: “Be keerful, now you are *
candidate.
Or else they’ll git the best of you—that'*
jest as sure as fate;
Now don't send any telegrams, creatin'
further doubt.
Or Roosevelt ’ll beat you,
ef you
. don’t watch
out!
“Wunst they was a candidate ’at thought
he’d have a chance
If he’d tell the people what he knew
about finance:
Went about th’ country with a holler an’
a whoop—
When the votes was counted he was un
derneath the soup.
Stick to what I tell you, or you'll amble
up the spout,
Fer Roosevelt ’ll beat you,
ef you
don’t watch
out!
“Wunst I wore a feather plume: ‘I Am
a Democrat.’
Till a cyclone from th’ west jest blew
away my hat—
When they ast me what I was, I an
swered cool an’ ca’m,
With another feather plume which read:
'I Guess I Am.’
Bet your life that David knows jest
what, he is about—
An’ Roosevelt ’ll beat you,
ef you
don’t watch
out!
“Best be pitrty keerful how you talk
about tli’ trusts—
If you want to roast one. better wait
until it busts.
An’ th’ money question—don't have very
much to say
As to plutycrats—remember Henry Gas
saway!
Stick right to a whisper, don’t you never
dare to shout,
Or Roosevelt ’ll beat you,
ef yon
don’t watch
out!
‘Have your picture taken—out be keerful
what you wear—
Put on all th’ overalls an’ look lik«
‘county fair:’
Take your little plunge into the Hudson
every day,
Keep below the water when you’ve any
thing to say. «
Mind your Uncle David—his suggestion*
never flout—
For Roosevelt ’ll bent you,
EF YOU
DON’T WATCH
OUT!’’
TRIBULATIONS OF A GREAT
GRANDFATHER.
(Over Teddy’s Letter.)
Likins. W. Va., Sept. 15, 1904.
Dear Sonny—I’ve just finished readiii’
Teddy’s letter and haven’t had so much
fun since I was toss’d in a blanket the
year that grand old rough rider. Andy Jack
son, was elected for a second term. It
tosses us up so high that it seems as if
we’d never come down.
I never did see a paper so full of In
terrogation points as that letter, and every
denied one of them like a Jolt on the solar
plexus that Steve is so fond of talkin’
about.
“Nunky,” said Steve, as I hobbled into
breakfast this mornln’, the first time since
I posed as Methuselah pickin’ the shoe
strings out of his eyes, “Nunky,” says he,
"why does Teddy’s letter remind you of a
corduroy road?”
“Because it’s so full of bumps,” says I,
guesSin’ his conundrum the first crack.
There’s nothin’ like a few sharp jolts on
the spine to sharpen an old man’s intel
lectuals.
No wonder you thought It a mile long.
A short piece of road like that goes a long
way when your wagon hasn’t, any springs
or straw on the bottom, an* your old hams
lack fat like mine.
I tell you, Alton, that’s the matter with
us. The Democratic band wagon hasn’t
got any springs nor straw for cushions, and
I’m gettin’ all fired tired furnishin’ all the
axle grease.
This letter of Teddy’s doesn’t run on
rubber tires, lie may mean well, but what
right has he pryin’ into our convictions?
What business is it of his if we are like
the man stealin’ a ride on the end of a
train who never sees anything until it’s
passed? If he was as old as I am, he’d
bless his stars if he could see anything,
behind or before.
This havin' foresight is all a Republican
gift. We Democrats haven’t got it. We’r®
always suckin’ the hind teat.
We never saw anything in infant indus
tries tili the Republicans adopted the
foundlin’ and brought it up on Protection
milk.
We never saw that the Union had to be
preserved, if there were to be enough
offices to go round, until the Republicans
saved it and filled the offices for nigh onto
forty years.
We never saw that two things could not
occupy the same place at the same time
until the Republicans adopted the gold
standard and left us holding the bag be
tween bimetallism and free and unlimited
I tell you, we've no faculty for fore
sight—and. ns far as I can see, mighty
little for hind-sight, either. No wonder the
donkey is our party emblem. Do you
know. I've been lokin' in mother’s lookin’
glass lately, and 1 swan. If my chin whis
kers ain't grown like a goat's and my ears
are gettin’ so long they droop. Steve says
It’s only an optical hallucination, superin
duced by too much brooding over Repub
lican cartoons.
But. say. Alton—on the quiet—have you
consulted your glass since you made that
speech to Charlie Knapp and the other
Charlie horses';
Donkeys have this advantage over men;
they cun get their ears to the ground with
out crawlin’ on their bellies.
Waitin’ to see you put Teddy on the grid
iron, your old uncle,
HENRY GASSOWAY.
Party Records.
In every national campaign for forty
years past the Republican party has
stood upon its record of tilings done, of ^
laws enacted, of policies established un- ”
der which the country .has progressed
and prospered. The record of the Dem
ocratic party made in two administra
tions was so full of disaster, of commer
cial shipwreck, of industrial paralysis
and business failures that its chief busi
ness in recent years has been to get as
far away from its record as possible.
Parker Would Be Unsafe.
Without questioning the sincerity of
Judge Parker’s expressions on the
money question he was, by his own state
ments, more devoted to his party, in
1890, than lie was to bis sincere con
victions of right. That being the case,
we have a right to assume that he might,
at ail extreme moment, again surrender
bis principles for the sake of his party.
Such a man cannot be held up as a sale
candidate for the highest position in tha
govsrnnient.
