ght
within their reach.

The pioneer settlers on the arid public domain chose their homes along
streams from which they could themselves divert the water to reclaim
their holdings. Such opportunities are practically gone. There remain,
however, vast areas of public land which can be made available for
homestead settlement, but only by reservoirs and main-line canals
impracticable for private enterprise. These irrigation works should be
built by the National Government. The lands reclaimed by them should
be reserved by the Government for actual settlers, and the cost of
construction should so far as possible be repaid by the land reclaimed.
The distribution of the water, the division of the streams among
irrigators, should be left to the settlers themselves in conformity
with State laws and without interference with those laws or with
vested rights. The policy of the National Government should be to aid
irrigation in the several States and Territories in such manner as will
enable the people in the local communities to help themselves, and as
will stimulate needed reforms in the State laws and regulations
governing irrigation.

The reclamation and settlement of the arid lands will enrich every
portion of our country, just as the settlement of the Ohio and
Mississippi valleys brought prosperity to the Atlantic States. The
increased demand for manufactured articles will stimulate industrial
production, while wider home markets and the trade of Asia will consume
the larger food supplies and effectually prevent Western competition
with Eastern agriculture. Indeed, the products of irrigation will be
consumed chiefly in upbuilding local centers of mining and other
industries, which would otherwise not come into existence at all.
Our people as a whole will profit, for successful home-making is but
another name for the upbuilding of the nation.

The necessary foundation has already been laid for the inauguration
of the policy just described. It would be unwise to begin by doing too
much, for a great deal will doubtless be learned, both as to what can
and what cannot be safely attempted, by the early efforts, which must
of necessity be partly experimental in character. At the very beginning
the Government should make clear, beyond shadow of doubt, its intention
to pursue this policy on lines of the broadest public interest. No
reservoir or canal should ever be built to satisfy selfish personal
or local interests; but only in