 | Addresses and presidential messages of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1904 |  |
XXIX
AT CARSON CITY, NEVADA, MAY 19, 1903
Mr. Governor, Mr. Mayor, and you, my fellow-citizens:
It has been a great pleasure to be introduced in the
more than kind words the Governor has used, because
the Governor has been a genuine pioneer.
Here in this great western country, the country which
it is what it is purely because the pioneers who came here
had iron in their veins, because they were able to conquer
plain and mountain, and to make the wilderness blossom,
we are not to be excused if we do not see to it that the
generation that comes after us is trained to have the sum
of the fundamental qualities which enabled their fathers
to succeed.
I want to say one special word to-day here in Carson
City on a subject in which all of our people from the
Atlantic to the Pacific take an interest, but which affects
in especial the people of the States of the great plains
and mountains and affects no State more than it does
Nevada—the question of irrigation. Now as I say I do
not regard that as in any way merely a question of the
Rocky Mountain States, or of the great plains States,
because anything which tends for the well-being of any
portion of the Union is therefore for the well-being of all
of it, and it was for that reason that I felt warranted in
appealing to the people of the seaboard States on the
Atlantic, to the people of the States of the Great Lakes
and the Mississippi Valley, to say that it was their duty
because the interest of any part of this country is the
interest of all of it; and no man is a really good American
who fails to grasp that fact.
The National Government is still, as you all well know,
but as many Easterners do not know, the greatest landowner
in the Western States, and among all those States
Nevada holds the great proportion of vacant public land,
and the need of Nevada for Federal assistance was one
of the strongest arguments used in the discussion which
preceded the reclamation act of June, 1902, the irrigation
act of a year ago. The great extent of the vacant public
lands in the State, the fact that its water supply came
chiefly from streams rising in the adjoining State of California,
and the overwhelming difficulties which for these
and other reasons prevented the people of Nevada from
efficiently acting in their own interest, made, in my judgment,
and, as it proved, in the judgment of the Congress,
Federal interference absolutely imperative. It is a matter
for the strongest congratulation not only for the West,
but for the whole Nation that the policy went into effect.
It is a matter of special congratulation to Nevada that the
Secretary of the Interior, guided in his choice wholly by
actual conditions on the ground, has been led to undertake
one of the five sets of works which have been first
undertaken, here in Nevada, particularly near Reno on
the Truckee River, as one of the national projects for the
starting and working of the methods of the law. Extensive
surveys have already been made, and the projects for
water storage and water distribution are at a point which
warrants our belief that immediate action is in sight.
There are vast tracts of excellent land still in the ownership
of the General Government here in Nevada and elsewhere
to which the reclamation act will bring the flood
waters that now annually go to waste. For Nevada most
of these waters originate in the high mountains lying in
Some of these mountains have been included in
the forest reserves, and your interests and the interests
of the irrigators in California imperatively demand the
extension of the forest-reserve system so that the source
of supply for the great reservoirs and irrigation works
may be safe from fire, from over-grazing, and from destructive
lumbering. I ask you to pay attention to what
I say when I use the word destructive lumbering; no one
can desire to prevent, or do anything but help, practical
and conservative lumbering. In other words, my fellow-citizens,
we have reached a condition in which it must be
the object of the Nation and the State to favor the development
of the home maker, of the man who takes up
the land intending to keep it for himself and for his
children, so that it shall be even of better use to them
than to him.
The opportunities for the development of Nevada are
very great. Until recently Nevada was only thought of
as a mineral and stock-raising State. Much can be done
yet as regards both the mineral exploitation and the raising
of stock within the State; but now under the stimulus
of irrigation it is probable that irrigated agriculture will
come to the front, and when it does the population will
increase with a rapidity and permanence never before
known. The State of Nevada has led the way not only
in the strength of its plea for national aid in irrigation,
but also in its willingness to assist in the work. I wish
to lay emphasis on the fact that in Nevada the authorities
have been anxious in every way to help in working
out the problem of irrigation; and to pay all acknowledgment
to them now. The recent legislature passed laws
which in many respects should serve as models for the
legislation of other States. The union of land and water
under the national law has been recognized, and so has
the fundamental proposition which necessarily underlies
is the chief industry—namely, that the water
belongs to the people and cannot be made a monopoly.
The public appreciation of this fundamental truth, that
the water belongs to the people to be taken and put to
beneficial use, will wipe out many controversies which are
at present so harmful to the development of the West.
And the example of Nevada will be of material aid in
bringing about this fortunate result.
As I said of the forests so it is even more true of
the water supply. It should be our constant policy by
National and by State legislation to see that the water is
used for the benefit of the occupants of the soil, of those
who till and use the soil, that it is not exploited by any
one man or set of men in his or their interests as against
the interests of those on the land who are to use it. It
is a fundamental truth that the prosperity of any people
is simply another term for the prosperity of the home
makers among that people. Our entire policy in irrigation,
in forestry, in handling the public lands, should be in
recognition of that truth, to favor in every way the man
who wishes to take up a given area of soil and thereon to
build a home in which he will rear his children as useful
citizens of the State.
| Addresses and presidential messages of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1904 | |