Part 27

Under that act a beginning has been made in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and the Territory of Arizona. There is bound to be disappointment here and there where people have built hopes without a quite sufficient warranty of fact behind. But good will surely come at once and wellnigh immeasurable good in the future from the policy which has thus been begun. In Colorado two-thirds of your products come from irrigated farms, and four years ago those products already surpassed fifteen million dollars. With the aid of the government far more can be done in the future even than has been done in the past. The object of the law is to provide small irrigated farms to actual settlers, to actual home-makers; the land is given away ultimately in small tracts under the terms of the homestead act, the settlers repaying the cost of bringing water to their lands in ten annual payments; and lands now in private ownership can be watered in small tracts by similar payments, but the law forbids the furnishing of water to large tracts, and the aim of the government is rigidly to prevent the acquisition of large rights for speculative purposes. The purpose of the law was, and that purpose is being absolutely carried out, to promote settlement and cultivation of small farms carefully tilled. Water made available under the terms of this law becomes appurtenant under the law to the land, and can not be disposed of without it, and thus monopoly and speculation in this vitally important commodity are prevented, or at least their evil effects minimized so far as the law or the administration of the law can bring that end about. This is the great factor in future success. The policy is a policy of encouragement to the home-maker, to the man who comes to establish his home, to bring up his children here as a citizen of the commonwealth, and his welfare is guarded by the union of the water and the land.

The government can not deal with large numbers individually. We have encouraged the formation of associations of water users, of cultivators of the soil in small tracts. The ultimate ownership and control of the irrigation works will pass away from the government into the hands of those users, those home-makers, who through their officers do the necessary business of their associations. The aim of the government is to give locally the ultimate control of water distributed and to leave neighborhood disputes to be settled locally; and that should be so as far as it is possible. The law protects vested rights; it prevents conflict with established laws or institutions; but of course it is important that the legislatures of the States should co-operate with the National Government. When the works are constructed to utilize the waters now wasted happy and prosperous homes will flourish where twenty years ago it would have seemed impossible that a man could live. It is a great national measure of benefit, and while, as I say, it is primarily to benefit the people of the mountain States and of the great plains, yet it will ultimately benefit the whole community. For, my fellow-countrymen, you can never afford to forget for one moment that in the long run anything that is of benefit to one part of our Republic is of necessity of benefit to all the Republic. The creation of new homes upon desert lands means greater prosperity for Colorado and the Rocky Mountain States, and inevitably their greater prosperity means greater prosperity for Eastern manufacturers, for Southern cotton growers, for all our people throughout the Union.

AT SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO, MAY 5, 1903

_Mr. Governor, Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen_:

It is of course with a peculiar feeling of pleasure that I come here to New Mexico, from which Territory half (and if my memory serves me correctly a little over half) of the men of my regiment came. The man is but a poor man wherever he may be born to whom one part of this country is not exactly as dear as any other part. And I should count myself wholly unworthy of the position I hold if I did not strive to represent the people of the mountains and the plains exactly as much as those of the Mississippi Valley or of either coast, the Atlantic or the Pacific. I know your people, Mr. Governor, and I need not say how fond I am of them, for that you know yourself. How could I help being fond of people with whom I have worked, with whom I marched to battle? The only men here to whom I would doff my hat quicker than to the men of my own regiment are the men of the great war. You know well the claim that comradeship in war makes between man and man; and it has always seemed to me, Mr. Governor, that in a sense my regiment in its composition was a typical American regiment. Its people came from the West chiefly, but some from the East, from the South chiefly, but some from the North, so that every section was represented in it. They varied in birthplace as in creed; some were born on this side of the water, some on the other side; some of their ancestors had come to New Mexico, as did your ancestors, Mr. Governor, when this was already a city and at a time when not one English-speaking community existed on the Atlantic seaboard; some were men whose forefathers were among the early Puritans and Pilgrims; some were of those whose forefathers had settled by the banks of the James even before the Puritan and Pilgrim came to this country, but after your people came. There were men in that regiment who themselves were born, or whose parents were born, in England, Ireland, Germany, or Scandinavia, but there was not a man, no matter what his creed, what his birthplace, what his ancestry, who was not an American and nothing else. We had representatives of the real, original, native Americans, because we had no inconsiderable number who were in whole or in part of Indian blood. There was in the regiment but one kind of rivalry among those men, and but one would have been tolerated. That was the rivalry of each man to see if he could not do his duty a little better than any one else. Short would have been the shrift of any man who tried to introduce division along lines of section, or creed, or class. We had serving in the ranks men of inherited wealth and men who all their lives had earned each day’s bread by that day’s labor, and they stood on a footing of exact equality. It would not have been any more possible for a feeling of arrogance to exist on one side than for a feeling of rancor and envy to exist on the other.

I appreciate to the full all the difficulties under which you labor, and I think that your progress has been astonishing. I congratulate you upon all that has been done, and I am certain that the future will far more than make good the past. I believe that we have come upon an era of fuller development for New Mexico. That development must of course take place principally through the average of foresight, thrift, industry, energy and will of the citizens of New Mexico; but the government can and will help somewhat. This is a great grazing State. Because of the importance of the grazing industry I wish to bespeak your support for the preservation in proper shape of the forest reserves of the State. These forest reserves are created and are kept up in the interest of the home-maker. In many of them there is much natural pasturage. Where that is the case the object is to have that pasturage used by the settlers, by the people of the Territory, not eaten out so that nobody will have the benefit after three years. I want the land preserved so that the pasturage will do, not merely for a man who wants to make a good thing out of it for two or three years, but for the man who wishes to see it preserved for the use of his children and his children’s children. That is the way to use the resources of the land. I build no small hope upon the aid that under the wise law of Congress will ultimately be extended to this as to other States and Territories in the way of governmental aid to irrigation. Irrigation is of course to be in the future wellnigh the most potent factor in the agricultural development of this Territory and one of the factors which will do most toward bringing it up to Statehood. Nothing will count more than development of that kind in bringing the Territory in as a State. That is the kind of development which I am most anxious to see here—the development that means permanent growth in the capacity of the land, not temporary, not the exploiting of the land for a year or two at the cost of its future impoverishment, but the building up of farm and ranch in such shape as to benefit the home-maker whose intention it is that this Territory of the present, this State of the future, shall be a great State in the American Union.

AT THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL, ALBUQUERQUE, N. M., MAY 5, 1903

_Bishop_:

Permit me to thank you and to say how much I appreciate the courtesy you showed in putting yourself to such inconvenience to come here to greet me. I had hoped to meet you at Santa Fe in the cathedral, where I participated in the baptism of the son of one of the men of my regiment.

I greet the school children and the sisters. There can be no greater privilege than to meet a missionary who has done good work. Of all the work that is done or that can be done for our country, the greatest is that of educating the body, the mind, and above all the character, giving spiritual and moral training to those who in a few years are themselves to decide the destinies of the nation.

AT THE INDIAN SCHOOL, ALBUQUERQUE, N. M., MAY 5, 1903

_Mr. Superintendent_:

I wish to express the peculiar pleasure it is to have seen the Indian schools to-day, and through you, Mr. Superintendent, I want to say to the Indians that are right behind you, what a fine thing it is to see the industry and thrift of their people. I was struck by their orchards, the irrigated fields, and by seeing them working in the fields and along the road. The Indian who will work and do his duty will stand on a par with any other American citizen. Of course I will do as every President must do, I will stand for his rights with the same jealous eagerness that I would for the rights of any white man. I am glad to see the Indian children being educated as these are educated so as to come more and more into the body of American citizenship, to fit themselves for work in the home, work in the fields, for leading decent, clean lives, for making themselves self-supporting, for being good providers and good housekeepers; in other words, for becoming American citizens just like other American citizens.

AT GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA, MAY 6, 1903

_Mr. Governor, and you, my Fellow-Citizens_:

I am glad to be in Arizona to-day. From Arizona many gallant men came into the regiment which I had the honor to command. Arizona sent men who won glory on fought fields, and men to whom came a glorious and an honorable death fighting for the flag of their country. As long as I live it will be to me an inspiration to have served with Bucky O’Neill. I have met so many comrades whom I prize, for whom I feel respect and admiration and affection, that I shall not particularize among them except to say that there is none for whom I feel all of respect and admiration and affection more than for your Governor.

I have never been in Arizona before. It is one of the regions from which I expect most development through the wise action of the National Congress in passing the irrigation act. The first and biggest experiment now in view under that act is the one that we are trying in Arizona. I look forward to the effects of irrigation partly as applied by and through the government, still more as applied by individuals, and especially by associations of individuals, profiting by the example of the government, and possibly by help from it—I look forward to the effects of irrigation as being of greater consequence to all this region of country in the next fifty years than any other material movement whatsoever.

In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which, so far as I know, is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to do one thing in connection with it in your own interest and in the interest of the country—to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. I was delighted to learn of the wisdom of the Santa Fe railroad people in deciding not to build their hotel on the brink of the canyon. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel, or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You can not improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children, your children’s children, and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights which every American if he can travel at all should see. We have gotten past the stage, my fellow-citizens, when we are to be pardoned if we treat any part of our country as something to be skinned for two or three years for the use of the present generation, whether it is the forest, the water, the scenery. Whatever it is, handle it so that your children’s children will get the benefit of it. If you deal with irrigation, apply it under circumstances that will make it of benefit, not to the speculator who hopes to get profit out of it for two or three years, but handle it so that it will be of use to the home-maker, to the man who comes to live here, and to have his children stay after him. Keep the forests in the same way. Preserve the forests by use; preserve them for the ranchman and the stockman, for the people of the Territory, for the people of the region round about. Preserve them for that use, but use them so that they will not be squandered, that they will not be wasted, so that they will be of benefit to the Arizona of 1953 as well as the Arizona of 1903.

To the Indians here I want to say a word of welcome. In my regiment I had a good many Indians. They were good enough to fight and to die, and they are good enough to have me treat them exactly as squarely as any white man. There are many problems in connection with them. We must save them from corruption and from brutality; and I regret to say that at times we must save them from unregulated Eastern philanthropy. All I ask is a square deal for every man. Give him a fair chance. Do not let him wrong any one, and do not let him be wronged.

I believe in you. I am glad to see you. I wish you well with all my heart, and I know that your future will justify all the hopes we have.

AT BARSTOW, CALIFORNIA, MAY 7, 1903

_My Fellow-Citizens_:

This is the first time I have ever been to California, and I can not say to you how much I have looked forward to making the trip. I can tell you now with absolute certainty that I will have enjoyed it to the full when I get through.

I have felt that the events of the last five or six years have been steadily hastening the day when the Pacific will loom in the world’s commerce as the Atlantic now looms, and I have wished greatly to see these marvelous communities growing up on the Pacific Slope. There are plenty of things that to you seem matters of course, that I have read about and know about from reading, and yet when I see them they strike me as very wonderful.

One thing that impresses me more than anything else as I go through the country—as I said I have never been on the Pacific Slope; the Rocky Mountain States and the States of the great plains I know quite as well as I know the Eastern seaboard; I have worked with the men, played with them, fought with them; I know them all through—the thing that impresses me most as I go through this country and meet the men and women of the country, is the essential unity of all Americans. Down at bottom we are the same people all through. That is not merely a unity of section, it is a unity of class. For my good fortune I have been thrown into intimate relationship, into intimate personal friendship, with many men of many different occupations, and my faith is firm that we shall come unscathed out of all our difficulties here in America, because I think that the average American is a decent fellow, and that the prime thing in getting him to get on well with the other average American is to have each remember that the other is a decent fellow, and try to look at the problems a little from the other’s standpoint.

I thank you for coming out here to greet me. I wish you well with all my heart for the future.

AT SAN BERNARDINO, CAL., MAY 7, 1903

_Mr. Chairman, Mr. Governor, and you, my Fellow-Citizens_:

It is half a century since the early pioneers founded this place, and while time goes fast in America anywhere, it has gone fastest here on the Pacific Slope and in the regions of the Rocky Mountains directly to the eastward. If you live in the presence of miracles you gradually get accustomed to them. So it is difficult for any of us, and it is especially difficult for those who have themselves been doing the things, to realize the absolute wonder of the things that have been done. California and the region round about have in the past fifty or sixty years traversed the distance that separates the founders of the civilization of Mesopotamia and Egypt from those who enjoy the civilization of to-day. They have gone further than that. They have seen this country change from a wilderness into one of the most highly civilized regions of the world’s surface. They have seen cities, farms, ranches, railroads grow up and transform the very face of nature. The changes have been so stupendous that in our eyes they have become commonplace. We fail to realize their immense, their tremendous importance. We fail entirely to realize what they mean. Only the older among you can remember the early pioneer days, and yet to-day I have spoken to man after man yet in his prime who, when he first came to this country warred against wild man and wild nature in the way in which that warfare was waged in the prehistoric days of the old world. We have spanned in a single lifetime—in less than the lifetime of any man who reaches the age limit prescribed by the psalmist—the whole space from savagery through barbarism, through semi-civilization, to the civilization that stands two thousand years ahead of that of Rome and Greece in the days of their prime.

The old pioneer days have gone, but if we are to prove ourselves worthy sons of our sires we can not afford to let the old pioneer virtues lapse. There is just the same need now that there was in ’49 for the qualities that mark a mighty and masterful people. East and west we now face substantially the same problems. No people can advance as far and as fast as we have advanced, no people can make such progress as we have made, and expect to escape the penalties that go with such speed and progress. The growth and complexity of our civilization, the intensity of the movement of modern life, have meant that with the benefits have come certain disadvantages and certain perils. A great industrial civilization can not be built up without a certain dislocation, a certain disarrangement of the old conditions, and therefore the springing up of new problems. The problems are new, but the qualities needed to solve them are as old as history itself, and we shall solve them aright only on condition that we bring to the solution the same qualities of head and heart that have been brought to the solution of similar problems by every race that has ever conquered for itself a space in the annals of time.

AT THE BIG TREE GROVE, SANTA CRUZ, CAL., MAY 11, 1903

_Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen_:

I want to thank you very much for your courtesy in receiving me, and to say how much I have enjoyed being here. This is the first glimpse I have ever had of the big trees, and I wish to pay the highest tribute I can to the State of California, to those private citizens and associations of citizens who have co-operated with the State in preserving these wonderful trees for the whole nation, in preserving them in whatever part of the State they may be found. All of us ought to want to see nature preserved. Take a big tree whose architect has been the ages—anything that man does toward it may hurt it and can not help it. Above all, the rash creature who wishes to leave his name to mar the beauties of nature should be sternly discouraged. Those cards pinned up on that tree give an air of the ridiculous to this solemn and majestic grove. To pin those cards up there is as much out of place as if you tacked so many tin cans up there. I mean that literally. You should save the people whose names are there from the reprobation of every one by taking down the cards at the earliest possible moment; and do keep these trees, keep all the wonderful scenery of this wonderful State unmarred by the vandalism or the folly of man. Remember that we have to contend not merely with knavery, but with folly; and see to it that you by your actions create the kind of public opinion which will put a stop to any destruction of or any marring of the wonderful and beautiful gifts that you have received from nature, that you ought to hand on as a precious heritage to your children and your children’s children.

AT LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY, PALO ALTO, CAL., MAY 12, 1903

_President Jordan, and you, my Fellow-Citizens, and especially you, my Fellow-college Men and Women_: