The conception that water is, on the whole, the most important natural resource has gained firm hold in the irrigated West, and is making rapid progress in the humid East.  Water, not land, is the primary value in the Western country, and its conservation and use to irrigate land is the first condition of prosperity.  The use of our streams for irrigation and for domestic and manufacturing uses is comparatively well developed.  Their use for power is less developed, while their use for transportation has only begun.  The conservation of the inland waterways of the United States for these great purposes constitutes, perhaps, the largest single task which now confronts the Nation.  The maintenance and increase of agriculture, the supply of clear water for domestic and manufacturing uses, the development of electrical power, transportation, and lighting, and the creation of a system of inland transportation by water whereby to regulate freight-rates by rail and to move the bulkier commodities cheaply from place to place, is a task upon the successful accomplishment of which the future of the Nation depends in a peculiar degree.  We are accustomed, and rightly accustomed, to take pride in the vigorous and healthful growth of the United States, and in its vast promise for the future.  Yet we are making no preparation to realize what we so easily foresee and glibly predict.  The vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only if we make ourselves, in a sense, responsible for that future.  The planned and orderly development and conservation of our natural resources is the first duty of the United States.  It is the only form of insurance that will certainly protect us against the disasters that lack of foresight has in the past repeatedly brought down on nations since passed away.

CHAPTER II

HOME-BUILDING FOR THE NATION

The most valuable citizen of this or any other country is the man who owns the land from which he makes his living.  No other man has such a stake in the country.  No other man lends such steadiness and stability to our national life.  Therefore no other question concerns us more intimately than the question of homes.  Permanent homes for ourselves, our children, and our Nation—­this is a central problem.  The policy of national irrigation is of value to the United States in very many ways, but the greatest of all is this, that national irrigation multiplies the men who own the land from which they make their living.  The old saying, “Who ever heard of a man shouldering his gun to fight for his boarding house?” reflects this great truth, that no man is so ready to defend his country, not only with arms, but with his vote and his contribution to public opinion, as the man with a permanent stake in it, as the man who owns the land from which he makes his living.