National Irrigation Congress

[7][8] 1893 The panic of 1893 undermined financial backing for the congress;[9] nevertheless, the second conference opened in August 1893 in the Grand Opera House in Los Angeles, California, with an address by John P. Irish of San Francisco and the presence of a number of foreign representatives who had responded to an appeal by the State Department to attend the meeting.

... We earnestly ask for the creation of a National Irrigation Commission ... to be composed of men familiar with the condition of the arid region and including a representative of skilled engineers.

"[25][26] Commander Frederick Booth-Tucker of the Salvation Army made the principal address, arguing on behalf of the a plan to "colonize the irrigated lands of the West with poor people from the cities."

[28] 1906 The congress, held in Boise, Idaho,[29] took a stand against any "legislative concessions in favor of Philippine sugar," a nation recently conquered by the United States, so that sugar-beet production "may be fully developed in the arid regions of America.

"[32] Agronomist Luther Burbank, the "Wizard of the Plant Industry," told the delegates he had developed a "thornless cactus" that would "become the great fodder of arid regions.

Territorial Governor George Curry moved his office from the state capital at Santa Fe so he could be on hand to greet the 4,000 people who eventually arrived.

A reporter reviewing the event said that: The toniclike effect of the entire affair buoyed spirits of Albuquerque's many boosters and reinforced in them the conviction that their city, in the century stretching ahead, was marked for bright and wondrous things.

In August, speaking at the annual meeting of the National Irrigation Congress in Spokane, Washington, Pinchot accused Ballinger of siding with private trusts in his handling of water power issues.

[35] In his opening speech at the congress, chairman George E. Barstow urged the government to find work for (overseas) immigrants "out West", to provide them with transportation and to lend them money to establish homes.

[36] 1910 The 1910 conference in Pueblo, Colorado, was highlighted by a dispute over whether water policy should be in the hands of the federal government or, as sought by congress chairman Frank C. Goudy of Denver, "larger private and State holdings in irrigation projects.

"[38] 1911 At the Chicago, Illinois meeting, a move was afoot to change the name of the organization to National Reclamation Congress and "make the reclaiming of the swamp and lowlands of the South the primary object and the irrigation of the Southwest and the West a secondary matter.

At one session, Gifford Pinchot, "President Roosevelt's right-hand man and former chief of the government forestry service" was verbally attacked "and his widely heralded policy of conservation was declared to be 'fantastic.'"

[40] 1912 The session in Salt Lake City, Utah had on the agenda such items as "Irrigation of the Great West," "Storing of the Floods" and "Heeding the Call of the Landless Man for the Manless Land.