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Show THE WESTERN WEB 41 Powell, and, in 1878, his findings were placed before Congress. The major, as it was well understood later, was a forward-looking and a thoroughly competent observer and scientist. He recommended that arid lands west of the one-hundredth meridian be developed into small farms.* He envisioned his proposal as being accomplished through a federal law which permitted settlement on the lands and the formation of local irri- gation districts by the settlers. Congress responded by creating the Geological Survey in the Interior Depart- ment and ordering further and more comprehensive studies of the western public domain. The basic homestead law had long been on the statute books when Major Powell made his report, and recla- mation had gone forward in many places where emi- grants had found a dependable stream, good soil and an adequate growing season. The men who had opened the West to reclamation had not waited for either legal sanction of their exploits or federal assistance. They did not gauge their progress or their plans to any con- gressional action. Rather, the reverse was true. Before the lawmakers in Washington took positive action on the Powell report, therefore, water rights along good streams had been established, companies and irri- gation districts had been organized, and individuals had constructed private water systems, to reclaim irrigable lands. The machinery of government, however, con- tinued to turn steadily if slowly, and through one Con- gress after another progress was made toward the creation of a national over-all policy. Such legislation * The meridian passes approximately through the middle of the Dakotas and Ne- braska, western Kansas, along the eastern line of the Texas Panhandle and south through West Texas. |
