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.
Our country began as a nation of farmers.

During the periods that gave it its character, when our independence was won and when our Union was preserved, we were preeminently a nation of farmers.

We can not, and we ought not, to continue exclusively, or even chiefly, an agricultural country, because one man can raise food enough for many.

But the farmer who owns his land is still the backbone of this Nation; and one of the things we want most is more of him.