The 'Irrigation Army' Scheme
Capitalists propose to end the unemployment crisis in Eastern Washington by putting members of the Industrial Army to work on massive irrigation projects.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Plans have been formulated to put the Seattle Commonwealers in this state to work upon irrigation ditches in Eastern Washington at $1 per day. Each man is to be supplied with the necessities of life from the commissary and to be paid the balance due to each when the bonds of the irrigation systems are placed. L. C. Dillman and Charles G. Bender of Spokane, representing a syndicate of capitalists, are at the head of the movement. They ask the state to guarantee bonds to the extent of $300,000, in which event loan companies will take the bonds as soon as sections of ten miles of the irrigation ditches are completed. The plans contemplate three irrigating systems, comprising 195 miles of ditches and covering 60,000 to 100,000 acres of irrigable lands. If Mr. Dillman fails to secure the state's guarantee of the irrigation bonds, he says he will place the 100 Coxeyites who are at Spokane at work upon the ditches in accordance with the same plan.
“There is a chance for the capitalists represented to make money.”
In 1894, the 'Industrial Armies' (Coxeyites) were a nationwide movement of the unemployed protesting the economic depression. This proposal to use their labor for massive public works to 'reclaim' arid lands resonates with the long history of using public policy to shape the geography of the American West.
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