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<br />OOQlo3 <br /> <br />-4- <br /> <br />man or group. This is the voioe of the West. It has been fonning and growing <br />in volume ani olarity ever since the first irrigation diversion was made by a <br />man named Hatoher on the Pioketwire near Trinidad nearly a hundred years ago. <br />Upon it rests the hopes of our people. It is imbedded in the very soil. It is <br />as muoh a part of our future as the Rooky Mountain tops on whioh the snows are <br />stored through the winter to bless our farms in the spring and summer. It is a <br />deolaration of prinoiples as sacred to the West as that other deolaration whioh <br />the founders of our rati on issued in 1776. It grows out of the neoessities of <br />life in the oountry where we live. <br /> <br />By the Constitution of the State of Colorado it was provided that domestio, <br />agrioultural and manufaoturing uses shall.have preferenoe in that order. Ob- <br />viously there was no mention of navigation or of flood oontrol. <br /> <br />Our people have bui1ded theireoonomy upon this provision. They have broken <br />the dry lams of the west secure in the belief that Congressional aots and <br />United States Supreme Court deoisions in harmony with their state oonstitutions <br />and laws and the oonsistent interpretations of their avn oourts proteoted their <br />right to divert water. ' <br /> <br />Projeots may be oonstruoted anywhere on the Arkansas river fran Leadville <br />to the Mississippi. Under a law suoh as this the Federal agenoy burdened with <br />the duty of enforoement must subjeot every drop of available .ter to flood <br />oontrol and navigation. A single projeot would justify it. <br /> <br />The rights of our irrigators must not be so jeopardized. This is a real <br />threat to our western eoonomy. <br /> <br />Its reality is emphasized by an editorial in one of the great newspapers <br />of the Middle West a few weeks ago ooncerning a plan for the development of the <br />Missouri river along lines similar to Senate Bill No. 1519.' <br /> <br />The disquieting argument frcm the viewpoint of the upper river states was <br />oontained in a statement that irrigators above must not be permitted to prevent <br />the flow of water dONIlstream whioh will be needed after 'the ohannel of the main <br />river has been deepened nine feet to improve navigation for the lower river <br />states. . <br /> <br />By the same token navigation was follOwed many years before the plow bit <br />into the soil of Colorado. One may visualize the argUlllents when the southern <br />states witness the diversion of a large part of the flow of the Arkansas after <br />reservoirs ,have been built and are waiting to be filled. This lack of under- <br />standing and of sympathy for our western methods gives us oonoern. ' <br /> <br />The strength whioh may be gathered behind suoh measures in the thiokly <br />populated states to the east of us and downstream where they know nothing of <br />irrigation and regard water largely as a menaoe may work to our great injury. <br /> <br />The reoommendations of the oommittee to the Reolamation Assooiation were <br />almost prophetic. The second suggestion said, <br /> <br />"That appropriate steps be taken to resist resort to the Com- <br />merce Clause cf the federal constituti on, through various legislative <br />