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<br />o iHll n <br /> <br />-7- <br /> <br />below, which this bill aims to correot. There oould be no profit in doubling the <br />evil which is to be cured. <br /> <br />Clearly this bill might have been to deal ,vith the heavy rainbelt seotion <br />without including the entire Arkansas River and thereby involving the upper <br />reaches of the stream. <br /> <br />The control of the whole river under this bill threatens upper stream irri- <br />gation. <br /> <br />Under the oircumstances the measure should be amended to aocomplish its <br />purposes in the seotion where navigation and flood control are important. The <br />people, the fs.rming conditions, the climate and the amounts of rainfall in the <br />upper and lower river sections, convert them into distinct areas whose separate <br />problems cannot be solved by the same formula. If the lower river needs this <br />bill--so be it. But Nature and man have joined in making us different. No law <br />will ever alter these facts. <br /> <br />In the report of the speoial committee of the Reolams.tion Assooiation the <br />follONing recommendation was ms.de and was thereafter adopted, <br /> <br />"That appropriate steps be taken to resist resort to the Com- <br />merce Clause of the federal oonstitution, through various legislative <br />enaotments and a liberal construotion thereof by judicial deorees, <br />as a meanS of imposing oomplete federal control of water resouroes <br />in di sregard of' applicable state water laws." <br /> <br />If the people of the West believe in this statemmt of prinoiples and those <br />reoammendati ons then they must hasten to the defense. <br /> <br />Even if the bill were amended and Colorado were to be exoluded from its <br />terms so that navigation interests on the lower Mississippi were not permitted <br />to oontrol or influenoe the use of water on the upper ArkanBas, nevertheless the <br />danger to irrigation on every other stream will continue.. <br /> <br />Colorado is the haystack state where all of the waters of most of the im- <br />portant Western rivers rise to flow outward aoross her borders. Similar plans <br />may oonceivably be aimed at every other river. Already the North Platte, the <br />South Platte and the Republioan are being inoluded within the provisions of a <br />sjmilar plan to develop the streams of the Missouri Valley. <br /> <br />The editor of a great midwestern newspaper demanded reoently that irri- <br />gation on the upper 1Ii ssouri and the Yellowstone Rivers should not be permitted <br />to prevent the development and enlarged operation of navigation in Missouri <br />after the ohannel of the main stream shall have been deepened nine feet under <br />the proposed plan. His argument was based on the assertion that navigation was <br />practioed on the lower Missouri many years before irrigation was oomenoed in <br />Montana and North Dakota. He denied the right to impound water on the upper <br />river for irrigati on when it might be needed below. <br /> <br />Similarly our irrigation uses of the water of the South Platte, the North <br />Platte and the Republioan in Colorado followed the use of boats by the trappers <br />