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<br />3 <br /> <br />florescence", in \fhich the federal government begiln to assume the leadership <br /> <br /> <br />in supplying the capital and technical expertise to eA~and the number and size <br /> <br /> <br />of western \fater projects. Corporate entities also began to emerge as dealers <br /> <br /> <br />of water to irrigators. The third stage, that of "empire", saw a more complete <br /> <br />mergir,g of government and private wealth to complete the harnessing of \festern <br /> <br />rivers. Worster claims that this period began in the 19~O's and is still in effect <br />tOday.? It is the second period of florescence, hO\fever, that is most relevant <br />to a discussion leading up to the Colorado River Compact of 1922 and subsequently <br />to the Upper Basin Compact of 1948. <br />One of the key 'lOrds of the late nineteenth and early t\fentieth century <br />vith Roosevelt as President "as "conservation". Today, \fith the legacy of the <br /> <br />environmental movement of the 1960's still intact, conserviltion to most people <br /> <br />means the preservation of nature against the destructive forces of development. <br /> <br />Yet in the Progressive Era of the United States the ,wrd had a different connotation <br /> <br />\fhich contradicts its current meaning to a certain degree. <br /> <br />Teddy Roosevelt, under whose leadership conservation became part of the national <br /> <br />agenda, was one of the first national leaders in America to \farn that America's <br />natural resources were not inexhaustible and to ma],e resource depletion a national <br />concern. He saw that the future of the nation depended upon the preservation <br />and far-sighted management of these resources.8 As a Progressive and ardent trust- <br /> <br /> <br />buster Roosevelt. naturally opposed the great business monopolies of the time; this <br /> <br /> <br />opposition carried over into his view that "natural resources must be used for the <br /> <br /> <br />benefit of all our people, and not monopolized for the benefit of the few.,,9 The <br /> <br />original purpose of the Reclamation Act was, after all, to provide small allotments <br /> <br /> <br />of land to families upon which to settle and ma~ce productive. The monopolization <br /> <br /> <br />to "hich Roosevelt rE,ferred most likely meant the actions of the "land grabbers"lO <br />