9407

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9407
• Author: Water Education Foundation.
• Title: 75th Anniversary Colorado River Compact Symposium Proceedings.
• USFW Year: 1997.
• USFW - Doc Type: \
• Copyright Material: NO

THE
SILVER
FOX

SYMPOSIUM
PROCEEDINGS
MAY 1997

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Who was this man? Where did he come from?
What events molded his thinking? And what were the
principles that he espoused in Santa Fe? Growing up
on his parents' farm in Greeley [Colorado], Carpenter
expressed an early interest in irrigation law. His father
told him if he wanted to get into that line of work,
he'd have to write his own books. He graduated from
high school already a specialist in history and known
for his oratory. He had a beautiful, deep baritone
voice and he sang in the church frequently and well.
He took an LLB degree from the University of
Denver in 1899, was admitted to the bar in 1902 -
at the age of 22.
For 10 years thereafter he tried to make a living
solving water disputes in the Greeley area. It didn't
pay very well. And he looked around for something
else that might pay the bills. The Republican party
came to him and asked him to run for the state
Senate. He agreed, was elected - the first native-born
Coloradan to be elected to that body - and was the
youngest member of the Senate in 1908 when he
took his seat.
He was known as "Give a damn Carpenter,"
described by the press as "clean-shaven, slender, with
determined lips and a purposeful nose." Carpenter's
motto was always: "I will." He was highly motivated
to succeed, refusing to become excited over trifles and
unwilling to retaliate when colleagues criticized him
for some fancied wrong. "I make it a rule," he said,
"never to wreak vengeance on an enemy. I try to give
others a square deal and I demand a square deal in
return. "
Politically conservative, Carpenter always opposed
what he called "revolutionary measures" - anything
designed to weaken the agricultural community. He
decried the evils of the recently passed initiative and
referendum, fearing that the spirit of democracy
would be violated by a populous Denver which
would have the power to trample the rights of rhe
rural people. 'The people in my portion of the state,"
he noted, "have two don'ts - don't fool with our
water rights and layoff the state Constitution."
Around the principle of prior appropriation, he
determined to do battle. He fought for that principle
by making the rights of reservoirs equal to the rights
of ditch companies. And when he was asked to
present a paper in 1911 reviewing all of Colorado's
water problems, he insisted emphatically that the
state should maintain its close connection to the
principle of prior appropriation.
That paper additionally urged the state to
appropriate sufficient funds to fight off the encroach-
ments by the federal government. To Mr. Carpenter,
the intervention of the Reclamation Service in Kansas
v. Colorado was like, as Thomas Jefferson said, "a fire

bell in the night." Even though the Supreme Court
ultimately decided in 1907 that each state had full
jurisdiction over the waters of its streams, the federal
government appeared increasingly disposed to build
its projects with scant attention to statutes and
judicial decisions of sovereign states.
There were two specific problems that Carpenter
saw. One was in the San Luis Valley where those
people had been deprived of their rights to use water
because of the Department of Interior embargo on
the Rio Grande that was not taken off until 1925.
And secondly, up in the North Platte the people of
North Park in Colorado, the head waters of that
stream, had been deprived of the rights to use that
water because of the Pathfinder Reservoir that was
built by the Department ofInterior downstream.
Those two issues stayed with Carpenter and had a
great deal to do with the molding of his thinking.
Carpenter believed that Colorado could expect
further attacks on its water. Its geographical location
on the Continental Divide made this inevitable. Such
attacks, he said, had to be met by an aggressive
defense of state sovereignty or abandoned to the
grasping hands of the federal agencies. The idea of
interstate compacts began to take root in Carpenter's
mind as a superior alternative to outside domination
by the federal government or litigation.
In 1911, Carpenter was appointed directing
counsel in Wyoming v. Colorado. The suit focused on
Colorado's plans to take water out of the basin of the
Laramie River for use in the Cache la Poudre Valley.
Wyoming claimed priority. Colorado argued its right
to the water as a sovereign state of origin.
While Carpenter believed that the court's decision
in Kansas v. Colorado was correct, that the principle of
equitable apportionment prevailed over the rule of
priority on interstate streams, he quickly sought
international examples of basin of origin nations
claiming absolute right to water originating within
their boundaries. He didn't have much luck. But the
brief that he presented to the Supreme Court
contained arguments in support of Colorado's alleged
superior right as a basin of origin state and the better
use which Colorado could make of Laramie River
water.
When that court announced its decision on June
5, 1922, Colorado River Compact negotiations had
already begun. Initially, Carpenter was very angry.
"Wyoming has suicided," he said, "and incidentally,
half-murdered all the other states of origin." But he
had anticipated the verdict and was already negotiat-
ing with Nebraska and New Mexico on the basis of
an interstate compact.
Furthermore, he focused on the fact - always
seeing the bright side of things - that Colorado had