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<br />002224 <br /> <br />50 <br /> <br />Altl:t;ONA v. CALIFORNIA. <br /> <br />without intending to reserve waters necessary to make <br />those reservations livable. The Court rejected. all of <br />the arguments. As to whether water was intended to be <br />reserved, the Court said, at p. 576: <br />"The lands were arid and, without irrigation, were <br />practically valueless. And yet, it is contended, the <br />means of irrigation were deliberately given up by <br />the Indians and deliberately accepted by the Govern- <br />ment. The lands ceded were, it is true, also arid; <br />and some argument may be urged, and is urged, that <br />with their cession there was the cession of the waters, <br />without which they would be valueless, and 'civilized <br />communities could not be established thereon.' And <br />this, it is further contended, the Indians knew, and <br />yet made no reservation of the waters. We realize <br />that there is a conflict of implications, but that which <br />makes for the retention of the waters is of greater <br />force than that which makes for their cession." <br /> <br />The Court in Winte.rs concluded that the Government, <br />when it created that Indian Reservation, intended to deal <br />fairly with the Indians by reserving for them the waters <br />without which their lands would have been. useless. <br />Winters has been followed by this Court as recently as <br />1939 in United States v. Powers, 305 U. S. 527. We fol- <br />low it now and agree that the United States did reserve <br />the water rights for the Indians effective as of the time <br />the Indian Reservations were created. This means, as <br />the Master held, that these water rights, having vested <br />before the Act was passed in 1929, are "present perfected <br />rights" and as such are entitled to priority under the Act. <br />We also agree with the Master's conclusion as to the <br />quantity of water intended to be reserved. He found that <br />the water was intended to satisfy the future as well as <br />the present needs of the Indian Reservations and ruled <br />