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<br />5 <br /> <br />enough.21 Delph learned from his father When he spoke about wanting to get <br />into water law, his father said that he would probably have to write his own <br />books.22 He also told Delph that more trouble WQuld arise in Colorado over <br />water than over any other thing. He urged his son to conceive of a plan <br />"whereby litigation over the waters of the streams will be brought to the least <br />possible trouble. "23 <br /> <br />The plan took shape slowly as Carpenter studied law at Denver <br />University in the day and served as a "water dog," guarding headgates with a <br />shovel at night. 24 In 1899 at the age of twenty-two he hung up his shingle as a <br />Greeley attorney. He took whatever cases he could get. Business was slow, but <br />water began to dominate his practice as he worked on Desert land claims, <br />ditch rights of way, and reservoir filings. Thorough, fair and honest, Carpenter <br />began to develop a reputation as one opposed to litigation if out-of-court <br />solutions were feasible. But he was also competitive and determined to be <br />successful. He believed that great men came from the "middle walks of life" <br />and he drove himself hard towards whatever success fate had in store for <br />him 25 As he witnessed the change in crop patterns -- the replacement of <br />wheat by potatoes, corn, alfalfa and sugar beets, all requiring extensive <br />irrigation -- the first challenges to the doctrine of prior appropriation began to <br />course through his head. What he saw locally was that men with common <br />pursuits might be interested in trading water by consolidating their rights. <br />Pooling all the rights on a stream, he saw, could do away with the "dog-in- <br />the-manger policy," making possible a more efficient use and reuse of water. <br />Priority, he concluded, might have much less significance in the future.26 But <br />it would take time and some difficult experiences before he dared urge this <br />view in public. <br /> <br />In 1908 he entered the State Senate, the first native-born Coloradan to <br />be elected to that body. Appointed to the Committee on Agriculture and <br />Irrigation which he soon chaired, Carpenter became the leading Republican in <br />a Democratic Senate. His conservative political views reflected a visceral <br />opposition to Gifford Pinchot's natural resource policies He opposed federal <br />control of the forests and warned frequently that a similar fate might befaU <br />Colorado's public waters.27 Although he had framed the outline of an <br />