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I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 9 a consideration of all the facts and not just past or present uses by citizens "whose rights at most are merely usufructuary and temporary and must always yield to the superior and sovereign power of the [s]tates to adapt the uses or consumption of the waters to future conditions and necessities." In Carpenter's scheme of things, an interstate compact commission would be in a "better position to arrive at an 'equitable apportionment of the benefits between. . . states from the flow of the river' than would 'any court however consti tuted. ", lD.gre.dien1:s .of an Effective Compact Carpenter was not the originator of interstate compacts. Since the eighteenth century, states had been settling various grievances in this manner. He was, however, the first to fully develop the concept of compacts on interstate river systems and when he was publicly credited with this contribution to constitutional law he felt appreciated. IS Writing Herbert Hoover in 1934, he stated that he had advanced his compact views to representatives of the League of the Southwest in a 1920 Denver meeting as a way "to protect and preserve the autonomy of the [s ]tates and to open the way to orderly construction of the [Colorado River] project. . . ."16 Legal advisor for Colorado Governor Oliver H. Shoup on the League's Resolutions Committee, whose full support for Carpenter was shared by New Mexico's State Engineer L. A. Gilette, he introduced his compact plan as a solution to the impasse at which the League had arrived in its discussions on the need for flood control on the lower Colorado River. His ideas were accepted, included in the report of the Committee to the full body of the League and were approved without debate. Even the newspapers covering the Denver meeting failed to note the significance of Carpenter's pioneering suggestion.