The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-04-09
IHE PRLoR RIGHTS 70 LIE ARkANsAs RIvER:

THE PRIOR RIGHTS TO THE ARKANSAS RIVER
Yesterdays Topeka dispatch announces that Governor
Bailey contemplates abandoning the suit of the state
against Colorado her ditch companies and combines.
This piece news in the absence of some more
explicit explanation proves perplexng The dispatch
declares that the governor himself is going to personally
ascertain the desires settlers Of this valley As
the people of this valley originally instituted the suit at
their expense, and in somewhat vigorous manner
we fail to see why governor doubts either their de-
sres or interest touching the matter The people of this
valley abandon the suit but the states attorney
having assumed to himself authority of supersedng
made the state the plaintiff rather than the individuals
and communities directly and adversely affected The
attorney general having promptly assumed the entire
responsibility in the of the state his seeming sub
sequent hardness brought forth protest from the Eagle
However he may not have been tardy. The case once
fled in the supreme of the United States. that
court with noticeable expedition handed down decision
to the effect that the contention in involving important
and far reaching and unsettled problems in riparian
rights of interstate and other rights constitu
tional questions be heard on merits Upon the
than hint the legislature another appropriation of
state monies for the farther prosecution the matter
prosecute to the of the governor. In the
time the findings the supreme and the action of
the legislature together frightened the ditch
poraons of Colorado and the interest Of that
states newspapers and also its legislature which
appropriation to pay for defence.
In face of the foregoing facts there something
explanation due the people of this section for Gov
Baileys attitude than the attributed by the
dispatch yesterday morning referred to- tow that he
proposes wishes acquart himself with the desires
of the people directly affected The will not be
dropped because any want of lack Of sub
stanta claims upon part the farmers of the val
ley or the resderl, of the many cities along banks
OF the river contention be abandoned by the
governor it because of conviction founded trusted
legal advice that the hopeless otherwise for
some other reason than the one set forth in the dispatch
quoted.
AS for anything else the Eagle does not pin much
faith to the explanation of probable abandonment offered
by the City Journal of yesterday, which init
the trouble all traceable the action of
the machine" The machine not responsible for all
the political and material disasters which befaen
Kansas than is it to be given the entire credit
for all the good accrung Besides the attorney general
did not the evidence make up the This
done principally by outside attorneys, prominent
among whom were Eugee F. Ware and Judge Ashbaugh.
That Mr. Coleman the attorney general who never
had anything with case either hurt
Tended that the legislature left the
Of the chief the state We convinced
However, all party politics. individual ambitions hates
and oppositons the contrary and without any
how these may be affected the original
of the waters also the benefciaries and
later settlers practically unanimous in the desire
their rights shall be adjudcated-tha the highest
judicial authority of this government shall say whether
their claim an equity otherwise impractcable and
impossible.