The Holly chieftain., 1903-06-26
WEAKNESS OF BRIEF FILED
In THE KANSAS.COLORADO SUIT

expert who is known all over the West,
severely criticises the brief recently
ded in the kansas-Colorado suit. Mr.
Henry letter is as follows:
Denver, Colo, June Is, 1903
lion. J. K. Burton. Abilene. Kansas:
Dear Sir-I cheerfully comply with
your suggestion that | discuss briefly
the kansas-Colorado suit from a prac
Teal Colorado standpoint.
| shall refrain from urging any
claim in behalf OF Colorado based upon
moral or ethical grounds. A decade
ago. the leading industry of Colorado,
relatively as important as wheat and
corn are 10 Kansas, was assailed and
practically destroyed, involving losses
many fold greater than the recent
floods have brought to Kansas. Our
frantic leading and protest ELECTED only
Jeer and seof-our cries taunt and
mockery.
Counsel for Colorado have good
right to assert that If the bill could be
successfully maintained, it would mean
ruin to the state OF Colorado and dis
aster to every state in the arid region
from which stream flows into another
state for the lower state would simply
assert the same theory, and having ac
quired the undisputed flow OF the wa
ters to its territory, nothing would
cause it to flow back again, and it
would be used for the same purposes of
Irrigation No honest citizen OF Kan
sas will have temerity further to claim
that the suit brought against Colorado
has for its real object the direct pres
eryation of riparian rights, or to pre-
serve the navigability of the Arkansas
river in Kansas or elsewhere
Nor will any intelligent citizen any
where deny, again quoting Colorado
counsel that the effect of the bill, il
maintainable, would be to nullify the
acts of Congress, to declare void titles
which have vested under these acts, to
prevent the development of the arid
lands in the public domain, and to neg
atiye the entire policy of the federal
government which for years has been
developed with great care and aNgreat
expense
The grotesque and puerie COM
plants gravely set up in the Kansas
bill make me. an old-time verile Kan
san, positively ashamed. They all but
again warrant the answer which
prompted the once noted inquiry,
What is the matter with Kansas
Think of Eugene Ware, of counsel for
Kansas, subscribing to the proposition
that the melting SHOWS in the noun
tains of Colorado, 500 miles away, fur
nish almost the entire supply of wa
ter for the undertlow for the Arkansas
valley all the way to Wichita. the evap-
Grafton from which cools and mostens
the surrounding atmosphere. promotes
the growth OF all vegetation. enhances
land values and conduces directly to
the public health and making the To-
cality habitable.' Again asserting his
solemn distress at the spectacle of the
falling of unripe fruit, the danger to
the sewerage of Dodge City and all
the way above the city of Wichita the
drifting sand, dirt and debris and
growing vegetation, willows and trees
so obliterating the bed of the Arkan-
sas that the food waters from the ex-
cessive melting SHOWS in the state of
Colorado have made new channels
washed there through depositing dirt
and debris thereon, and doing great
damage to stock pastured, crops grown.
improvements situate thereon, injuring
the health of the people and decreasing
the value of said lands of the Arkan-
sas valley
The proof and the fact is that Mr.
Ware is but occasionally the hard
headed lawyer and the stern United
States commissioner of pensions, but
almost always poet. and this Kansas
brief is his latest and most whimsical
effuson
But seriously, the record gaugings
of the Arkansas river at Canon City
under state direction for eleven years
past for ten months-January and Feb
ruary eXcluded-show the mean aver
age flow to be 1914 cubic feet per sec
ond. This result covers field equal
practically to the entire mountain snow
melting area of the Arkansas water
shed in Colorado-a volume, the coun-
sci for Kansas on the contrary asserts
for about ten months in the year is up
wards of 1000 cubic feet.
IF this S674 cubic feet were deliy-
cred at the Kansas border undiminish-
ed. on the basis'of the sales OF water
rights by the Colorado companies with
which you and have been identified, it
would supply for irrigation just 4S,15SS
acres-aslittle more than two townships
of land-a small fraction indeed of the
2,500,000 acres in the Arkansas valley
Kansas counsel claim are imperiled by
the wrongful acts of Colorado.
1T is true that the volume of the Ar
kansas IS augmented by tributaries be-
fore it enters Kansas otherwise, apart
from the return flow resulting from ca
nal diversion in Colorado. not ten per
cent. of the Canon City snow water
would reach Kansas. This very sea-
son. but for the rains of the past week,