The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-03-22
BAILEY LIKES 1T.
Governor Thinks U. s. Inter-
VentiOn is a Good Thing.
May Help Kansas to Win Colo
RADIO Suit.
CONVENTIONS SIMILAR.
Those of United States Apply to
Kansas.
What the Parties to the Snit
Claim.
CONVENTIONS SIMILAR.

THE Intervention of the United States, !
through Attorney General Knox, in the
Kansas-Colorado suit over the waters
of the Arkansas river, will hasten the
settlement of the case and that is what
Kansas wants." said Governor Bailey
this morning.
1T seems to me that there has been
a disposition to delay the case and not
to push it to an early settlement 1t
has been rather slow. The intervention
on the part of the government should
hasten the decision as the government
has great interests at stake in the
building of canals and reservoirs in the
arid regions of the west for the recla-
nation of arid lands. 1t is the right
thing for the government to take a
hand in the case as the policy of the
government is that rivers are interstate
streams. l believe that the contentious
of the government will be good for Kan
sas. If the policy of the government
that the Arkansas is an interstate
stream is borne out then Kansas will
surely receive her share of the waters
of the Arkansas and that is what Kan
sas wants"
The intervention by the United States
Will necessitate a short delay in the
case as the issues in the case will have
contentious of the government, but
after this is done the case will prob
ably be fought with more earnestness
than in the past.
The contentious of Kansas in the case
are founded on the laws of riparian
rights. Kansas claims that she is the
owner of lands in the Arkansas valley.
which are the State Soldiers home at
Dodge City and the State Reformatory
at Hutchinson and that Kansas is also
asking that the rights of the people of
the state be protected. Kansas claims
that the riparian rights of land owners
in the Arkansas valley are violated by
Colorado, and that the waters which
the Kansas land owners had for use
when they took the lands have been
taken from them since by Colorado.
Colorado claims the sovereign right to
all the waters rising in Colorado and the
right to divert and use them at her
pleasure and to them all wherever
she sees fit whether on riparian or non
riparian lands Colorado has expended
millions of state funds in carrying out
the scheme of irrigation. Private corpor-
atoms have also invested millions. More
built Colorado contends that these in
dustries not now be crippled.
Kansas claims that she made use of
the waters of the Arkansas river before
Colorado Colorado claims that she ap-
propriated the waters and perfected the
system of irrigation and that this con-
stinued- for many years before Kansas
Kansas claims that by reason of Colo
river that the irrigation bitches. 800 miles
in length in western Kansas, became
useless as there was no water to fill
them. Even after the natural flow in the
river bed was decreased by use of water
in Colorado the natural underhow,
through the sandy and porous sand Of the
Arkansas valley in Kansas was beneficial
to crops and that the fertility and pro-
ductiveness of the valley now depends on
the underfiow which is being diminished
by the use of water in Colorado and that
that ultimately there will be under
flow through the valley in Kansas and
that wells will go dry and that the val
sas complains that on the millions of
acres of grazing land on the uplands and
plateaus adjacent to the valley in Kan
sas are extensive cattle interests and that
these herds of cattle depend on the water
found in the Arkansas valley through
wells from eight to twenty feet deep. If
the underffOw disappears there will be no
stock water
! Kansas and Colorado decided before the
United States interviewed that no more
arguments nor briefs should be submitted
before the supreme court and that
taking of testimony in the case The
commission would journey through the
mer and take testimony which would be
submitted to the supreme court
Now the United States contends that
neither the contentious of Kansas or
Colorado are correct. that Colorado has
rivers rising in that state and also that
the law of riparian rights can not be in
voked by Kansas, as those laws have
been abrogated by reason of conditions
in the west and that in lieu of these laws
a new law has sprung up in the west
which governs the waters of rivers for
| irrigation by priority of appropriation.
The old laws of riparian rights were
made for localities where entirely differ
| ent conditions arose and they are not APP
| plicable, so Attorney General Knox con
tends. in the arid and semi-arid regions
of the west where the waters are needed
| for the reclamation of lands. The United
States has 100000 acres of land in the
Arkansas valley which can not be given
water and can not be reclaimed if either
the contentious of COLORADO or Kansas
are maintained 600 II The eoo United States IS
ately in big irrigation projects in the
! Shoshone valley. in Idaho, but the gov
| ernment wants the questions of the use
of waters from rivers settled before this
work is completed.
The Arkansas, the Platte, the Grand
and the Colorado rivers rise in Colorado
and flow through Kansas, Nebraska, New
Mexico and Utah and the same ques-
tions that arise in the suit over the Wa
tiers of the one river might be brought
up in the suits over other rivers.