The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1922-03-30
BUILDING RESERVOIR OR
BUYING LAWSUITS

Nobody loves fat man; neither
does anybody (but shyster) enjoy
getting people into lawsuits. A noted
general has said that there is only
one thing more terrible than a VIC
tory, and that is defeat. It is gen.
orally conceded that the party that
wins a lawsuit is loser and the party
that loses it is in some degree
ruined. .F
We had a lawsuit in this valley
over wrater rights long time ago
and there has been talk of having
another one to adjudicate the rights
again and have new decree mde. II
it is done it will be brought about by
somebody seeking to get title to
water that does not belong to him or
by somebody trying to protect his
title to water that somebody has been
taking away from him, and there
are plenty of both kinds Of fellows.
The increasing pressure to get the
use Of water increases the danger of
precipitating a lawsuit that will in
v0lve everybody in the valley OF
Snake river and all its tributaries.
II it were announced tomorrow, that
the operations of Jackson lake were
to be suspended for just one year,
say 1928, litigation would follow i'm
mediately in an effort to settle some
Of the most pressing points of dis
pute in the use of water, that are
not acute just now, but are lying
dormant ready to fare up when
water becomes scarce or when the
need for it becomes intensified. On
tho day it becomes definitely known
that the American Falls reservoir
will be built to impound water for
three million acres of land, and the
old farms given the first chance to
get the water, as they are now Of
fered it, prospects of litigation over
existing differences in the interpreta-
ton of rights to water would fall fiat
and be buried under the preparations
fer everybody to have plenty Of water
at the low cost now in prospect
Everybody with shadow of litiga-
ton over his rights would rather in
vest in a reservoir right with GER
tainty than to invest in a lawsuit
with the prospect of victory at much
sacrifice with possible defeat with
more or less ruin.
In the year 1903 the great Snake
river water suit was started in an
effort to forever settle the rising dis
putes over water rights, and for ten
years the suit was in the courts OF
the upper valley. It involved all the
he hn ali
the poor and questionable water
rights and the oldest and best
Everybody had to go to court; every
body to to put up money for court
expenses and lawyers and for witness
fees. In ten years 1t had cost the
litigants 100000 for court expense
alone, and the totals paid for lawyers
have never been known and never
will.
And when these litigants got done
they did not have any more water
than they had when the suit was
started, but they had a record, that
was all. And the lawyers had their
money. The people had lost a great
deal of time attending court when
they might have been at home pro-
ducing something if the suit had not
called them away from their work.
Lawsuits do not produce anything
they are as devoid of production as
were the temples and palaces built
by the people of those countries of
Asia where the masses have died Of
starvation whnever there was a
drouth and the usual lack of crops
and means Of transportation that has
always existed where people of
wealth and influence induced the
masses to give up their treasure to
build temples and palaces-things
that were not productive. A reser-
yoir is a productive investment, a
thing to prevent famine and want
and burial of human hopes.