“A third obstacle was the
adjustment of water rights. People who have not lived in the West
have no realization of how conflicting claims to water rights
stir the human emotions. Where there is more land than water,
where the possession of water makes the value of the land; there
becomes attached to the water the same sentiment that is attached
to the land holdings themselves in the older settled countries.
Men will fight for their water rights; they blow up encroachments
with dynamite; they commit murder, they mass themselves into associations;
they employ lawyers; they introduce and pass bills in the legislatures
of the States; their cries and complaints reach even the halls
of the Congress in Washington.”
Secretary of the Colorado Commission, Ward Bannister |
National
Archives and Records Administration