OCR Text |
Show -42- interested in what shall be done with the waters of the Colorado. It is a fact, sir, that in the State of California there are rights perfected to-day and those which may be perfected in the near future, rights indeed that under the law no human agency can take from the people who reside in the State of California, that far exceed the amount of water that is fixed as the maximum in the amendments that California ever shall use. Were I here in disinterested position, Mr. President, were the dire necessity of Imperial Valley not so clearly before me, sir, if I did not understand as few men upon this floor understand the absolute necessity of legislation of the character that has here been proposed, never for one instant would I assent to an amendment such as has been presented by the Senator from Colorado or that which has now been presented as an amendment by the Senator from New Mexico. I venture the assertion, and I call upon men whose vision is greater perhaps than a mere limited territory that they may represent, that never in the history of legislation has there been written into a law such a drastic provision as that which is, suggested by the Senator from Colorado and that which is in part suggested by the Senator from New Mexico. Do Senators realize what this provision is? In order that its citizens may be protected from flood, in order that its citizens may have what God gives even to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, which is potable drinking water, it compels the State of California, before it shall consider even legislation of this sort, by act of its legislature "irrevocably and unconditionally"-and I read the language of the amendment itself-to agree with the United States and for the benefit of the other States of the Colorado River Basin- |
Source |
Original book: [State of Arizona, complainant v. State of California, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Coachella Valley County Water District, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, City of Los Angeles, California, City of San Diego, California, and County of San Diego, California, defendants, United States of America, State of Nevada, State of New Mexico, State of Utah, interveners] : California exhibits. |