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Show -18- lective capacity. One of the elements of sovereignty is ownership of water. "Every State has the inherent sovereign right to control the uses of water, which is essential to its existence. To deprive a State of this right would be to destroy its autonomy. Moreover, the original States are conceded by everybody to possess full power to control their waters, save for the regulation of interstate commerce, and to deprive the newer States of this control would take from them that equality with the original States which was guaranteed them when they were admitted into the Union. The arid States in particular, whose water is their very life blood, should realize that if they would protect their autonomy they must resist the deliberate and constant pressure of certain enthusiasts for Federal usurpation of State powers, such as are contained in the pending measure. The theory advanced by attorneys for the Bureau of Reclamation, and embraced in the Swing and Johnson bills, that Congress has the power to allocate and apportion the waters of any western river among the States, regardless of their will, is abhorrent to our whole plan of government. It proceeds from the vicious bureaucratic hypothesis that in all the western States, the United States, and not the States, owns and may dispose of the waters of any stream, and that Congress at any time may wholly remove the control of such waters from the States, as is attempted in this bill; and that the States exercise their control by mere sufferance. "We believe no greater catastrophe could befall the Western States than to let their waters fall into the hands of the Federal government. * * * |
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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. |