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Show 274 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER One of the stories about the court decision serves as a typical example of many others. It said: 400 For more than forty years, Phillip Albonico and wife have owned 1,259 acres of land within the Madera Irri- gation District of California; paid irrigation district assess- ments on all this land for the past twenty years. Recently, the district contracted to get its water for irrigation from the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation. The bureau made a regula- tion that no owner could be sold water for more than 160 acres of land (320 for man and wife). The Albonicos could give up 939 acres - or have those acres go unirri- gated, although they had paid taxes for water rights for 20 years. Last November 23, Judge Arthur C. Shepard, in the Superior Court of the State of California, Madera County, ruled for the Albonicos (Albonico vs. Madera Irrigation District, No. 4479, Memorandum and Order). In his opinion Judge Shepard said: "The question which is before the court in the case at bar is simply this. . . Is the provision of the 1951 con- tract, forbidding water service to petitioners' excess acre- age, valid and enforceable? "We are persuaded that if the name of the third party were a private individual, and not the Bureau of Recla- mation of the United States Government, the question could not even be argued. But there is no magic in a name. Governments can be, and often are, even more despotic than individuals, with the wrong person in public office. "A rule by law is the only guarantee of freedom. "Statements that personal rights are superior to or dif- ferent from property rights are so much rhetorical sophis- try. . . Deprecatory asseverations about the position of vested rights in our social order are either ignorant maun- derings or malignant deception. Talk of freedom of the press, freedom from unlawful search and seizure, etc., is just so much persiflage, if one is not protected in his own- ership and right to control and enjoy his property. . ." |