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Show 64 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER the Supreme Court case to avoid sending it before a Master. Ely had replied that he considered such a thing utterly impossible. He could see no basis for negotiations between the states until the court had construed the Colorado River Compact, and had found that the in- terpretation of either California or Arizona was correct. Pyle appeared to be enraged by the turn of affairs, but when the meeting ended he made a point of shaking hands with Ely. Ely assured him he had not meant to be discourteous or abrupt, and offered to arrange a meeting between Pyle and Governor Knight of Cali- fornia at any time the Arizona governor requested it.76 At no time did Ely intimate that the case might be settled either by stipulation or compromise. On December 12, 1953, a story appeared in the Denver Rocky Mountain News which said flatly that at the Brownell conference an emissary of California had "made another overt pass at a conspiracy to rob Upper Basin states of their share of Colorado River water." The shocking news, said the paper, had been dis- closed by Royce J. Tipton, a Colorado consulting engi- neer, and confirmed by Breitenstein, following a con- ference between Governor Thornton of Colorado, Pyle and several Arizona lieutenants in Denver. Pyle and his quartet may have sung off key in Thornton's office, but Colorado liked their selections. "California Plots to Grab Water!" yelled the Denver Post on December 13th, and went on to say: "Pyle admitted that an official representative of California approached him recently with a veiled offer suggesting that Arizona and California settle their water difference and concentrate their efforts on grabbing more water from the upper basin states." |