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Show COLORADO RIVER LITIGATION 581 under these clauses to reserve water rights for its reservations and its property. Arizona also argues that, in any event, water rights cannot be re- served by Executive Order. Some of the reservations of Indian lands here involved were made almost 100 years ago, and all of them were made over 45 years ago. In our view, these reservations, like those created directly by Congress, were not limited to land, but included waters as well. Congress and the Executive have ever since recognized these as Indian Reservations. Numerous appropriations, including appropriations for irrigation projects, have been made by Congress. They have been uniformly and universally treated as reservations by map makers, surveyors, and the public. We can give but short shrift at this late date to the argument that the reservations either of land or water are invalid because they were originally set apart by the Executive.102 Arizona also challenges the Master's holding as to the Indian Reser- vations on two other grounds: first, that there is a lack of evidence showing that the United States in establishing the reservations in- tended to reserve water for them; second, that even if water was meant to be reserved the Master has awarded too much water. We reject both of these contentions. Most of the land in these reservations is and always has been arid. If the water necessary to sustain life is to be had, it must come from the Colorado River or its tributaries. It can be said without overstatement that when the Indians were put on these reservations they were not considered to be located in the most desirable area of the Nation. It is impossible to believe that when Congress created the great Colorado River Indian Reservation and when the Executive Department of this Nation created the other reservations they were unaware that most of the lands were of the desert kind-hot, scorching sands-and that water from the river would be essential to the life of the Indian people and to the animals they hunted and the crops they raised. In the debate leading to ap- proval of the first congressional appropriation for irrigation of the Colorado River Indian Reservation, the delegate from the Territory of Arizona made this statement: "Irrigating canals are essential to the prosperity of these In- dians. Without water there can be no production, no life; and all they ask of you is to give them a few agricultural implements to enable them to dig an irrigating canal by which their lands may be watered and their fields irrigated, so that they may enjoy the means of existence. You must provide these Indians with the means of subsistence or they will take by robbery from those who have. During the last year I have seen a number of these Indians starved to death for want of food." Cong. Globe, 38th Cong., 2d Sess. 1321 (1865). The question of the Government's implied reservation of water rights upon the creation of an Indian Reservation was before this Court in Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564, decided in 1908. Much the same argument made to us was made in Winters to per- suade the Court to hold that Congress had created an Indian Reserva- i°3 See United States v. Midwest Oil Co., 236 U.S. 459, 469-475 (1915) ; Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564 (1908). |
