Page:Bench and bar of Colorado - 1917.djvu/35

Rh Lawyers and judges of the early days of the state were called upon to deal with many questions which were entirely new to them. There was no precedent to guide them in their arguments and decisions. As the gold-seekers left the banks of the streams on the plains and discovered the yellow metal in the mountains, rules and regulations for the protection of the miners and their property became necessary. Colorado in those days was practically the only state in the Union in which mining, other than by placer methods, was carried on.

It was here that the pioneer lawyers of the state showed their ability and genius. As advisers of the Miners' Courts and Miners' Districts, they formulated the laws governing mining claims, millsites, and such other matters connected with the rapidly developing industry. These regulations formed the basis for many of the laws affecting mining enacted by the legislature after Colorado had been made a territory.

Farming by irrigation presented other knotty problems to the pioneer lawyers. As in litigation growing out of mining, there was no precedent to guide them. Step by step they were compelled to work out the solution of these problems until the rights of the users of water, the digging of ditches and establishment of reservoirs, had been settled. Years passed before many of the questions had been settled and the law laid down for all time.

It required men of unusual ability and resourcefulness to successfully meet all the questions which presented themselves to them in this region in the early days. Not only were these qualities required of the men practicing at the bar but also, and if not in a higher degree, of the judges on the bench. With very few exceptions, the judges proved themselves equal to the task. The few exceptions were political favorites, sent into the states by the powers-that-were at Washington—not because of their fitness for the high office, but because they happened to have influence enough to bring about their appointment. The judges who,