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Show HI HO, AQUALANTES 185 Bureau of Reclamation officials looked on with hearty approval. The Bureau people made haste to get up to Portland a day or two before the association program officially got under way. On hand that November of 1954 were E. O. Larson and Commissioner Dexheimer, with a large retinue of assistants. The reason for the Bureau chiefs' rush to get to Port- land was to have a pre-game huddle with members of the Upper Colorado River Commission and others about the crsp project legislation that would be introduced in January, when Congress reconvened. Larson, who had been the Bureau's star witness at previous hearings on the project, was on hand to outline the new testimony he intended to give when the project bill again came up for consideration by congressional committees.210 Dexheimer gave the commissioners some fatherly advice to the effect that they should appear in Washing- ton with complete unity and understanding of what they were going to ask from Congress. "We want this thing as bad as you do," said Dex- heimer.211 "We want authorization of the project, and then we will know where we are going." Dexheimer proceeded to take what the Denver Post decided was a rap at California. One factor which blocked passage of the crsp bill in the 83rd Congress was "a sharp cleavage in the united nonpartisan sup- port of reclamation by all of the Western states." 212 He urged that the association and the states carry the story of reclamaion, as it was written by the Bureau, to the entire nation. "Hate California" was the theme of the meeting, and Rep. Dawson, the Utah fireball, made hay. He called |