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Show 230 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER population,282 and reclamation projects were revenue- producing developments. The crsp was not a four billion dollar tax burden as charged by the opposition. Senator O'Mahoney asked that the speech he made before the Interior Committee about the Upper Basin being thrown to the dinosaurs be reprinted in the record, and it was. Senator Wiley of Wisconsin, there- upon, asked that a speech he had prepared criticizing the project be printed, and it was.283 Senator Millikin of Colorado had been billed by Anderson as a "financial genius," who would speak on the financial structure of the crsp, and Millikin arose to carry out his mission. The burden of his address was that under the "very strict" provisions of the bill,284 the costs of the storage reservoirs would be returned within fifty years from the commencement of their operation, and costs of participating projects were re- turnable within fifty years from the date of their com- pletion. From the moment the bill was brought up Senator Watkins had been bird-dogging about the Senate floor, sniffling for any possible defects in the statements of his colleagues. He was a kind of straight-man for the pro- ponents, interrupting to have some point repeated, and asking questions in a school-boy manner, then looking about with an I-told-you-so expression. He was an excited and happy man, but he grew a little wild at the mere suggestion that something might be wrong with the project, and a look of pain was registered on his face when Senator Douglas of Illinois took the floor. The record showed that Douglas had won few battles, but no attacks on any legislation had been made with more ability, candor and completeness. Douglas was a |
