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Show Part One Shortly after ten o'clock on the morning of June 23, 1947, four United States Senators sat down at a long polished table in Room 224 of the Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. They had met to begin consideration of a new bill, S. 1175, which proposed the construction in central Arizona of the largest and costliest reclamation project in history. There was no doubt as to the attitude of three of the senators toward the measure. They were for it, and they were prepared to make a concentrated drive for swift committee approval, believing that even if time for debate on the Senate floor could not be secured before adjournment of the 80th Congress, a favorable committee vote would make their task easier when the 81st Congress convened in January 1949. In this quiet way began the greatest water fight since the first settlers, in their ox-drawn wagons, crawled westward to the land of promise. Quickly it was conveniently tabbed The Central Arizona Project Fight. The title was inadequate and not truly representative. Far more than a fight over a single project, it was a vital controversy over basic |
