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Show THE WESTERN WEB 117 "Looking at the whole record . . . this course of action, characterized by many overt acts, is legally sufficient to constitute a threat. . ." A statement of Rep. Charles H. Russell of Nevada, giving unqualified support to California's position, was placed in the record.128 Arizona began its opposition to HJR. 225 on the third day of the hearings, May 26, 1948, with Senator Hayden telling the committee a story about Herbert Hoover.129 He said he was partly responsible for bring- ing Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce, into the troubles over the Colorado River. Hoover was appointed in 1922 by President Harding as federal representative of the commission writing the basic Colorado River Com- pact. "When I talked with him (Hoover) later in the summer of 1922," said Hayden, "he was very much dis- couraged; said he could get no agreement among the states at any place. I told him that his disappointment was due to his political inexperience. I pointed out that it was an election year and that he could not expect any governor or anyone else in any state to agree to anything before the election, because political opponents would say they had given away water, a heritage of the people. I predicted that if he would call a meeting of the state commissioners shortly after the November elections, he would get an agreement. That was done, and at Santa Fe, New Mexico, on November 24, 1922, the Colorado River Compact was signed." Hayden declared that "unfortunately" his state had not ratified the Compact. Hayden himself had made an effort to secure ratification, but the Arizona legislature had turned him down by a narrow margin. Then when |