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Show THE WESTERN WEB 119 bers of Congress, feel that you must ask the Supreme Court what Congress in 1928 intended, or do you feel competent to read the laws already enacted and extend them as needed?" 132 There was no immediate reply to his question. Rep. Harless of Arizona previously had attacked Cali- fornia bitterly, charging it with a multitude of ulterior motives. He followed a similar line in his testimony, and maintained that the Supreme Court would throw out the proposed litigation on the ground that no one was being harmed.133 The arguments Senator McFarland presented were largely the same as those he had made before the Senate committee. He termed HJR. 225 a "last-minute hamstringing resolution." 134 Arizona spokesmen had stated, both in and out of hearings, that an enormous amount of Colorado River water was wasting into the Gulf of California. They had not bothered to add that the greater amount of this wasting water was apportioned in perpetuity to the Upper Basin states, which had not yet constructed pro- jects for its use. The Arizona proponents also had talked ominously of an immense wastage of river water into the Salton Sea by way of the Imperial Valley of California, but they had not mentioned that most of this water was used to leech salts from irrigated lands in the valley, a necessary function of an irrigation project. McFarland followed this line of testimony and filed with the Judici- ary committee two photographs purporting to show the heavy wastage into the Salton Sea. He did not explain to the committee members, none of whom were western- ers, about leeching or the necessity of washing harmful materials from lands under cultivation. |