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Show THE THREE-RING CIRCUS 189 One might have wondered if the Arizona lieutenants had given careful thought to the allegations. If there were such a scheme, then the Secretary of the Interior, the Reclamation Bureau, two Congressional committees, and even the President, were involved in it, for all of them had approved the plan of the canal, and the Treasury had advanced the money to build it. Murdock plunged on, and strangely enough he had an aide in the matter in Rep. Richard F. Welch of California, a staunch supporter of the Reclamation Bureau policies, and ranking Republican member of the House Interior Committee. Declared Welch: 257 "I have heard it said that the Imperial Irrigation District, a private corporation, has large interests in the Alamo Canal in Mexico, together with vast acreages of fertile land that could be irrigated from the Alamo Canal. Would that possibly be a motive for releasing water from the projected Pilot Knob Power Plant* into Mexico and into the Alamo Canal, which in turn could be used for the irrigation of a vast acreage in which I am told the corporation is a large stockholder." Murdock thought the question "touches the very thing I fear. What is the motive of some of the witnesses that appear in opposition on this bill before this com- mittee?" Welch appeared to be fired by indignation as he said: 258 "If what I have heard and briefly stated here be true, some people should be put under oath." He would go as far as anyone to protect the interests of his own state, but he wanted it "definitely understood that I have no interst in a private corporation referred to as * Which was not built yet. |