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Show 250 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER fornia, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and some other neighboring possessions, and paid $15 million cash. That was 102 years ago. "Since that time the United States Government has spent a great deal of money in the states occupying the Pacific Southwest. "Have you ever calculated the interest cost to the American taxpayer on the original $15 million, plus the 'interest cost' on the many hundreds of millions of dollars that have been added during the past 102 years? Have you ever calculated that?" "I fail to see any comparison at all," said Dowd. "Well, I do, too," admitted Murdock, "but that is a brand of your arithmetic." "No, sir," said Dowd. "Here is the fact. Here is Bridge Canyon Dam proposed on the Colorado River; right below a hundred miles is Hoover Dam. You are conducting Hoover Dam financially one way and you are conducting, or proposing to conduct, Bridge Canyon Dam in another way. "I ask why should you do it? "In other words, no one yet has been able to give a real good reason why the taxpayers of this country should provide the entire West with a power system - not only power dams and power plants, but transmission lines and substations that will cost perhaps six to eight billion dollars - without a dollar of interest coming into the Treasury of this country. "Just why should the West expect it? But that is what is proposed." Murdock's face revealed his discouragement, and it was made even more apparent on the morning of April 13, 1951. This was the day on which the opponents |
