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Show 118 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER the time had come to authorize the construction of Hoover Dam, the six other Colorado Basin states had decided that Arizona should receive no benefit for irri- gated lands from the project because Arizona had failed to ratify the Compact. The Arizona congressional dele- gation was able to block the Hoover Dam project. The project eventually passed, however, and according to Hayden it did so with his permission, because he was satisfied that California was limited in the amount of water it could use, and that the Gila River belonged to Arizona under the terms of the Hoover Dam act. Chairman Case wanted to know, since Hayden had been satisfied with the Hoover Dam act, why Arizona hadn't ratified the Compact. Hayden told him that the ratification issue had "entered into politics. We even had candidates for constable carrying placards on the backs of their cars that they were against the Colorado Compact. It was a vicious political issue for a long time, due, in my judgment, to misrepresentation. In subse- quent years, sanity returned and Arizona ratified the compact."* As they had done in the Senate hearings, the Upper Basin states rallied to the Arizona banner. Rep. Robert F. Rockwell of Colorado objected that approval of HRJ. 225 might delay the Upper Basin in negotiations for a compact, then under way. Repeating Rockwell's fears, Rep. Frank A. Barrett of Wyoming declared that no justificable issue existed.130 Attorney Wehrli re- turned to say the same thing as Barrett,131 as did Utah's Rep. Walter A. Granger.132 Rep. Murdock asked the committee: "Do you gentlemen, now mem- * Arizona, as Howard had said, purported to ratify the compact in 1944, when plans for the Central Arizona Project were well under way. |