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Show LAST LEGISLATIVE FIGHT 241 the committee members, and especially the freshmen, questioned witnesses, as if determined that no argument, either pro or con, should be left unresolved. Through twenty-four gruelling sessions, spread out between February 27 and October 10, the intensive questioning, bitter arguing, denouncing and condem- ning, would continue. Almost every witness who had appeared before at either the Senate or House hearings on the project would reappear, and there would be numerous new faces on the witness stand, called by both sides. Yet, there would be very little said that had not been said many times before, little new evidence produced. The Reclamation Bureau did what it could to help Arizona, both in the hearings and outside of them. Again it brought up the scheme of taking water from the Northwest into Southern California. Engle promptly excoriated them, and disclosed that Interior Department and Reclamation Bureau heads had called Democratic members of the California delegation into a "secret meeting" in an effort to win their support for the North- west diversion proposal.346 "The reclamation chiefs," said Engle, "hoped to suck the Democrats from California into the ridiculous position of opposing a billion and a half dollar project for Arizona, while advocating a three and a half billion dollar project for themselves. "Fortunately, all of us were not taken in by it. "The timing and the purpose of this action by the Bureau of Reclamation is crystal clear to anyone even vaguely familiar with the problems of California water |
