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Show 26 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER Although it was not disclosed by him at this time, Engle had his reason for abandoning the agencies of Southern California. It was a project on the Trinity River in his own district in Northern California. Engle had concluded that if he ever hoped to get his Trinity River Project through Congress he could not continue to fight the states of the Upper Colorado River Basin. One of the six members of the Colorado River Board also opposed an all-out fight against the crsp. He was J. W. Newman of the Coachella Valley County Water District, and he, too, favored the Howard approach. "I feel," said Newman,24 "that much of the ill will that has been accorded California comes from ill-considered acts and comments, and a rather vulgar display of superior finances in our appearances. A disposition to sort of 'Lord It Over' our less populated areas cannot help but meet with disapproval." Franklin Thomas, chairman of the Colorado River Board, a nationally honored engineer, and dean of the California Institute of Technology, reacted to New- man's remarks with the statement: "The only way we can be friends of Arizona and the Upper Basin states is to give them our Colorado River water. I don't be- lieve we have the right to do that, even to achieve such desirable friendship." In Washington at the time, Matthew reported that Poulson and Yorty favored the strong comments of the Board.25 He was frankly suspicious of Engle's motives, and wrote "that all considerations entering into his [Engle's] thinking have not necessarily been revealed. It does appear that he may have had conversations with certain representatives of the Upper Basin states, and that he hopes that by soft-pedalling now, further |
