OCR Text |
Show JANUARY ON CAPITOL HILL 91 maintained, spokesmen for the government, and there- fore were speaking for the people as a whole, not for one faction. He chose to ignore the fact that the government witnesses without exception had testified strongly in favor of the crsp, and some of them - notably Under- secretary Tudor, Reclamation Commissioner Dexheimer and Engineer Larson - had occupied the witness stand longer than any other persons. Nor did Harrison add to the time consumed by pro- ponents the hours of testimony given by senators and representatives of Upper Basin states. They were merely "guests" of the committee, and in keeping with tradition were accorded the privilege of speaking and asking ques- tions of witnesses. This was the situation when Engineer Matthew and Attorney Ely were called upon to present California's case. Taking the major legal and engineering questions raised in the official California comments on the crsp supplemental plan, Ely and Matthew went into them in detail. (See page 69.) 117 When Matthew had completed the presentation of his paper, he expected to be subjected to cross-examination by members of the committee. That would have been traditional procedure. But Harrison was not adhering to tradition, and immediately called upon Ely to take the witness stand. Engle, although he would oppose his own state of California, objected, expressing the opinion that he did not think it "fair" to break the continuity of the Cali- fornia testimony.118 Harrison declared he was in a quandary. The op- ponents of the project were scheduled to testify "the rest |