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Show 160 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER A week later, on August 18th, another effort was made to slide the bill through on the consent calendar. Senator Robert C. Hendrickson of New Jersey blocked it "by request." He didn't say by whose request. It was after ten o'clock that same night that a tired majority leader, Senator Knowland of California, arose. The pressure on him during the previous few weeks had become almost unbearable. His was an unenviable position. Hammering at him to call up S. 1555 were some of the most influential members of the Senate, such men as Hayden, Millikin, Watkins, Anderson and Murray. Moreover, the administration, his own party, had made the crsp an important feature of its political program. On the other hand, he had to face not only his own convictions, which were against the bill, not only the pleas of millions of Americans who wanted to save a national monument from destruction, but loyalty to his own state. Moreover, Knowland, a capable politician who understood the ways of Congress as well as any man in office, knew that if he persisted in permitting S. 1555 to be bottled up, California would suffer severe reprisals in the next Congress. Legislation that was vital to California would be blocked by the revengeful authors of S. 1555. Also, Knowland, who had long before learned how to count Senate noses, was fully aware that nothing could prevent S. 1555 from being passed, once it was called up for a vote, and if that did not happen in the Eighty-third Congress, it would happen in the Eighty-fourth. "I desire to move," said Knowland at ten o'clock on the night of August 18, 1954, "that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. 1555, the upper Colorado River project." |