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Show DOLLARS INTO DUST 249 There could be only one explanation for the conflict- ing actions of President Eisenhower. It had two facets: he was determined to do favors for the influential sena- tors supporting the crsp, and he held an unshakable conviction that, regardless of cost or consequences, the Republican Party should be credited with bringing out the largest reclamation project ever conceived. Rep. Ghet Holifield enlightened Congress with a clear explanation of the situation: 304 "Now, Mr. Speaker, we have before us the President's plan for solving the terrible headache of surplus crops. On January 9, Mr. Eisenhower proposed that millions of acres of our best farmland be taken out of production and placed in a 'soil bank.' "But, Mr. Speaker, it was only on January 5, that Mr. Eisenhower, in his State of the Union Message, called upon Congress to approve the multi-billion dollar Upper Colorado River Project and its satellite, the Frying Pan-Arkansas Project. "Let me quote the President: " '. . . I strongly recommend that action be taken at this session on such wholly federal projects as the Colorado River Storage Project and the Frying Pan- Arkansas Project. . .' "Together these two projects would provide irrigation water for approximately a million acres of land. The cost of bringing water to these arid lands would run as high as $5,000 an acre, and the subsidy which the tax- payers of the United States would be forced to provide for these two projects alone would be at least $4.5 billion, and possibly much more. "Almost in the same breath that he asked Congress to approve these two unnecessary projects, the President |
