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<br />,un 77 <br /> <br />-12- <br /> <br />previous legislation oontrary to this last proposal oonstitutes legislation under <br />the Commeroe Clause whioh saves our rights. <br /> <br />The first warning against enoroaohment upon the rights of the people on the <br />Arkansas by Federal agenoies was sounded three years ago when a bill was intro- <br />duced into the Congress whioh proposed to plaoe the oontrol of the waters of the <br />Arkansas and a nUlllber of other rivers tributary to it. under an authority of <br />three men with almost diotatorial powers. The authors of that bill were em- <br />ployees of the Tennessee Valley authority. They had made no investigation of <br />the river basin with whioh they proposed to deal, and fran their offioes in Knox- <br />ville, Tennessee, they oould not see. and aotually did not realize, that the <br />Arkansas in Colorado and through seventy-five miles in western Kansas is an irri- <br />gation stream with indifferent potentialities for power development. That bill <br />made hydroeleotrio energy its basio faotor. The measure now under oonsideration <br />subjeots power to the plane of irrigation. and makes it also'eeoondary to flood <br />oontrol and navigation. That measure was so faulty that Colorado'e protests <br />foroed its amendment. The modifioation exoluded the irrigation seotion of the <br />river fran the provisions of the bill, and saved Colorado's intereets for the <br />mcment. No real effort ha.s been made sinoe to seoure its enlLotment as amended. <br /> <br />The seoond. warning was oaused by a proposed report of the National Resouroes <br />Plenning Board at Washinr,ton, whioh Board has since been shorn of its authority <br />and has oeased to funotion. If the report had been returned it would have <br />pia oed the entire Arkansas Valley and the lands along its tributaries, all people, <br />their daily lives, their future hopes, their status in sooiety, their industrial. <br />agrioultural and eduoational aotivities under the oontrol of a board with the <br />pCMer to average Amerioans and to bring all men in the Basin down to the level <br />of the poorest shareoroppers in the worn-out ootton fields of the southern states. <br />The lives of thousands of Amerioan oitizens would 'ha.ve been mapped for them <br />without oonsulting their wishes or their dreams, their history or their tra- <br />ditions, their plans for the future or their Constitutional rights and privi- <br />leges. . <br /> <br />Again, Colorado's protest forced an amendment of the plan whioh exoluded <br />our state from the provisions of the proposed report. <br /> <br />The people of Colorado ha.d oeme to feel that at last their battle with their <br />Federal goverrunent had ended, and tha.t they were to be allowed to follow their <br />way of life, by raising orops within the limitations only of the water supply and <br />the influenoes of altitudt, suns.hine and frost. <br /> <br />And then with the' winning of their oase before the Supreme Court the resi- <br />dents of the Arkansas Valley looked forward to a future where the produotion of <br />melons, sugar beete, alfalfa, cattle and sheep would aooamplish a pennanent <br />prosperity. <br /> <br />However, the residents of the A~kansas Valley are not the only ones who have <br />reason to be worried. The lives of every man, wanan and ohild in the ssmi-arid <br />states will be touohed and influenoed by these plans for the oontrol of their <br />rivers. The smallest farm in the most remote gulQh in the Rooky Mountains will <br />be reaohed by the withering hand of this drying out prooess if these plans are <br />not modified. <br />