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<br />-l2- <br /> <br />previous legi'slation ocntrary to this last proposal oonstitutes legislation under <br />the Commeroe Clause whioh saves our rights. <br /> <br />The first warning against enoroachment upon the rights of the people on the <br />Arkansas by Federal agenoies was sounded three years .ago when a. bill _s intro- <br />duoed into the Congress whioh proposed to plaoe the oontrol of the waters of the <br />Arkansas and a number of other rivers tributary to it. under an authority of <br />three men with almost dictatorial powers. The authors of that bill were ea. <br />ployees Of the Tennessee Valley authority. They had made no in'V8stigatian of <br />the river basin with whioh theyproposed to deal. and f'rQll their of'fioes in Knox- <br />ville, Tennessee, they oould not 8ee~ and aotually did not realize, that the <br />Arkansas in Colorado and through seventy-f'ive miles in western Kansas is an irri- <br />gation stream with indiff'erent potentialities for power development. That bill <br />made hydroeleO'trio energy its basio f'aotor. The measure now under oonsideration <br />subjeots power to the plane of' irrigation, and makes it also' seoondary to flood <br />oontrol and navigation. That measure was so faulty that Colorado's protests <br />forced its amendment. The modifioation exoluded the irrigation seotion ot the <br />river fran the provisions of' the bill, and saved Colorado's interests f'or the <br />manent. No real ef'f'ort has been made sinoe to seoure its enaotment as amended. <br /> <br />The seoond warning was oaused by a proposed report of the Nati anal Resouroes <br />Planning Board at Vfashington, whioh Board has sinoe been shorn of' its authority <br />and has ~eased to function. If'the report had been returned it would have <br />plaoed 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 control of a board with the <br />pONer 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 f'ields of the southern states. <br />The lives of' thousands of Amerioan oitizens would 'have been mapped f'or them <br />without oonsulting their wishes or their dreams, their history or their tra- <br />ditions, their plans for the f'uture or their Constitutional rights and privi- <br />leges. <br /> <br />Again, Coloradofs protest f'oroed an amendment of the plan whioh exoluded <br />our state f'rom the provisions of' the proposed report. <br /> <br />The people of Colorado had oane to f'eel that at last their battle with their <br />Federal government had ended, and that they were to be allowed to f'ollow their <br />way of' lif'e, by raising orops within the limitations only of the water supply and <br />the influenoes of altitud~. sunshine and frost, <br /> <br />And then with the winning of' their case before the Supreme Court the psi- <br />dents of the Arkansas Valley looked f'orward to a f'uture where 'the production of <br />melons, sugar beets, alf'alf'a, cattle and sheep would aooanplish a permanent <br />prosperity. . <br /> <br />However, the residents of' the AFkansas Valley are not the only ones who haw <br />reason to be worried. The lives of' every man, wanan and ohild in the s8lll1-arid <br />states will be touohed and inf'luenced by these plans f'or the oontrol of' their <br />rivers. The smallest farm in th~ most remote guloh in 1:;he Rooky Mountains will <br />be reaohed by the withering hand of this dr,ying out prooess it these plans are <br />not modif'ied. <br /> <br />