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I <br />delivery of electricity to all sorts of users. It also <br />approved the 1922 Compact and provided that the operation of <br />the Hoover Dam and other works authorized by the Act would be <br />subject to the Compact's terms. <br />All of the Basin states except Arizona had ratified the <br />Compact in 1923, although in the ensuing years some had <br />qualified or rescinded their ratifications. The Compact had <br />become a dominating political issue in Arizona.15 Populist <br />Governor George Hunt fulminated against it with spectacular <br />results. Arizonans were perturbed by the potential loss of <br />tax revenues caused by the likely preemption of proposed <br />private hydroelectric projects on the Colorado by a Federal <br />plant. They were appalled to find themselves suddenly pitted <br />almost alone against California for a share of Colorado River <br />water without the assistance of the Upper Basin states. They <br />were even more upset by the prospect of the Compact compel- <br />ling them in the future to relinquish water from the Gila <br />River to satisfy a Mexican treaty obligation16 or perhaps <br />even to irrigate land in California. To Arizonans the Gila <br />had become a sacred river and its use by others a desecra- <br />tion. <br />The Upper Basin states preferred seven-state ratifica- <br />tion, but they had concluded that their interests would be <br />reasonably secure if California were to ratify the Compact <br />and also agree to a limit on its share of the Lower Basin's <br />Article III(a) apportionment. Consequently the Act also <br />-7-