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<br />,'~'~" ,-". <br /> <br />:J <br />~J <br />o <br />M <br /> <br />,~ <br /> <br />-9- <br /> <br />o <br /> <br />huge. That membership against the necessa~' projects of other states <br /> <br />wields the political power necessary to stop or facilitate almost any <br /> <br />project she may choose to block or back. and I've just had a first- <br /> <br />class introduction to just how it works. "What has happened to the <br /> <br />principle involved, or the question of what's right?" as the immortal <br /> <br />Abraham Lincoln put it in the days when he was campaigning for something <br /> <br />like morality and the virtue of a position. <br /> <br />I know the number one argument is that the Central Arizona Proj- <br /> <br />ect is too fantastic to even dream of. They are going to tell you the <br /> <br />same thing about yours one of these days, because the total amount of <br /> <br />money involved is approximately identically the same. They said the same <br /> <br />thing, gentlemen, about the Louisiana Purchase in lS03, when an investment <br /> <br />of $12,000,000 and the assumption of a few debts bought from France the <br /> <br />states of Louisiana, Arkansas, ~issouri, Kansas, Nebraska; Iowa, North and <br /> <br />South Dakota, Wyoming, }~nnesota, and Kontana, S60,000 square miles that <br /> <br />became the heart of America. It was preposterous that we should spend <br /> <br />money in such quantities. The same thing was said of the Gadsden Purchase <br /> <br />in 1853, when :,10,000,000 brought the major portions of the states of <br /> <br />Arizona and New Mexico, 29,000 square miles of some of the most productive <br /> <br />and scenically interesting and culturally fascinating country in the entire <br /> <br />world. Fantastic? So was the Alaska Purchase in lS67. They called it <br /> <br />"Seward's Folly -- The Icebox" --560,000 square miles bought from Russia <br /> <br />for $7,200,000 -- an investment that has returned untold millions to the <br /> <br />wealth and security of this great country of ours. Fantastic? We might <br /> <br />say the same thing about the seven hundred to eight hundred million <br />