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I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 37 Ratification Issues The controversy over power contracts and the authority of interstate stream compacts led to a decision by six of the seven basin states to revise their ratifications of the Colorado River Compact for the purpose of making it operational without the participation of Arizona. As with so many decisions related to the Compact, the primary force behind this move came from Carpenter. Although he became tentative in his advocacy of this plan, the idea was his and acceptance by other states followed his leadership. Hoover credited Carpenter with the authorship of the six-state plan. He agreed with Carpenter that it would do no harm to Arizona while allowing California and Nevada to take comfort from the beginning offederally constructed works on the river. 107 The six-state plan, Carpenter reasoned, was necessitated by reason of the adverse attitude of the Federal Power Commission, as then constituted, requiring that something immediately be done to avoid the issuing of pennits for hostile appropriations and it was only suggested by reason of the fact that the United States had retained title and control over a half-mile strip along the Colorado River in Arizona, thereby to have some (although not complete) protection against plants which might be constructed in that region after the United States had approved the [C]ompact. . . . In other words, it was an emergency measure having a large degree (though not complete) [of] protection and grew out of the necessities of a pressing situation. 108 Carpenter believed that two of the three members of the FPC (Secretary John W. Weeks [War] and Secretary Henry C. Wallace [Agriculture]) favored granting permits for the construction of large power works along the lower Colorado River. They saw no reason to await ratification of the Compact,