No Sleep, No Dam

One night last week at 2:30 a. m., Mrs. Hiram Johnson, a weary spectator of the filibuster against her husband's Boulder Dam bill, looked down from the Senate gallery on 29 Senators. Some were sprawled out on the lounges, asleep; Floor Leader Curtis and some others were said to have been rolling dice; other Senators, bleary-eyed, were listening to Senator Ashurst of Arizona, who was talking about a number of things.

"Let us assemble a quorum; many a missing Senator would like to hear Senator Ashurst; perhaps we can get some business done," suggested Senator Neely of West Virginia in effect. So an order was adopted, authorizing Sergeant-at-Arms David S. Barry* to arrest absentees. Mr. Barry and five assistants scurried to telephones, told Senators to hurry to work. An hour later, he made the following report to the Senate: "Mr. Bayard could not come because he is getting ready to go out of town to attend a funeral tomorrow. . . . Mr. Caraway's telephone, it is said, has been disconnected. . . . Mr. Keyes is in bed, but says he will think it over. I think he was serious about that. . . . At Mr. McLean's residence we reached some one on the telephone who refused to give him the message. . . . Mr. Gooding is in bed, but says: 'All right, I will come over.' . . . Mr. Stewart gave a jocular reply. I do not know just what he did say. . . . Mr. Heflin is reported as being ill and cannot come. . . ." Eight other Senators said they were sick. Twelve could not be reached. Many were routed out of bed.

Soon Senators began to straggle in--some in evening clothes, some with their morning ties askew, some unshaven, many vexed. Senator Hawes of Missouri said that his taxicab had caught on fire, that he had to call a fire engine. Senator Willis of Ohio said that he saw the flag floating over the Senate wing of the Capitol (denoting that the Senate is in session) and so he hurried from the Union Station. Vexed, Senator Reed of Missouri rushed down the aisle, shouted: "This is an inexcusable outrage."

After 6 a. m. Senator Capper of Kansas who had slept through many a telephone jangle, came in and was promptly deemed physical ly fit enough to succeed frazzled Senator Moses of New Hampshire in the Presiding Officer's chair. Vice President Dawes had left at 10 p. m. and Mr. Moses had done the heavy night work. Early in the morning Mr. Dawes returned. . . . At last, a quorum was present. But the filibusterers* kept the floor, allowed no one to move a vote on the Boulder Dam bill. Senator Hiram Johnson of California, co-author of the bill, had sat up all night trying to get a vote. The filibusterers were glad to have other Senators relieve them during the day with debate on Muscle Shoals, alien property and Prohibition bills. At 4:30 p. m., after 28 1/2 hours of talk, they achieved their victory. The Senate had previously agreed to take up other business at that hour. If Senator Johnson could have forced a vote before then, his bill would have probably passed.

Three days later, the Senate refused to apply the closure rule on his bill. The result: the Boulder Dam project is likely to be doomed this session. The question asked by many: what is the Boulder Dam?

The Colorado River, which men have called "devilfish" and "Destiny", drains the Southwest without replenishing. Gnawing at the Rocky spine of Wyoming and Colorado it writhes to the Gulf of California through flame-tinted canyons and dun gulches, forever arid. Its annual flood would cover 16 million acres a foot deep. Its 14,000-ft. fall would generate six million horsepower. Men have spent $2,000,000 figuring how and where to rein and tap it.

Six of the seven states the Colorado drains have agreed to a $125,000,000 Federal project calling for the world's tallest dam and a huge power plant in Black Canyon, between Arizona and Nevada, just below the southwest corner of Utah; calling also for an "All American" canal further south to irrigate the Imperial Valley (now dependent on Colorado water from over the Mexican line). The projected Boulder Dam would protect the Imperial Valley, which is below sealevel, from catastrophic extremes of flood and drought, the Colorado's "devilfish" tendencies. Since such extremes may occur again, 60,000 Imperial Valley farmers cannot say, but many say: "Soon."

Arizona feels sorry for the Imperial Valley farmers but has bitterly fought the Boulder Dam project--against California, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah--charging:

1) That the Colorado is Arizona's great resource. As a principle of state's rights, Arizona would never consent to a "power grab" and a "water grab" without demanding huge royalties.

2) The seven-state project is a California manipulation. Oil will give out there some day. Water must be found to keep up the growth of Los Angeles. Arizona's civilization is slower, hardier, unsympathetic. Governor George Wylie Paul Hunt has held up the horrid picture of Arizona "becoming a sort of veriform appendix to California instead of one of the great empire states of this nation."

*Onetime Senate page, 30 years a newspaper correspondent in the Press Gallery, Sergeant-at-Arms since 1919, Mr. Barry knows more about Senators than they would be willing to admit.

--Senators Cameron of Arizona, who talked for eight hours; Ashurst of Arizona, five hours; Phipps of Colorado, three hours; King and Smoot of Utah, who were held in reserve.