Arizona republican., 1920-04-06

Most of the members of the Phoenix 4eiegation to the convention of the League of the Southwest have arrived nome, all we'll pleased with the pro- cedures of the meeting. One very in- terestfng incident. not referred to by the associated press dispatches, was mentioned by Sims Ely. the secretary or the Arizona Resources Board, to a republican reporter yesterday.
 Although the main question before the convention was the impounding of the waters of the Colorado" he said, the question of ceding the public lands threatened for awhole to disturb the harmony of the proceedings. Governor Larrazola of New Mexico is a jealous ana eloquent apostle of the doctrine that the federal government should cede the remaining public lands. ex- ceptlng the oil and coal lands already withdrawn from entry. to the several states in which they lie. New Mexicos able governor insists that as a matter or Justice, these public lands should belong to the states; that the federal government does nothing to police them. and practically nothing toward Improving or developing them, and be- cause of their great area they now are 4 burden to the states, and from a financial standpoint are a federal liability instead of an asset.
 He urges that if they were ceded to the states, these commonwealths would be placed in position to finance
 
 slstance of the federal government, and that these projects would not have to await the tedious process of converting the people of the whole country to the principle of reclamation So ably has ,GoVernor IarrczOla argued his propo- sltion, that a large majority of the 4S state governors have gone on record in favor of his proposition At Wash lngtn, in January last, he made strong arguments to sundry congressional committees n there were not many expressions of congressional approval.
 Dangers Are Pointed Out At the Los Angeles convention, on Saturday. Governor Larrazo1a appeared before the convention on resolutions and again made an argument in sup port of his remedy for the stagnation which exists i,l reclamation matters at Washington; but in view of the fact that cession of the public lands had not been placed on the conventions program for discussion, and there had been no discussion of the subject, the committee of which Judge Sloan of Arizona was chairman-felt that it would not be fair to the delegates in the convention to ask them to pass upon resolutions relating to a subject on which they had received practically no enlightenment. The committee, therefore. rejected the resolutions which had been presented by Governor Lar razola, but agreed that they should be idlQ DeIOre the convention TOT llS 1dV- orable consideration So after the convention had adopted the resolutions recommended by the committee, relat- ing to the Colorado. the special resolu- tions framed by Governor Larrazola, asking the congress of the United States to cede the public lands. were laid before the convention for it's con- sideration.
 The wording of the Larrazola reso- iutions was so persuasive that their a6 " ho ar,fi wifi cussion appeared to be imminent. At this point in the proceedings, Dwight B. Heard took the floor and made a short but forcibIe argument against the proposals of the New Mexico execu- tive. Mir. Heard pointed out that if ownership anc control of the public lands should pass from the government to the states, all of the machinery which has been carefully constructed for the reclamation of arid lands by the United States reclamation service would be wrecked, and controversies between the states and the federal government over the ownership of streams would result in such chaotic situation that further reclamation would be a matter of the distant fu- ture: that practically the whole system of conservation, related to the forest service, and reclamation as applied to 1 interstate streams, would go into the discard; that for these and other req 1 sons it was hopeless to expect that 1 congress would cede the public lands and that, consequently, it was most inexpedient for the convention to re- cord itself in favor of cession while ! at the same time asking congress to | proceed with a storage project cover ! ing the Colorado, which equals the | Panama cana. in magnitude.
 Lay Resolution on Table
 'The convention quickly swung to ! MT. Heards viewpoint: and on motion | of Tom Norris of Prescott, the Larra- 1 xalo Tai ont
 Governor Larrazola was as he al- ways is, a good sport. He frankly | acknowledged to the convention that | it perhaps was not fair to the delegates to ask them to adopt resolutions con- 1 corning a subject on which there had . not been extended discussion; and he . requested that the officers of the l league make the cession of the public | lands a question for the consideration | of the next convention of the league. | His suggestion was accepted, and the | proceedings closed with everybody in fine humOr.
 Among the representatives return ing from the convention was Fred A. Dibble who brought home a high de- gree of enthusiasm over the results of | the meeting which he believed would Il bear fruit in the form of legislation favorable to the great Colorado river | basin.
 Arizona Again Honored
 Arizona got much out of the meet ing" said MT. Dibble, the original president of the league, pr. von Klein Smid, president of the University Of Arizona, was succeeded by Governor Campbell. another Arizonan- Thus, Arizona. only one of the eight states 1 of the league, has been remarkably honored.
 'The object of the league continued MT. Dibb1e, twas to bring pressure to bear upon congress to secure the con- servation of the waters of the Colo rado There are twelve damsites on that river, one of them, the Boulder site on which a dam could be con- structed that would contain twice as much water as the Roosevelt reser- yoir Of the twelve sites. only one, the Ouray site. was ruled out in the meeting, and that was because the construction of a dam there would interfere with the building of a rail- road.
 We were welcomed by the mayor of Los Angeles who told us that the nfIrS do with aS