The Winslow mail., 1926-07-16
What Douglas lares To Tell

| tainly unique Not exactly unprecedented but at
| least unusual, very different from that of the
binary politician.
Probably Lewis w. Douglas candidate for
congress does not deserve any particular credit
for the way he is presenting his message to the
people, for it is the only way he knows. Instead
of blaring high-sounding nothings about your
sacred and inalienabe rights" and "the glorious
future of our wonderful state" Douglas is telling
the voters the truth, much of it unpleasant, about
themselves and their state.
We have had many an alluring picture paint
ed for us, by office seekers whose only real con-
victions were that they needed jobs, of an inland
empire that would be one uninterrupted stretch
of fertile farms, rich mines and busy factories
from Utah to Sonora, from New Mexico to Cal
ifornia In the last few years most of these gilt
tering prophecies have been based upon develop
ment of the Colorado river. The Colorado is to
be diverted over our deserts through canals that
are to cost scant $500 100000 or so, and through
160mile tunnels. It is to furnish practically free
power for mines, cotton mills, silage cutters and
curling irons, and pay all our taxes forever and
ever, amen! Only somebody y-or-other has got to
be elected to something in order that he
may protect our God-given heritage from the
grasping this-or-that.
Douglas dares to stand up and tell the voters
that Arizona won't get anything much out Of the
Colorado unless she reserves fights for and es-
tablishes her right to impose royalty tax on
power generated in this state And unless the
river is developed by means of dams with both
ends in Arizona, they may as well be in China for
all the good they will do us.
For instance, if the Boulder canyon dam is
built, the turbines will be in Nevada; the switch
board will be in Nevada; the water impounded
will be used to irrgate the ChuckaWalla valley in
California; the power generated will be used in
California; several all-Arizona damsites will be
covered up. Arizona will get the privilege Of
collecting taxes on one end of piece of masonry,
provided 1t ever passes to private ownership.
Furthermore Douglas dares to tell us that the
Swing Johnson bill is going to be passed by con-
gress unless Arizona gets together with the two
other lower basin states upon some reasonable
plan of development. For the influence of Ari-
zona at Washington is exactly nothing compared
with that of California; now combined with the
upper basin in scheme to ignore our vast
sparsey populated and therefore politically in
significant state.
We are warned by Douglas that our mines are
being depleted and must be replaced by some 9th
er resource unless the already heavy burden of
taxation upon our farming lands becomes COM
pletely unbearabe. A tremendous area Of farm
ing land must be placed under cultivation before
it can approach in taxable value the mines which
are now bearing 48 percent of the load. Grazing
Of course, has reached it's limit We have little
much as'we may dislike to admit it, Southern Cal
ifornia is going to be the manufacturing section
Of the west. An al-year climate, freight rates.
+ water transportation accessibility to iron and
other raw materials, give California advantages
over us in that respect that we may as we'll recog
nize without argument.
Cheap power is not nearly so vital to our big
mines as it once was thought to be- since changes
in smelling practices have made it possible to use
waste heat from reverberatory furnaces to gen
crate electricity at lower cost than it can ever
be transmitted from the Colorado. To certain
extent, of course, cheap current will aid in the de-
velopment of new mines. It will encourage some
manufacturing. Some new land will be brought
under cultivation with pumped water. But on
the whole the new wealth created by abundant
power will not be nearly as great as the unthink-
ing optimists have been predicting.
Therefore, unless we can get the Colorado de-
yeloped by series of dams with both ends in Ar
iona, and can levy taxes on the power generated
for transmission beyond the borders of the state