The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1945-05-29
. BEHIND THE SCENES
IN WASHINGTON .

Nevada ranges, II is less than
100 miles wide and runs 500
miles from Shasta Dam south to
Bakersfield. 1t all lies within
this great state of California. yet
the whole Central Valley Re-
clamation Project is so vast an
undertaking that many Cali
fornians don't appreciate it.
Seventy-five years ago this
Central Valley wasn't just war
torn as large parts of Europe
and Asia are today-it was des-
ert of little good to anyone ex-
cept the Indians and the pros
pectors, who didn't realize what
real gold was there even when
they looked right at 1t.
When Central Valley wasn't
desert 1T was flood land, inun-
dated and further laid waste
when the winter SHOWS melted
and roared down the mountains
through the Sacramento River
from the north and the San Joa-
quin from the south, pouring
into the swamps and deltas ut
the head of San Francisco's bays.
Fifty years ago much Of this
great Central Valley was still
semiarid. There were scattered
irrigation projects which pump
ed water out of the uncontrolled
rivers when there was any and
did dry-farming on big cattle
and grain ranches the rest of the
time.
What the delegates from the
war-ravished countries would
see if they left their wrestling
with semi-colons for a few days
and came up to these great open
spaces is therefore the work OF
less than generation. The Cen
trail Valley Project as planned
by the State of California and
the u S. Bureau of Reclama-
ton is still far from completed.
But if the moral of this thing
would sink in on the conscious
ness of the statesmen who are
in San Francisco to draft an
United Nations Charter and so
bring into being a bright new
world, the fact should register
that this is what men can do in
a generation if they stop playing
the stupid old European and AS
iatic games of power politics,
intrigue and war.
There is no future In that, but
most of the thick-headed states
men entrusted with governing
the nations of the world have
not realized it. Even at San
Francisco the cry is heard on
all sides that the United States
armed forces will have to be
kept in the old world to restore
order, keep the peace and i'm
pose democracy in many coun-
tries no bigger than the State Of
California and even in coun-
tries as big as the whole United
States.
SEES FOREIGN INTERESTS
FADING
1t is doubtful If the American
people will long remain inter-
ested in trying to establish its
Liberties in odd corners Of the
world. Five years from now the
United States may be 80 thor
oughly fed up with assorted fac
tional wars in Asia, Africa and
Europe that the prevailing sem
timent will be to pull out and
leave people who have not
learned how to govern them
selves to cut each others threats
to extinction.
But what the United States
can do constructively is show
the Old World politicians things
like this Central Valley Project
in California, with its big dams,
its hydro-electric power, its ir-
rigation of arid unproductive
lands, its multi-billions dollars
worth Of diversified crops and
resources. Then these statesmen
could 60 home with the United
Nations Charter adopted at San
Francisco and build on their
own now-desert-like ruins and
desolation other peaceful Gen.
trail Valleys.