PROCEEDINGS
Thirty-second Annual Meeting
NATIONAL RECLAMATION ASSOCIATION
Sun Valley, Idaho
RECD. a
October 23-25, 1963
AMERICANS ARE EATING WELL
Thanks to Western irrigation, Americans are enjoying a healthful diet of fresh fruits and green vegetables
the year around.
A Western irrigated field of lettuce.
The West grows all of the Nation's lemons, apricots, figs, walnuts, almonds, filberts, olives, and hops; 90 to 100 percent of the pears, prunes, and plums; and from 50 to 90 percent of the grapes, avocados, nectarines, cherries, and strawberries, and from 50 to 100 percent of the artichokes, garlic, cantaloupes and honeydew melons, lettuce, celery and carrots.
Agricultural Economic Report No. 33 Economic Research Service, U.S.D.A. May /963
NATIONAL RECLAMATION ASSOCIATION
Proceedings of the
THIRTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION
NATIONAL RECLAMATION ASSOCIATION October 23, 24, 25, 1963
Sun Valley, Idaho
RECLAMATION—Develops the West and Benefits the Entire Nation
NATIONAL RECLAMATION ASSOCIATION 897 National Press Building
PROGRAM
NATIONAL RECLAMATION ASSOCIATION
32nd ANNUAL CONVENTION
Sun Valley, Idaho
October 23, 24, 25, 1963
GENERAL SESSIONS
Wednesday Forenoon - October 23
- STATE CAUCUSES
- Opera House
Color Film--"Clear Water on the Colorado" Courtesy Bureau of Reclamation
- CALL TO ORDER
LaSelle E. Coles, President, National Reclamation Association, Prineville, Oregon
- INVOCATION
Bishop Glenn Sorensen, LDS Church, Shoshone, Idaho
- WELCOME TO IDAHO
Tom Olmstead, President, Idaho State Reclamation Association, Twin Falls, Idaho
- Introduction of President Coles by Hugh A. Shamberger, First Vice-President and Nevada Director, NRA, Carson City, Nevada
The President's Message, LaSelle E. Coles
- ADDRESS
Honorable Kenneth Holum, Assistant Secretary of the Interior in charge of Water and Power
- REPORT
Auditing Committee
E. T. Bower, Chairman, Worland, Wyoming
- REPORT
Water Resources Planning Act Committee
Guy C. Jackson, Jr., Chairman, Anahuac, Texas
Wednesday Noon - October 23
JOINT LUNCHEON Challenger Inn
Joe W. Jarvis, Superintendent, Livestock & Agriculture, Union Pacific Railroad, Omaha, Toastmaster.
INVOCATION
The Reverend Gene Boger, Pastor, Ketchum Community Presbyterian Church ADDRESS
Honorable Frank Church, U. S. Senator, Idaho Wednesday Afternoon - October 23
GENERAL SESSIONS Opera House
Harold H. Christy, Second Vice President, and Colorado NRA Director, Presiding
REPORTS
Codification Committee - Clifford E Fix, Chairman, Twin Falls, Idaho Small Projects Committee - Doyle F. Boen, Chairman, Hemet, California Special Committee on State Water Rights Legislation
Hugh A Shamberger, Chairman, Carson City, Nevada
PANEL DISCUSSION "GROUNDWATER MANAGEMENT"
-Dr. George B. Maxey, Professor of Hydrology and Geology,
Desert Research Institute, University of Nevada, Reno, Moderator The Hydrologic Aspects of Groundwater Management
Thomas Maddock, Jr., U. S. Geological Survey, 'Tucson
Groundwater Management - Some Economic Aspects Harvey 0 Banks, Consulting Engineer
Vice President, Leeds, Hill & Jewett, Inc
Groundwater Management at the Local Level William L. Broadhurst, Chief Hydrologist,
High Plains Underground Water Conservation District
Groundwater Management
Patrick Domenico, Research Associate
Thursday Forenoon - October 24
GENERAL SESSIONS Opera House
Frank Raab, NRA Oklahoma Director, Presiding
Color Film--"Great River" - Courtesy, Bureau of Reclamation
ADDRESS
Major General Jackson Graham, Director of Civil Works Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army
REPORT
Legislative Committee, Harold E. Wallace, Chairman
ADDRESS
Honorable Frank E. Moss, U. S. Senator, Utah
ADDRESS
Walter U. Garstka, Chief, Water Conservation Branch, Division of Research, Office of Chief Engineer, Bureau of Reclamation,
U S. Department of the Interior, Denver, Colorado
Thursday Noon - October 24
LUNCHEON- -- -Challenger Inn
Alex Coleman, Idaho NRA Director, Toastmaster
INVOCATION
The Reverend W. Douglas Ellway, Pastor, Episcopal Churches in the Wood River Valley.
ADDRESS
Honorable Len B. Jordan, U. S. Senator, Idaho Member, Interior and Insular Affairs Committee
Thursday Afternoon - October 24
GENERAL SESSIONS---Opera House
C C Green, Kansas NRA Director, Presiding
REPORTS--STATE CAUCUSES
REPORT
Land Limitations Committee - James F. Sorensen, Chairman
Agricultural Research Committee - Wayne M. Akin, Vice-Chairman
WATER USERS PANEL DISCUSSION
J. R. Barkley, Chairman, NRA Water Users Committee, and
Secretary-Manager, Colorado Water Conservancy District, Moderator
ADDRESS
Gilbert G. Stamm, Chief, Division of Irrigation and Land Use Bureau of Reclamation, Washingtcn, D. C
ADDRESS
Jay Bingham, Director, Utah Water and Power Board, Salt Lake City, Utah
Thursday Evening - October 24
ALL STATES BANQUET
Perry Nelson, President, Western Real Estate and Insurance Company,
President, Idaho State Chamber of Commerce, Pocatello, Master of Ceremonies
INVOCATION
The Reverend R. J. Kennedy, Pastor, Community Baptist Church, Hailey, Idaho
ENTERTAINMENT
By the Pocatello Elks Gleemen
INTRODUCTION OF BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND LIFE MEMBERS
LaSelle E. Coles
ADDRESS
Dr. W. Ballentine Henley, President, California College of Medicine, and Member of the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education, Los Angeles, California
Friday Forenoon - October 25
STATE CAUCUSES
GENERAL SESSIONS---Opera House
La Selle E. Coles, NRA President, Presiding
Color Film--"The Cibecue Watershed", courtesy State of Arizona.
REPORT
Special NRA Committee on Rights-of-Way, Porter A. Towner, Chairman
ADDRESS
Arthur W Peterson, Extension Economist, Agricultural Extension Service Washington State University
ADDRESS
Commissioner of Reclamation Floyd E. Dominy United States Department of the Interior
Friday Noon - October 25
LUNCHEON Challenger Inn
Guy C. Jackson, Jr., NRA Director and Former President, Anahuac, Texas, Toastmaster.
INVOCATION
The Rev. Father Francis DeNardis, Pastor, Our Lady of the Snows
Catholic Church, Ketchum, Idaho, and Stu Charles Church, Hailey, Idaho
ADDRESS
Honorable Walter Rogers, Member of Congress, Texas Chairman, Subcommittee, Irrigation and Reclamation
Friday Afternoon - October 25
BUSINESS SESSION
Presiding LaSelle E. Coles
ELECTION OF OFFICERS
AMENDMENT TO CONSTITUTION
ACTION ON RESOLUTIONS
A RESOLUTION OF THANKS
MEMORIAL RESOLUTIONS
SELECTION OF CONVENTION CITY
GENERAL SESSIONS
Wednesday Forenoon - October 23, 1963 LaSELLE E. COLES, President - Presiding
Prior to the opening of the General Meeting, a colored film was presented entitled, "Clear Water on the Colorado", courtesy of Bureau of Reclamation.
The meeting was called to order and presided over by LaSelle E. Coles, President. The Invocation was presented by Bishop Glenn Sorensen, LDS, Shoshone, Idaho.
WELCOME TO IDAHO Tom Olmstead, President Idaho State Reclamation Association
We are certainly happy to see so many of you here. We are flattered that so many of You chose to come to Idaho to see our great State and to attend this 32nd Annual Convention of the National Reclamation Association.
As you entered Idaho, no matter from what direction you came, you witnessed Reclama-tion at its finest. If you came by auto, rail, or his or plane, you crossed vast stretches of apparent wasteland, dotted occasionally with green fields and fertile valleys. Before the water Was put on the land, the entire land area of Southern Idaho consisted only of this poor quality range land. With an annual rainfall average of less than ten inches per year, the land was suitable only for grazing a few sheep and cattle. However, with great rivers of water running through the State undisturbed, and hundreds of square miles of fertile land nearby, it was merely a question of time until the water was put on the land. This is the change that made Idaho possible. This is Reclamation.
The easier and more natural developments came first. The Mormons made the first irrigation ditch at old Fort Lemhi, and this ditch is still in use. Most of this early develop-Ment was merely diversion of the small streams to irrigate the meadows where they ran out of the hills. These early farms and ranches are mostly still in use today. These early water rights are highly cherished and they are protected under our State water law. As more people arrived in the State bigger and bigger projects were built. Multiple-purpose dams and reser-voirs were then built on the big rivers and more and more land was put under irrigation. There finally came a time when the mighty Snake River was dry below Milner Dam during the irrigation season. It is only on wet years that any water is spilled below this point today. With all this development there was still millions of acres of good land that needed nothing to Produce except water. This started the deep-well irrigation that is in use today. As the
Market for Idaho potatoes and many other crops grew, thousands of deep wells were drilled that started a land and water boom that is still going on. Idaho today is one of the few places In the United States where a man can file on land, drill a well, and if he gets the water can
create a farm out of the wilderness. The pump irrigation is mostly private development and is still booming. Every year more and more of the sagebrush is cleared and water from under-ground is put on the land. The Snake River plain seems to have an almost inexhaustible amount. These people that risk their money and labor to go out and create a new green spot in the desert are the real pioneers of 1963.
The Bureau of Reclamation in Boise is also humming with activity. Many additional projects that were not practical a few short years ago look more and more feasible all the time. These people are busily making surveys and considering the possibilities of putting more and more of the land under irrigation. The Guffey Project and many others will probably be a reality within a few short years. Reclamation in Idaho is really only starting. There will be a time when all of Idaho's water will approach full development.
Through the efforts of all these people and government agencies, agriculture is in-creasing in Southern Idaho as it has never done before. With this increase has come a process-ing industry that is thrivprocess-ing on this new business The Idaho spud can be purchased in any
supermarket in the United States at reasonable prices. The housewife may also buy them frozen or dehydrated in any number of attractive forms. This is also true of Idaho sugar and many other products.
Very few of the beautiful homes and farms and villages and cities in Idaho would be possible or even exist without Reclamation. It is easy to see the prosperity and the good life that goes with it. Water on the land is our very life and we need more of it,
It is my pi Ivilege to welcome you to Idaho. We have waited more than thirty years for this Convention, and we hope it will be the most successful one yet. I know that we have an out-standing program ahead of us with a very impressive list: of distinguished speakers and many other activities. Idaho is proud to be your host,
Once again, I would like to welcome you. If there is anything we can do to make your stay more pleasant, you need only ask.
* * *
Hugh A. Shamberger, 1st Vice President, introduced Mr. Coles:
ADDRESS
President's Message LaSelle E. Coles, President
I just want to give you the main impression I derived from my visit to Russia. It is this:
We cannot slacken our efforts and programs for economic growth and development if we want to retain our world supremacy.
The Russians have big projects, but I do not think they are as well integrated nor as comprehensive, in the multiple-purpose sense, as ours They apparently are concentrating
mainly on power, because their big drive at this period is to build up their industrial system. There are good-sized irrigation projects like those we visited in the Fergana Valley. One project alone was 2, 500, 000 acres in size, and one of the canals serving this area had a capacity of 17, 500 c.f.s.
Their economic system is full of inefficiencies that are apparent to even a casual visitor. Things like housing and transportation are probably many times better than they were under the Czars, but are still backward when judged by our standards. Nevertheless, this is a land of such enormous size, such tremendous, and such huge resources, that only a really incredible inefficiency in the past can have held it back up to now. If they ever get their economy built up and functioning anywhere nearly as smoothly as ours, their productive capacity will be truly great.
And there is no doubt that they are on the march. Much of their past inefficiency was due to the fact that the bulk of the people were backward, almost illiterate peasantry. This is rapidly being changed.
The United States must continue a strong Reclamation program and must not slacken all its other programs for basic economic growth and development if it is to retain its present margin of economic superiority.
I think that if we could arrange to have all our Congressmen and public leaders take the kind of trip I took, we might have considerably less trouble in getting authorizations an,1 appropriations for Reclamation in the future.
To get back to this country: Statistically in this past year both our program and the Reclamation Bureau have continued to set new records. In 1962 the 130, 000 Reclamation farms, with their on-farm population of more than a half-million people, produced about
150 different kinds of crops worth about $1-1/4 billion. Do you remember how only a few Years ago we were looking forward to the billion-dollar production figure the way our track athletes used to look at the four-minute mile? Now it is well behind us--a billion-dollar Production would represent a considerable slump.
The Bureau of Reclamation handled a $360 million program -- the biggest dollarwise in its history--and did it at a record rate of efficiency. Last year's program was 20 per Cent bigger than the 1951 program, and was carried out with only two-thirds as many em-Ployees . This is a truly impressive achievement in management and efficiency, and the Bureau is to be congratulated.
Last year the Bureau completed six storage and six diversion dams, and had 21 more dams under construction in 10 States. Its construction program provided the equivalent of full year-round employment for 17, 500 men in the seventeen Western States, plus 28, 000 more men in all parts of the nation who were employed in filling the $220 million in orders for equipment, materials, and services. I wish our non-Western friends would take a good look at those figures.
In Congress, it was a year of doldrums. This was perhaps due in part to the uncer-tainty regarding the adequacy of the Missouri River Basin Account, and its difficulties
encountered by the Administration and the Congress, regarding the allocation of costs on a non-reimbursable basis to recreation and fish and wildlife benefits. I am happy to report that these problems are apparently nearing a solution.
I believe we will see greater activity and some substantial progress on the authoriza-tion front in the session to come. The soluauthoriza-tion of the Missouri Basin program should open the way at last to the Garrison Diversion and Mid -State Units, with their many benefits.
This, of course, is only one of the many projects that are knocking on the doors of Congress. I am told that in the next two years the Bureau of Reclamation will send to Congress fully cleared and studied reports for Reclamation developments totaling about $6 billion. This
will give the Bureau by far the biggest backlog of projects proposals in its history.
Surely this calls for a substantial increase in the level of Reclamation investment. Everyone of those proposals represents a Western need--each one represents an opportunity for national growth. If they are allowed to languish and gather dust, they will contribute nothing except perhaps on the Bureau's general-investigations program. But, if Congress and the nation face up to the responsibilities and opportunities they represent, they can provide an impelling impetus to progress and prosperity.
Elsewhere, perhaps the most noteworthy event of the year was the Supreme Court's decision in the Colorado River case. Although the aftermath of that decision is still not
settled, it may well prove to lead to a fuller development in both the Colorado and the Northern California coastal basins, and in fact through the Southwest. The dispute has held back
develop-ment in that region for years, and its settlement, regardless of how it eventually works out, is almost bound to bring forth a release of energy and a new surge of progress.
The five States of the Pacific Southwest are now considering a large-scale, long-range program of development proposals offered by the Department of the Interior. Many of the elements of this program are familiar to us from the past. Some, like the proposals for an intensified drive against water loss and waste, are long-time goals of this Association. Though the plan is still to be worked out, we can certainly agree with Secretary Udall that the water problems in the Southwest are approaching a crisis, and that a vigorous attack on those prob-lems is necessary to prevent stalled development in the region and consequent loss to the nation.
I think some recognition is also due to the one-sided example of journalism published by Life Magazine late this summer. It may seem an old story to find our basic resource-development programs labelled "pork". Practically every Reclamation project in the West has
been honored in this way.
But, I cannot get over a lurking feeling that the Life Magazine article may be related to a lot of other trends and feelings. Dissatisfaction with farm subsidies--the farm surplus problem --even the growing resentment of city people over what they consider undue rural domination of legislatures--these all may help make many people receptive to the Life Maga-zine kind of attack.
not entirely at its face value, as purely and simply an attack on our projects, but partly at least as a sympton of a growing breach between rural and urban interest which must somehow be healed if we are going to make the kind of headway we hope for. I have said before and I now say again that we Reclamationists have a duty and responsibility not only to tell the East our side of the story, but also to listen to theirs, in a sincere effort to develop common grounds of viewpoint and interest.
And I think the growing trend toward comprehensive river-basin development of water resources provides such a common ground, provided we approach it in a cooperative spirit.
I don't think anyone challenges the thought that the West now needs fully rounded Water-resources development based not primarily on irrigation any more, hut rather on the full range of services that our river systems can be made to provide, and aimed at serving
Municipalities and industries as full co-partners of agriculture. Reclamation projects are already serving municipalities and industries as well as farms in a variety of ways. This pro-gram, tailored and shaped through the years to meet the particular needs ot the West, can and should be looked to for a bigger, broader, expanded role in Western water development. At the same time, we must never lose sight of the fact that even though other interests and services May play an increasing part in the future, irrigation will always be a major and vital Western Concern. The production base provided by irrigation is as necessary to Western municipal and industrial growth as is water itself.
We can easily see that relationship if we approach the matter like this: Let us suppose that we are confronted--as in fact we are-- with the task of deciding what to do with a very limited supply of water. And let us suppose that, in accordance with the theories of some abstract economists, we set up a benefit-coast ratio for each of the alternative possible uses for that water, in order to find out which use will confer the most benefit to the national economy as a whole. We will weigh power development against fish and wildlife benefits, and irrigation Project against one for municipal or industrial supply.
And let us say that on the basis of such an evaluation, industrial water supply out-Weighs irrigation; and so the water is allocated to industrial use rather than to irrigation. The factories are built. The workers are hired. Everyone is happy--until certain hard facts begin to appear.
Sure, industry has water; the town and the workers have water; but how about food to feed them? How about recreation for their week-ends? Since they lack a developed agricultural base around the urban and industrial community, they have to import essential foods from far away. The cost of living shoots upward. The industry finds itself at a competitive disadvant-age. And thus the community learns that no matter what the abstract economic analysis may have shown at the outset, it cannot succeed and grow without a balanced, rounded regional economic development that includes irrigation and agriculture.
I found that they have learned this lesson in Russia. It is part of their nation-wide development plan to have every major Russian city and industrial center surrounded by a ring of farms to supply it with food and farm production. This makes plain economic sense in the United State as well as in Russia.
I do not think that surpluses or other problems in the South, East, or Midwest have any bearing on the need of the West for its own regional resource base. We need our Reclamation program just as they need their flood -control and pollution-abatement programs. And the same growth of population and enterprise that requires increasing development in those areas, also calls for an expanded and broadened Reclamation program in the West.
A thousand page book, "Resources in America's Future", recently published by Resources for the Future, Incorporated, states that by the year 2,000, municipal water needs may double, industrial needs may triple, and irrigation needs may increase by 50 per cent. In our concern to meet the municipal and industrial needs, let us not allow anyone to over look the need for expansion in irrigation.
No matter what happens in the way of industrial or urban development the West can never escape from a fundamental characteristic of its climate and natural environment--the fact it has unreliable, unstable rainfall. This means that the entire economy, the entire region, rest on a shal:y base unless man-made measures are taken to create the water stability that nature has denied us. The more we grow, the more we have to shore up the foundations of our growth with stabilizing water programs.
Reclamation brings stability, not only to farmers, but to the whole economy. When the farmer is dependent on caprices of the skies, he cannot plan for the future. But when he knows he will have water for his crop, he can buy the machinery and stock he needs. This means that the enterprises which serve him also can plan ahead. It means that the communi-ties he feeds can rely on a reasonably priced, near-at-hand supply of production from him. The benefits spread throughout the nation.
I wish we could bring home to the people of this country the accomplishments of just one of our projects, the Colorado-Big-Thompson, during the past year. In many parts of the West, and notably in Western Colorado, it was a bad drought year. Thousands of acres were scorched, and entire regions suffered--but not the land served by the Big Tom project. It is not too much to say that the entire eastern half of that State would have suffered an economic catastrophe without that project. The increased production due to project water hasn't been counted yet, but we know it will amount to tens of millions dollars--probably somewhere be-tween 25 and 50 million. That project-created income has kept the entire area afloat.
A region has to have water in order to grow. When we find a region that lacks enough water to grow on; and when we can provide that water but decide not to; we have in effect con-demned that region to be stunted in its growth, perhaps to wither away.
I say we should have very good reason, an almost overwhelming reason, before we make such a decision about any part of the United States whatsoever. I say that we too often allow ourselves to get bogged down with the technicalities of justification, to the extent that we lose sight of the big basic facts of regional and national development needs. If we can raise our heads to look above the underbrush of formulas and procedures, we will see that in the final analysis it is those who would halt development who should have to justify their course.
aspects.
Today more than three-quarters of our population live in cities. It is hard for those People to understand how a farmer's costs go on and on, regardless of his income. He has to keep up his property, support his stock, buy his feed, and run his machinery whether he has a. good crop or a bad one. If his fields dry up, he may have to sell off his herd--and do it at a time when all his neighbors are selling too. It won't take too much of that to drive him off his farm.
And that is just what is happening today. Secretary of Agriculture Freeman has said that in the past decade an average of more than 800, 000 persons have left the farm each year. He also said that 250, 000 farm youths reach working age each year, but that farming can support only about a tenth of them. The rest have to leave the farm.
I feel certain that a great many of those people prefer the farming way of life and don't Want to leave the farm, but they are being driven off for want of opportunity. The last census Showed that nearly a third of the nation's farm operators worked off the farm at least 100 days a year. That's not the kind of opportunity that attracts ambitious young people.
When people leave the farm in this way, the nation is the loser. It loses more than Just production. A way of life that has been a major influence for good in the national character is withering away.
I don't have to tell this audience how Reclamation helps preserve the farming way of life—which is an important part of the traditional American way of life. The 130, 000 Reclama-tion farms are family farms. Each new project that is brought into producReclama-tion helps arrest the drift away from the land and helps to keep a healthy balance between rural and urban values in national life.
Since I have been talking like an expert on Russia today, let me cite you a couple quota-tions that I dug up while I was preparing myself for my trip abroad.
In March of 1957, speaking at Krasnodar, Premier Kruschev said: "The growth of industrial and agricultural production is the battering ram with which we shall smash the capitalist system."
While he is assembling his battering ram, we must not dismantle ours.
In May of 1957, at Leningrad, Premier Krushchev said: "We do not intend to blow up the capitalist world with bombs. If we catch up with the United States in per capita production of meat, butter, and milk, we will have hit the pillar of capitalism with the most powerful torpedo yet seen."
While he is fusing his torpedos of production, we must not disarm ours.
Some of our statesmen in Congress, while discussing the nuclear test-ban treaty, have been concerned lest we should fall behind in armament development. I wish they would Show similar concern lest we fall behind in resource development. We have the word of the Russians themselves that this is the crucial field of rivalry. The more the arms race stands at stalemate, the more important becomes the production race.
Let me close with one more quotation--this one from a most distinguished American.. When someone asked Col. John Glenn why anyone should want to soar up among the stars, he replied: "Man must do what he can do."
We can speed and strengthen the growth of the West. We can solve the water problems, grave though they may be, on which the further progress of our farms, cities, and industries alike depend. And I say let's get on with the job.
ADDRESS
Honorable Kenneth Holum
Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Water and Power
As I talk with different people and various groups about water resource development, I am frequently reminded of the story of the six blind men of Indos tan who went to see the ele-phant. You know how it goes--the first one walked straight into the side of the big beast and shouted that the elephant was like a wall. The one who felt of a tusk said it was like a spear; to the man who grasped the elephant's leg, the object resembled a tree; he who reached up and investigated an ear thought the animal "very like a fan," while the one who felt its tail was convinced the elephant was like a rope. To quote author Saxe, "each was partly right, but all were wholly wrong."
So it is, somewhat, with water resource development. Those especially interested in growing crops think of the Reclamation program in terms of irrigation. Others think solely of the electricity produced by the waters falling through the turbines in the powerplants at our great Reclamation dams. Manufacturers think of the water supplied to industry in the West. Urban residents think of a great reservoir as the source of a good water supply for their city. Those who have experienced tragic and recurrent floods think of the dams as flood deterrents. Outdoorsmen think of Reclamation reservoirs as a fine place for a family outing. Conserva-tionists think of the projects as guardians--or enemies, depending on the point of view --of fish and wildlife resources, and scenic values.
Like the men of Indostan, each of these groups is partly right.
Our water resource development program provides multiple benefits. As a result of sound planning and good management each purpose complements and assists the other.
Six decades ago the Reclamation program was initiated to bring water to arid land. Power generation to provide energy for pumping was soon added to the program. Commercial power, flood control, navigation, municipal and industrial water supply, conservation and development of fish and wildlife resources, and recreation, have been added to the program to
meet developing needs.
As projects drew people to the West, hydropower became increasingly important in the communities that grew up on and around project lands. Today power generation and marketing are a major function of Reclamation, not only to supply needed electric energy to turn the wheels of industry and light the city and farm homes in project areas, but also to provide financial assistance to irrigation features.
Power is the cash register of the Reclamation program. Without the revenues from power sales, most of the irrigation projects we are studying and supporting would be infeasible. As you know so well, power pays its own way, with interest, and also provides financial
support for irrigation.
Directed by President Kennedy to undertake a study and evaluation of the use of our natural resources, the Federal Council for Science and Technology stressed the role of power in resource development. Its report stated, in part:
"The production of power is an important function of water resource development and control. The harnessing of streamflows and their utilization for the generation of power yields three fold dividends. First, hydropower makes a substantial contribution to the Nation's supply of electric power, the need for which has been doubling every decade. Second, it conserves the Nation's limited supply of fossil fuel resources. Third, by providing a substantial source of revenues for paying the cost of multiple-purpose water-resource developments, it helps make economically feasible developments that could not, in the absence of the hydropower element, meet the requirement of financial feasibility."
When he dedicated Crawford Dam in Colorado several months ago, Secretary Udall stressed the contribution Colorado River Storage Project power is making toward that dam and its irrigation system.
"Millions in new wealth will flow from its kilowatts, spreading benefits into every area through a unique arrangement of interconnections and marketing criteria," he said. "In it we will realize the greatest possible gains for the Government and its preference customers, and simultaneously will strengthen the capabilities of private utilities and cooperative plants. All this will spell a stronger economy for this region."
The same situation prevails in practically all multiple-purpose projects. Presently, reauthorization of the $248 million Garrison Diversion Unit in North Dakota is before the Congress. During the 50-year payout period, the irrigators would repay $25.5 million of the $191 million allocated to irrigation. Some $165.6 million in surplus power revenues from the Missouri River Basin Project must be available to defray irrigation costs. Congress has made it clear that the Garrison Diversion Unit will not be built until it is certain that these revenues will be available.
Last year, the Central Valley Project in California, a blue chip investment by any standards, returned to the United States Treasury a net profit of $8,131,000 over and above the costs of operation and maintenance, replacement and depreciation, and interest. Power revenues from this project, too, will repay a substantial portion of the total project invest-Thent beyond costs associated with the power facilities, and I could provide other examples if it were necessary.
A soundly planned irrigation project is a good public investment. However, the capital costs are substantial. If they are to be returned in a reasonable period of time--and sound national policy requires that they must be--financial assistance from commercial power
Hydroelectric power and irrigation are full partners in multipurpose water resource development. The Bureau of Reclamation's power customers must support irrigation. It is equally important that irrigators and would-be irrigators understand the importance of the power features.
Experts estimate that our needs for water will triple by the year 2000. If we could look into a crystal ball that would show us our country in that year, we would see more of nearly everything that we see today. There would be more people --especially in our 17
Western States, where the population is expected to jump from 44 million to more than 108 million. There would be more acres of concrete covering land that once grew crops, as well as more homes, schools, and cities.
One thing, however, that there would be no more of, is water. The aggregate amount of water in the rivers, streams and lakes, in the underground aquifers, in the clouds floating across the skies, and in the seas and oceans would be substantially the same as it is today.
We can't produce more water. Our job is to use what we have. We have to learn to use the water we are wasting, and to use it over and over and over again. We must do a better job of maintaining quality, so that water can be reused, and improve the quality of poor water so that it is usable.
Increasing water needs and problems across the country presents the West and the National Reclamation Association with problems and opportunities. We Westerners under-stand the vital importance of water resource development to the economic expansion of arid and semi-arid areas. Soon everyone of the fifty States will be needing some of the Federal dollars that are available for water resource development. The whole country needs to know the truth about irrigated agriculture, Western development and the relationship between irri-gated crops and the surplus commodities produced on dry land farms.
I know that the National Reclamation Association is continuing its efforts to make this information available to non-Westerners and misinformed Westerners. Of first impor-tance is the necessity of selling the Nation on the idea that what develops the West helps all the people of the country. This is an important public information program. You are to be commended for your effort.
Water resource development and management are a nationwide program in 1963. It needs the united interest, support and guidance of citizen groups representing irrigators, power users, municipal water users, recreationists, fishermen, hunters and all of the groups and interests supporting one part of the total program.
We have the same challenges in water resource planning activities on the Federal level. We used to plan single-purpose water resource projects or small multipurpose
develop-ments and hope that one project would not undercut the water supply or interfere with the com-plete development of another area. President Kennedy has directed his Administration to do comprehensive river basin planning for the whole country. Several of these studies have been started.
The value of basin-wide planning has been demonstrated in the Tennessee Valley, the Missouri River Basin, and the Colorado River Basin. I am sure that the members of this organization appreciate and endorse the unified approach to water resource planning and development.
Lacking legislative authority to establish a National Water Resources Council, the President designated the Secretaries of the Army, Agriculture, Health, Education and Wel-fare, and Interior as an ad hoc Council to proceed with the work on comprehensive basin Planning.
As you know the first session of the 88th Congress has not processed any new
Reclamation authorizations. Congress has asked for Executive Branch recommendations with respect to financial management of recreation at all Federal water resource projects. In addition, Congress has requested assurances that the Missouri Basin project is meeting financial criteria that are consistent with current practices.
Secretary Udall has announced that the Missouri River Basin project payout studies Will be completed by the end of October. We are anxious to meet that deadline. It appears that a modest power rate increase will be required. The exact figures involved will be avail-able when the computations are completed and published.
While making these studies, we have completed several actions to increase available revenues through better use and management of existing power facilities. These steps in-cluded a pooling agreement with preference customers, and the arrangement effected some months ago with Basin Electric Cooperative in North Dakota, which will produce a million dollars of additional project revenue annually. We like arrangements that assist power users to meet their critical problems and at the same time produce additional revenues to assist irrigation.
You can expect the Administration's recommendation with respect to recreation to be announced momentarily. When the legislation is completed and announced, we will have guidelines for giving proper consideration to recreation in project planning, operation, and financial management.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund legislation is an important and integral part of the recreation package. Developing nationwide and governmentwide procedures for recrea-tion at water resource projects has been a time-consuming task. The result will be more and better opportunities for water-associated outdoor recreation and more equitable cost Sharing among the purposes served by resource development.
When these two conditions of the Congress have been met, I feel confident that the Missouri River Basin program will again move ahead. The Garrison Diversion project has been singled out by the President for his publicly expressed support. A bill for its reauth-orization is now before Congress. I am hopeful that the committees of Congress will clear the measure for floor action either late this year or early in 1964.
Project repayment and irrigation assistance are subjects of active discussion here in the Pacific Northwest. For the record, I want to emphasize that one of the cornerstones
of the Reclamation program is the repayment to the Federal Treasury of the reimbursable costs of the Reclamation projects. This Administration agrees completely with this policy. The use of power revenues produced by Federal hydroelectric plants to assist in repayment is also well established. Here in the Northwest, for example, payout of many Reclamation projects is assisted by use of a part of the revenues collected by the Bonneville Power Administration from the combined Federal interconnected hydroelectric system.
The reimbursable costs of Reclamation projects are repaid in accordance with the legislation which authorizes the specific projects. The reimbursable costs allocated to com-mercial power are repaid with interest pursuant to applicable laws. The portion of the irriga-tion costs repaid by the water-users are returned to the Treasury within a specific period established in the contract with the water users. Some recent Congressional actions have recognized a 50-year payout following a 10-year development period. The portion of the irrigation costs which is being returned from power revenues is also repaid as a general rule within this water-user repayment period. Reimbursement is accomplished within the criteria established by the Congress for each project.
The recent extension of the Bonneville Power Administration marketing area into
southern Idaho will not alter the repayment provisions for these projects. You may rest assured that both the Bureau and Bonneville will comply with the Congressional intent and applicable laws and contracts as they have since they came into existence many years ago.
I want to turn to the Lower Colorado Basin for a brief review of the proposed new Pacific, Southwest Water Plan, one of the most significant, long-range water plans proposed in our genera tion. You know that this plan is now being studied by the Governors of the seven Basin States--California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming. We have asked for their comments and the views of other interested parties before the end of November. Then we will be in a position to perfect the plan and present it to Congress early next year.
The Pacific Southwest is the Nation's fastest growing region, and its most arid.
Today
11
million people live in the 190,000 square miles that comprise the Southwest. Twentyyears
ago there were five million, and by the year 2000 the number of residents is expected to in-crease to 30 million,About 16 1/2 million acre-feet of water is available in the area, an amount estimated to be 1.3 million acre-feet short of meeting present demand. The existing water supply cannot provide for the future growth that we know is coming. Unless additional water is made available, the economy of the region will decline, with serious consequences not only to the area but also to the Nation as a whole.
The Southwest Water Plan is patterned in the main after the highly successful Colorado River Storage Project in the upper basin. The crux of the Water Plan is the establishment of
a
Pacific Southwest Development Fund to provide financial assistance for water-development and conservation projects. This bank account would be built from power revenues from two dams on the Colorado River between Lake Mead and Glen Canyon Darn—Bridge Canyon Darn and Marble Canyon Dam. Power revenues can also come from Hoover, Davis and Parker Dams after these operating projects are paid out near the end of this century.The Southwest proposal calls for enlargement of the California State Water Plan now under construction, with expanded aqueduct facilities providing for delivery of additional water from northern California to the southern section of the State. It includes construction of key elements of the Central Arizona Project, which would supply much needed water to the Phoenix and Tucson areas from Lake Havasu. It also proposes construction of the first phase of the Southern Nevada Water-Supply Project, the Dixie Project in Utah, and several other individual projects in the Lower Basin States, as well as the building of a mammoth desalinization plant and of development of large-scale water salvage and ground-water recovery programs along the main stream of the Colorado. Secretary Udall has emphasized that in all its phases the Plan recognizes the water rights of the respective States.
It is this type of broad, imaginative planning that we need if we are to fulfill our Obligations to the future rs.oulation of this Nation. Thomas Jefferson once said: "The face and character of our country are determined by what we do with America and its resources." I rather think Mr. Jefferson would be pleased with our comprehensive river basin planning today.
Presideat Kennedy's 1964 budget, presently before Congress, includes a request for $24, 500, 000 to permit the Department to start construction of an extra-high voltage, direct current interconnection between the Pacific Northwest and the Pacific Southwest. The inter-connection represents conservation at its best. It will provide a market for hydropower that is wasting over the spill ways in the Northwest, save expensive and limited fossil fuels in the Southwest, increase revenues available for water resource development in both areas and move the Nation's electric industry into the modern d-c technology that has been pioneered in Europe.
The House Interior Committee has just approved an Administration-supported bill to establish a Land and Water Conservation Fund to assist the States and Federal agencies in Meeting present and future outdoor recreational demands and needs of the American people. The Fund would consist of user fees, motor boat fuel taxes, money derived from the sale of surplus real property, and, to begin with, some appropriated moneys which will be repayable after the program gets underway. This measure incorporates some of the President's pro-Posal of last year along these lines. The idea that those who share in the advantages of the recreation program should share in its cost seems an eminently sensible one to me.
Considerable other legislation is pending in the 88th Congress which is of vital
inaportance to our water resources development program. Some important measures, in addi-tion to those bills I have menaddi-tioned, are: the Water Research Act, the Pacific Northwest
Preference Bill, Senate Bill No. 1111 providing for establishment of a Water Resources Council and River Basin Commissions, another bill directing that lands administered by the Secretary of the Interior be managed under the principles of multiple use, authorization for certain river basin flood control and navigation projects, several establishing national recreation areas, arid -- -0f major interest to many of you--a number to authorize specific multipurpose projects, Which I am sure will be discussed here in detail by other speakers.
This very brief summary suggests that the Second Session of the 88th Congress is g°111g to be an exceedingly busy period for those of us who want to see this proposed legislation
enacted. Achieving these important legislative goals will require a lot of work, great unity of purpose, and much perseverance.
The National Reclamation Association will have many opportunities to render regional and national service in the immediate future. The Department of the Interior and its Bureau of Reclamation will share your concern for an expanded program of resource development and conservation so that this Nation may maintain an expanding economy for a growing population in the West and across the country.
AUDITING COMMITTEE REPORT Earl T. Bower, Chairman
Your Auditing Committee, composed of Frank Raab, Oklahoma, Wesley D'Ewart, Montana, and myself, are glad to bring you this very brief report. We have examined in detail the Snyder Farr & Company audit. We have also examined the insurance policies and the bonds of our officials and we have looked over the deposits of our funds. We are glad to report that everything is in order. This concludes the report. Mr. Chairman, I move the adoption of this report.
WATER RESOURCES PLANNING ACT COMMITTEE REPORT Guy C. Jackson, Jr., Chairman
Pursuant to the instructions of this Association at its last Annual Meeting, your Committee composed of Jay Bingham, Ival Goslin, and Guy C. Jackson, Jr., has diligently examined S. 1111, known as the Water Resources Planning Act of 1963 and found same to be similar to the 1962 proposal: Therefore, our suggestions and proposed amendments were practically the same as for the 1962 bill.
A hearing on S. 1111 was held earlier this year before the Senate Committee and no action was taken by that Committee at that time. It appeared to your Committee that some of the enthusiasm for passage of this measure had diminished; therefore, it appears that affirmative action may not be forthcoming at this session of the Congress.
Noon Luncheon - Wednesday, October 23
Joe W. Jarvis, Supt., Livestock & Agriculture, Union Pacific Railroad, Omaha, Toastmaster. The Invocation was given by The Reverend Gene Boger, Pastor, Ketchum Com-munity Presbyterian Church.
This was a testimonial luncheon arranged by the Idaho State Reclamation Associa-tion and the local ConvenAssocia-tion Committee as a tribute to NRA Secretary-Manager, William E. Welsh. A statement reviewing Mr. Welsh's background and experiences was read by the Toastmaster, Mr. Jarvis.
Presentation of Interior Department Conservation Service Award to Mr. Welsh on behalf of Secretary of Interior Stewart L. Udall by Floyd E. Dominy, Commissioner of
Reclamation.
Presentation of plaque to "Bill Welsh, Idaho's Mr. Reclamation" by Tom Olmstead, President, Idaho State Reclamation Association.
FOREIGN AID -- THE NEED FOR ADDED CONGRESSIONAL DIRECTION Honorable Frank Church
U. S. Senator, Idaho
Let me say, first of all, how pleased I am to have this opportunity to spe4 before so fine a group of Reclamationists at this luncheon where special tribute is being paid to an Idahoan we all admire -- for which the cause of Reclamation could have no more effective spokesman -- Bill Welsh. The recognition he has received here today certainly has been earned over a lifetime of service to his State and to his Country.
When Bill first called me to ask if I might come and speak at this Convention, he said to me, in the way of good advice, that you would be served up with so much talk about Reclamation that it might be advisable for me to change the subject just to give you a breather in the midst of your deliberations. He suggested that I might choose some subject, other than Reclamation, which is of special interest to me and, hopefully, to you.
Now Bill knows that the field of special interest and competence of a Senator largely depends upon his Committee assignments. I am fortunate to be a member of the Interior Committee, which deals with Reclamation and Western matters, but that subject has been eliminated, for the purpose of this luncheon talk. I am also a member of the Select Com-mittee on the Problems of the Aging, but I was told that this was going to be the one affair Where the ladies would be present, so it seemed to me it would be very unwise, in this circumstance, to select the subject of the problems of the aging.
Even so, you might be interested in what happened to me when I was first appointed to this Committee. One day I went over to the New Senate Office Building and got aboard the elevator. I like to go on one particular elevator because the operator is a genuinely refreshing soul; he's a real philosopher who always has something new and different to say, so I got aboard the elevator and asked to go to the fifth floor, where this Committee on the Problems of the Aging meets. And on the way up, he said: "Senator, why are you going to the fifth floor, that's different from any floor you've ever gone to before," and I said, "Well, I've just been made a member of the Committee on the Problems of the Aging." He looked at me, smiled a little bit, kind of shook his head and said: "Wouldn't you know, that's just the way the Government would do it!"
So that leaves me with my third Committee which is the Foreign Relations Com-Mittee. This Committee, as you know, is one of the Senior Committees of the Senate and is Charged with the responsibility of carrying out the constitutional function of the Senate, which is to advise and consent in the ratification of treaties, confirmation of American ambassadors, and many other aspects of foreign policy. These days this includes the never-to-be-popular foreign aid program. And it is about this latter subject, the foreign aid program, that I Would like to speak today. I've entitled my remarks "Foreign Aid, the Need for Added
Congressional Direction," which, I must confess, is a very conservative sounding title for a liberal to choose.
But before I talk to you about the need for additional Congressional direction of the foreign aid program, perhaps I should first discuss the need for any foreign aid at all. I say this, conscious of the fact that many of you, perhaps most of you, in this group may feel that we ought not to have any foreign aid program. The best indicators of opinion here in this State have all reflected opposition to foreign aid. I've never seen a poll taken in Idaho which didn't show people of this State more than 2 to 1 against the foreign aid program, and I think some-thing close to that sentiment prevails in the other Reclamation states of the Intermountain West. But, in spite of such opposition, three American Presidents, both Democrats and Republican, have consistently urged this program upon the Congress as essential to cope with the problems of Communist encroachment and the other perils confronting us in this nuclear age. Consist-ently, though reluctantly, the Congress, by lopsided bi-partisan majorities, under both
Republican and Democratic Administrations, has voted foreign aid money year after year. The program is some 15 years old now; it has cost us around a hundred billion dollars; it has become so habitual a part of our life that Congressmen have come to complain about it like the weather, and then have done just as little about changing it as the weather. After all these years, far from having become accustomed to it, I must say that this remains the most exas-perating and unpopular program in government today.
Having said that, I should say that to understand the need for foreign aid, it is necessary to attempt the difficult task of viewing the world in which we live with some per-spective. It is not easy for us Americans, looking out upon the world from our particular van-tage point, to get it into proper focus, and it is always next to impossible for us to see our-selves as others see us.
Perhaps these basic statistics may help to put our world and times into a somewhat better perspective. The United States and Canada today have less than ten per cent of the world's population but we enjoy nearly two-thirds of the world's income. In the underdeveloped countries of the world live more than two-thirds of the world's people; altogether they have less than ten per cent of the world's income
In most countries of Africa and Asia today, the average worker earns less in an entire year than the average American worker earns in a week. And this gap divides not only the United States and Canada from the rest of the world, but the underdeveloped countries gener-ally from the industrial nations, which include Western Europe, the Soviet Union, and Japan. The gap exists between nations which are largely white, and the underdeveloped areas which are peopled mostly by other races, brown, yellow, and black. The gap between the rich and the poor nations is increasing year by year, with all that this implies in the way of •upheaval and danger to the rest of the world. Bridging this widening chasm between the haves and have-nots constitutes the underlying reason for the foreign aid program.
If you will think of the world in terms of a neighborhood, it would not be inaccurate to say that, in the midst of this neighborhood, the United States is situated like a great planta-tion, where the soil is very fertile, and where the plantation house is very grand. Beyond the white fences of this plantation there are some modest but comfortable burgher houses of the
Other industrial countries, and beyond these few houses, surrounding the plantation in all direc-tions, is an endless slum. That's pretty much the state of the world today. Sensing this, most Americans should realize that we can't build the plantation fences high enough to separate our estate entirely from the surrounding neighborhood. Most Americans should see that extending help to needy nations is in the national interest of the United States, and helps to protect our own fortunate estate in the world at large. Indeed this has been realized by the other industrial countries of the world, all of which have extensive aid programs of their own. Even the Soviet Union has spent billions of dollars in recent years on its own aid program abroad.
Yet, to state this much is both to over-simplify and to distort the foreign aid program. I think one has to weigh what the opponents of this program have to say about it, and what the Proponents of this program have to say about it, if one is to really grasp the significance of the foreign aid program in America's political life today. So let's consider some of the charges that have been made both by opponents and by proponents of foreign aid.
Very often we have heard opponents of the program scoffingly say that foreign aid is ridiculous because you can't buy friends. And I must agree that you can't buy friends; the terms
buy" and "frieI:d" are incompatible. This, of course, is not the purpose of the program. Yet, In another sense, the program is being used by the President to give him leverage in many parts of the world. A rich man in a community doesn't support the charities in order to buy friends. He's not likely i make many friends among the poor. Nevertheless, I suppose one of the things that motivates the rich man to support the charities in a poor community, is the belief that this action contributes to better stability, better order in the community, tends to temper the bitter-ness and the danger of upheaval which might otherwise occur. And so the President uses the foreign aid program, again and again, as leverage, to promote policies of moderation, policies of stability and responsibility, in these distant and primitive lands.
On the other hand, what about the argument of the ardent supporters of the foreign aid Progran-i? I don't count myself in this group either, because I have been a constant critic of InanY phases of foreign aid since I began serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The ardent proponents of the program are fond of saying that foreign aid is the principal Weapon we have to protect the free world against the encroachment of Communist tyranny. 'hen I hear them make this argument, I sometimes wonder what free world they are talking
about, because today most of our aid is focused in Africa, in Asia, and in Latin America, where the number of free governments is preciously few. I can't think of a free government around the ring
of Asia from Israel to Japan, save one, and most of the countries that are receiving aid Ar°rn us these days are countries in which there is no freedom, as we understand that term. t'lid just as there is no political freedom, so there is also very little economic freedom, in the sense of the free enterprise system as we know it in the United States today.
But those who would urge us to give aid for the purpose of making these countries into the image of America, really have a very naive concept of what the world is like. In most of ,Lthe Countries in Africa and Asia, where the old colonial empires have only recently been culrown off, capitalism is an ugly word, because it is associated with the excesses of the old h°10nial period. Moreover, most of these countries couldn't be capitalistic if they wanted to n
i e, because they lack capital. The only source for investment, production, and employment, s government, and thus, by force of circumstance, these countries are mostly socialist
countries. So, neither in the political or the economic sense, are these countries "free" as we understand freedom here in the United States. If we were to deal only with the countries that are shaped in our image, we'd deal with precious few indeed.
Still, in a broader sense, our aid, even to countries remotely situated from either Russia or Red China, is directed toward an anti-Communist objective, because we believe that if by the infusion of capital we can help these countries to gain a sturdier independence, if we can help them to improve living standards, then the natural tendency of these countries will be to move in a direction away from Communism.
A basic purpose of the foreign aid program is to help make the world safe for diver-sity, so that these countries can be independent and can, in accordance with their own religion, culture, custom and tradition, build their own systems on the basis of free choice. We welcome diversity. Given the freedom of choice, we believe that most developing nations will ultimately
move in the direction of greater economic and political freedom, because that is the natural aspiration of all men. It is Communism which cannot abide diversity; it is Communism that seeks to compel conformity through coercion, and through the denial of choice. So there is an anti-Communist objective implicit in our foreign aid program, even if it is not always self-evident. If there is a threct confrontation with Communism as in Korea or South Viet Nam,
many American people tend generally to support the program and recognize its need. But I must say to you that Communism, as a threat, is not confined to the battle areas or places threatened by overt aggression. In every poor and desperate land, the threat of Communism works from within. That is why we have sought to extend economic aid, as an implement of our foreign policy directed generally toward preventing Communism from making greater inroads into these important but underdeveloped regions of the world.
These are the fundamental reasons why I have voted for the aid program despite its general unpopularity, and why I shall continue to do so, as long as I can foresee. However, from the time I first went on the Foreign Relations Committee, I have felt very strongly that there is much that's wrong with the program, and I have worked to reform and improve it, and to eliminate parts of it which would seem to me to be both undesirable and unwise.
In these 4 or 5 years, I have seen Congressional resistance to the programs grow, from year to year, as other supporters, from among the liberal Democrats, having joined in expressing a general dissatisfaction with the program. This Congressional revolt has now reached an all time high, and we can expect that definite changes will be made in the foreign aid laws, and in the foreign aid program governed by these laws. In a way, it's ironical that this revolt should have come to a head under President Kennedy, because he has done more to reshape and reform the program than any of his predecessors. He has reorganized it under one agency and the present director, David Bell, is, by common acknowledgment, the ablest director yet. And it's ironic, too, that the revolt should come on the heels of the most success-ful innovation in the aid program since Truman's "Point Four" inaugurated Technical Assistance some years ago. I am referring, of course, to the Peace Corps, which is a genuine Kennedy triumph, and which seems to be really reaching through on a people-to-people basis to capture the enthusiasm of young nations and young Americans alike. Yet, despite these encouraging developments, the revolt is at an all time high. The House of Representatives has already strucl( a billion dollars from the authorization bill this year. It's very likely that before the
appropri3-fion process is over, additional cuts will be made, and the President will be lucky to come out With a 3 1/2-billion dollar program for the coming year, fully hall a billion dollars less than the least Eisenhower year.
The questions that I would raise with you are these: Why the revolt? Why did it come at this time? The reasons are several in number and cumulative in character. As one foreign aid supporter who is taking part in this revolt, I would suggest that the first reason is that Congress has finally lost patience with the Administrators' apparent inability to ever bring any given aid program to an end. By 1962, the list of recipient countries had grown and grown, Year by year, until we were giving aid to 107 countries of the world. Now, that's just eight fewer countries than there are in the whole of the free world on our side of the Iron Curtain!
This is preposterous, especially so in view of the remarkable recovery that has occurred in Western Europe, in Japan, and in other countries which have become self-sufficient, hit re-garding which the administrators of foreign aid never seemed quite able to terminate out Subsidy. To be sure, the aid may be reduced from year to year, but the spigots are still left dripping. In 1962, we were still giving nearly 400-million dollars worth of military assist-ance, equipment and supplies to the rich countries of Western Europe and Japan.
The second reason for this revolt is the frustration that we have suffered in our long-time effort to shift foreign aid from gifts to loans. Probably the most successful foreign policy Program that this country ever undertook, perhaps the most successful program in the entire diplomatic history of the world, was the Marshall Plan. With it, we prevented Western Europe from falling into Communist hands in the wake of the destruction of the Second World War. If
Western Europe had been allowed to fall under Communist control, the keys to the future would have been yielded to Communist hands. Yet, we made a mistake in the Marshall Plan that we heed not have made -- we gave away most of the money instead of loaning it. To be sure, we loaned part, but the bulk of the money consisted of grant aid. Had we loaned it all, we could today be reclaiming that money, with interest, without hardship to these prosperous European countries. We wouldn't be faced with our still unsolved adverse balance of payments problem Which threatens the stability of the dollar in the international markets of the world.
Having learned from that experience, Congress established the Development Loan Fund in our aid program for the underdeveloped nations, which was meant to underwrite economic development on the basis of loans instead of grants. Once again, the flexibility that we had to give to the administrators of the program has been ill-used. We are now dis-covering that most of the loans are being made on 40-year repayment schedules, with exces-sive grace periods when no repayment at all occurs, and at interest rates of three quarters of One per cent. Instead of calling it a gift, what we're doing is giving the money and calling lt a loan! Thus, the purpose of the Congress in establishing the Development Loan Fund has been partly frustrated.
A third cause for this spreading revolt is the sheer size of the aid program. We have voted for it because of our belief that it serves the national interest to extend help to the needy but we've observed that, in recent years, the program's most conspicuous successes have Occurred in those areas where it is least costly -- the Peace Corps, technical assistance, surplus foods.
I remember, just the other day, talking to Dr. Banda; the Prime Minister of
Nyassaland, which is situated in the central part of Africa. They say that white men dare not go into Nyassaland, owing to the hostility of the African people there. We have Peace Corps men there; they're living in the villages, and Dr. Banda told me, "we protect these Peace Corps volunteers like little eggs we don't want to see cracked That's how much they mean to uso" And all of our own reports coming out of Nyassaland indicate what great work the Peace Corps volunteers are doing. I think it is a wonderful reflection on this country, rich as we are, that we've got young people who still have the idealism to go out into distant lands, at considerable danger to their own health, to contribute their skill and their education to the betterment of impoverished, backward, and uneducated people.
This is the part of the foreign aid program that counts the most -- not the great in-vestments we are making in projects abroad. There is a growing feeling that these costly projects should be financed, more and more, through international lending institutions like the World Bank which can impose good management conditions of the kind that one sovereign country can seldom impose upon another, and where the money is contributed, not alone by the United States, but by the other rich industrial nations as well.
To meet these varied defects in the program, this year the foreign aid bill is being amended. One amendment of my own will force a termination of all further grants to the rich and self-sufficient countries of the world. This alone, I think, will effect a saving of many hundreds of millions of dollars in the immediate years to come,
Another amendment, offered by Senator Lausche of Ohio, will pat an end to the in-terest charges of three quarters of one per cent and, instead, establish a minimum inin-terest of two per cent, and a maximum repayment period of 35 years. Even the Soviet Union, while condemning the Wall Street bankers, never charges less than two per cent for its long-term credit abroad.
So, progress is being made toward greater Congressional direction and control. I am happy to say that this year marks the turning point; I think in the future we can cut down the size of the program and make it more acceptable. But even so, there are basic under-lying problems that still have to be dealt with if we are to regain strong popular support for foreign aid.
First, we must come to terms with our situation abroad in such countries as Korea and Formosa and even Western Europe. Why must we have two American divisions perman-ently stationed in Korea, ten years after the war is over, and after the fortune we have spent, at the rate of a half billion dollars a year, to equip and train the Korean Army to defend their narrow 38th -parallel boundary line? I visited the garrison state of South Korea last December and thought to myself, "If after ten years of this kind of training and equipping, they can't maintain this narrow frontier with their own soldiers, when on earth are they going to be able to do it?
How long are we going to have to spend a quarter of a billion dollars in Formosa each year, just to indulge the dreams of an old man, to support an Army that's twice too big to defend the island and not a tenth big enough to take back the continent?
