Water Resources People and Issues
from the fact that the President had vetoed the Army Corps of Engineers'
authorization-the bill that eventually became the Rivers and Harbors and
Flood Control Act of 19%. The President had vetoed it twice. The revised
version that eventually became law was passed at the end of the session. In
addition, the President had vetoed the Bureau of Reclamation's small projects
bill and the expansion of the water pollution control program. This was a big
issue we haven't mentioned, but it was a big issue through the '50s. And the
President, I think, had vetoed the Civil Functions Appropriations Act.
This was near the end of the Eisenhower administration, and I think some
people on the Hill decided they had to make a record in the water resources
field to help in the 1960 election. And the studies authorized by Senate
Resolution 48, which didn't have to go up to the President for signature, were
going to be used to provide the ammunition they needed to beat the
administration over the head in the 1960 elections.
I didn't really know much about it when I got the call from Don McBride. Don
McBride was the former executive director, or maybe they called him the
executive vice president, of the National Reclamation Association. Then, later,
he had been state engineer of Oklahoma and had come to Washington when
Bob Kerr was elected to the Senate. I got his call while I was at a civil
engineering meeting out in Cleveland, which is why I remember it. When I got
back from Cleveland, I went over and met with Senator Ellender and Senator
Kerr. I remember Senator Kerr saying, "Mr.
we've been talking about
you as if you were a sack of meal or a sack of flour-or wheat or
something-as if you were an inanimate object, and we wanted to meet you and
see if you meet our specifications to run this committee."
Allen Ellender didn't say very much. He was rather laconic, and in some ways
he was more political than Bob Kerr. Anyway, nothing at all was said about my
political affiliation, Kerr obviously remembered that I had been before him
representing the Bureau of the Budget, and so he knew where I had come from.
But I think he relied also on Don McBride's knowledge of me. We had a little
talk at the end of which I agreed to take the position of staff director for the
Senate Select Committee on leave from the Library of Congress.
When Senate Resolution 48 was passed, it was co-sponsored by Senator
[James] Murray of Montana, and I think it had been assumed that Senator
Murray would be the chairman of it. Senator Murray was chairman of the
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