Speech #690228400

It will create new wealth that will be the basis for State and county taxes of $25.000.000 a year. It will provido over 3.000.000 hydroelectric horsepower for mines and industries that will be generated within the State. Then ask yourself what it is worth to the people of the United States of America to bring all that vast wealth and benefit to humanity into existence. and whether we can afford to surrender to Asiatics in Mexico the waters that will accomplish such a miracle if used in our own country. �4438 If the regulated flow of the Colorado River is not used in Arizona and California. it will run down the channel of the river by gravity to Mexico. If that happens. no power on earth can prevent it from being used in Mexico to create a vast competitive Asiatic agricultural annex in America. with a competing Asiatic world seaport and manufacturing city at the head of the Gulf of California. The time has come when every American citizen who has an ounce of patriotism or loyalty to our own country in his soul. when every American business man or farmer who has an atom of common. everyday horse sense in his head. and wants to avoid ruinous competition in the future. must first fix his mental vision on the above description of what the Colorado River. when used for irrigation in Arizona and southern California. will bring into existence in those States in the near future. Then. he must turn to the alternative picture of a vast Asiatic settlement and development from the Colorado River in Mexico. look -it straight in the face. and" Get- the vision" of what that: Asiatic agricultural annex in America will be after its full realization. Except that it will be. both Japanese and Chinese. it will duplicate the great city and plain of Chengtu. in the Province of Sze Chuan. in western China. where a population of 4.000.000 Is sustained by agriculture on 1.600.000 acres of land irrigated by one system of irrigation works taking water from the Min River. a tributary of the Yangtsze. Substitute the Colorado River for the Miin River. and the similarity is complete. In the Imperial Valley of Mexico and the Delta of the Colorado River and on contiguous citrus mesas around the head of the Gulf of Callfornia. with the waters of the Colorado River for irrigation. 1.600.000 acres will sustain a population of 4.000.000 Asiatic competitors of American farmers. and reproduce the intensive cultivation and amazing fertility of the Chengtu Plain. The following description is quoted from The Yangtsze Valley and Beyond. by Bird Bishop. published in 1900 by G. P.