Dam

Toiling along, happy though hot, President Hoover last week derived immense personal satisfaction from one official act. He proclaimed effective the water-rights compact on the Colorado River, agreed to by six out of seven interested states.* The proclamation cleared away the last obstacle to actual construction of a giant dam on the Colorado near Boulder or Black Canyons.

A 25-year-old interstate stalemate which blocked the river's development had been broken by Herbert Hoover, not as President but as Secretary of Commerce and chairman of the Colorado River Commission. There he had brought the states into sufficient agreement to make Boulder Dam possible. All smiles, the President said: "This compact . . . represents the most important action ever taken in that fashion under the Constitution. It opens the avenue for some hope of the settlement of other regional questions between states rather than the imposition of those problems on the federal government."

P:A movement is now afoot in the South-west to call the structure Hoover Dam.

P: President Hoover last week found three men to serve on his Federal Farm Board: James Clifton Stone of Lexington, Ky. (tobacco), Carl Williams of Oklahoma City (cotton), C. B. Denman of Farmington. Mo. (live stock). He hoped he would get three others, to whom he had publicly offered appointments: Alexander Legge of Chicago (business), W. S. Moscrip of St. Elmo, Minn, (dairy), Charles C. Teague of Los Angeles (fruit). The President was having difficulty finding No. 1 men for his board. An able No. 2 man might make his mark on the board but the President knew the board required a No. 1 on it to make its mark. President of International Harvester, Mr. Legge is a No. 1 man to farmers and financiers alike. He was reluctant, but finally let himself be drafted.

P: Last week a farewell dinner party was given in the White House. Guest of honor: Mrs. Mabel Walker Willebrandt. Occasion: her retirement as Assistant Attorney General in charge of prohibition.

P:President Hoover last week studied a system of sliding sugar tariffs brought to him by Sugarman Rudolph Spreckels of California. He jiggled it around experimentally to see if it would protect both consumer and producer, then laid it aside to proclaim an increase in the tariff on linseed oil from 3 3/10 cents per lb. to 3 7/10 cents.

*California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming. Arizona held out.