Dam Dedicator

Citizens of the Southwest last week took a good long look at the man who for six years had been their unseen President. What they saw seemed to please them; they grew very noisy in his presence.

In Arizona, Calvin Coolidge put aside the role of "plain tourist" which he had assumed "to look around California quietly" (TIME, March 3) and became, for the first time since he left the White House, a public character performing a public function. At the request of President Hoover, he broke his homeward journey across the continent at Globe, Ariz. In state as they used to be, he and Mrs. Coolidge were escorted 30 miles out across the desert to a canyon in the Gila River. Across the canyon, backing the river up into a 25-mile-long lake, lay a $6,000,000 dam named for Citizen Coolidge. As President, he had inaugurated this great reclamation project. As a President's representative, he last week dedicated it to (among other things) Religion, Education, Progress, Better Homes, Larger Incomes.

Some 15,000 persons, white and red, were gathered about the canyon when Citizen Coolidge arrived from Globe with Arizona's Governor John C. Phillips. He climbed up the dam parapet to speak. The beat of tom-toms died away. He had a sore throat; his voice was husky. A plane droned disturbingly in the desert stillness above. Citizen Coolidge began:

"I hesitated to come here because I am no longer in public office. For me to take part in this dedication seemed somewhat of a pretense. By nature I am not given to pretending. I finally came in response to a telegram from the President. . . .

"This dam and its waters do not need dedicating [cf. Lincoln's Gettysburg address: "We cannot dedicate this ground."] It is rather the people gathered here who need to be dedicated [of. Lincoln's Gettysburg address: "It is rather for us here to be dedicated."]* I do not suppose I am expected to speak to the dam and the water. Anything I might say to them would be of little effect. They will stand there unconscious in accordance with the laws of chemistry and physics and no utterance of mine will have any effect on them.

"So far as any dedicating is concerned, it should be of the people to the enjoyment and benefits of the water flowing out beneath this structure. This great project ought to make you better citizens. It will make this country more productive and bring in a larger income."

In the northwestern corner of Arizona is another, greater dam project--Boulder Dam on the Colorado River--upon which work has not yet been begun owing to the discontent of Arizonans over the proposed distribution of water and power among Arizona and six of her neighbor States. Mr. Coolidge, having spent some time on the Boulder Dam plans, took occasion to admonish Arizonans as 'follows: "It might be helpful when you get home if you would take down your Bible and read that portion which says 'Agree with thine adversary quickly.' "

Then Citizen Coolidge broke a bottle of Gila River water over the top of Coolidge Dam. As it trickled down the escarpment, Indians whooped, cowboys yelled, politicians clapped their white hands.

Particularly well pleased with Coolidge Dam are the Pima Indians whose reservation lands will chiefly benefit from the impounded waters. Their time-old enemy, the Apaches, a more wandering, warlike tribe, had been moved off lands above the dam to make way for Coolidge Lake, had received $146,000 in U.S. compensation. At the dam dedication, however, the Apaches were in peaceful mood./- They made Citizen Coolidge "Chief White Father"; the Pimas bestowed upon him the title of "The Bringer of Waters."** Then the chiefs of both tribes and Chief White Father sat down on top of the dam to smoke their first peace pipe.

Death kept Apache Chief Talkalai from the celebration. Aged 113, he died comfortably in his bed at Globe the day Citizen Coolidge arrived. An old friend of white men, Talkalai had served as scout years ago for a young Army lieutenant named John Joseph Pershing assigned to the Indian post of San Carlos, once an Apache capital, now submerged under Coolidge Lake.

Citizen Coolidge journeyed eastward to his Massachusetts home. When he arrived in New York he found himself the only living ex-President of the U. S. but he did not "expect" to attend the Taft funeral.

* As President, Mr. Coolidge occasionally cribbed passages of geographical description from International Encyclopedia to pad his speeches.

/-Two days later, 200 miles away near Douglas, Ariz., a band of 20 Apaches were caught "rustling" cattle. They battled white ranchers from ambush. Five Apaches were killed, one rancher was wounded.

** In 1927, the Sioux of South Dakota dubbed Calvin Coolidge "White Chief and Protector."

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