A J O U R N A L OF J O H N A .
WIDTSOE
Colorado River Party, September 3-19, 1922, preliminary to the Santa Fe Conference which framed the Colorado River Compact. EDITED BY A. R. MORTENSEN W I T H A FOREWORD BY G. H O M E R D U R H A M *
FOREWORD
D
URING THE hearings before the House Committee on the Colorado River Storage Project in January, 1954, Mr. William R. Wallace inserted statements in Salt Lake City newspapers calling attention, among other things, to the role of Dr. John A. Widtsoe in the development and formulation of the Colorado River Compact, signed at Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1922. Dr. Widtsoe represented the state of Utah, with R. E. Caldwell and others, in arriving at this historic decision. During the public debate on the Echo Park Dam controversy in 1954, Mr. Wallace called attention to the "foresight" of Dr. Widtsoe at Santa Fe, in framing the Compact so that the upper basin states of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah might retain and not lose their rights. Said Mr. Wallace later that month in an address January 29, 1954, at the Hotel Utah for the John A. Widtsoe Memorial Foundation: In my mind's eye I can see Dr. Widtsoe sitting in council in 1922, in Santa Fe, with the men of the seven states of the Colorado River basin. They had decisions to make. They were to divide the waters into seven unequal but equitable portions and to remember Mexico. They had insufficient data. They were not even sure of * Vice-President of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
