Las Vegas Age

THE PHOENIX CONFERENCE.

IT IS GRATIFYING to know that Arizona has at last definitely committed herself to joining in another tri-state conference.
Whether or not an agreement shall be reached we cannot predict. Arizona's position in the past has seemed to be based on illogical premises. It may be that those in the other States of the Colorado River basin to be present Arizona state administration may think best for their state to follow the views and policies of their predecessors.
But the important thing is that Arizona has consented to join in this last effort to bring understanding between the states on the problems of developing the Colorado river. Should an agreement be reached, all well and good. We would have occasion to celebrate such a happy ending to a long drawn controversy.
But should Arizona still maintain her former position of opposition to the Boulder Dam project on which the future prosperity of the whole southwest depends she will alienate from herself to a large degree the good will of her sister states on which much of her own welfare depends.
AND, this is the important point, the government will proceed with the building of the Boulder Dam project just as swiftly and surely without Arizona's cooperation as with it. A little annoyance and possibly, though not probably, a little delay might result from her opposition. But the clouds of uncertainty would be cleared from the sky and public confidence in the construction of Boulder Dam project would be restored.
Had Arizona during the years she has opposed Boulder Dam had any means to defeat it she would have used them. She placed every possible obstacle in the way of the project during the years in which the legislation was in its formative stages.
In spite of that opposition, the administration at Washington was won over, Congress passed the bill by an overwhelming majority. The country as a whole adopted the project as its own.
Arizona, having been unable to wreck the project in its formative stages, notwithstanding that she used every possible means to do so, it is impossible to believe that she can defeat or delay it now after it has become a fixed policy of the government duly enacted into law.