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    "label": "Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Oakland, California",
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    "title": "Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Oakland, California",
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            "day": 22,
            "logicalDate": "1948-09-22",
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    "seq": 3,
    "pageIndex": 0,
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    "url": "https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/hst-psf/201505/734727/734727-11-003.tif",
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    "ocrText": "OAKLAND\n3 -\nColumbia Basin, the Missouri, the Colorado.\nTAUMAN\n\"NATIONAL\nARCHIVES\nAND\nYou can count on the Democratic Party to support the Central\nRECORDS\nSERVICE\nValley Project, and to see it through to its conclusion. But you can't\ncount on the Republican leaders to go ahead with the full development of\nthe Central Valley.\nYou know how the Republican Eightieth Congress has delayed con-\nstruction work already started on the Central Valley Project. Apparently\nthey don't even want to finish the work that's already begun. Obviously\nyou can't count on them to go ahead on the bigger job that isn't yet\nstarted!\nThe reason for the opposition of the Republican leaders is plain.\nThe big business interests in the East who control the Republican\nParty don't believe in reclamation projects for the West. They don't see\nhow it does them any good to spend Federal money for that purpose, so they're\nagainst it. They are willing for the projects to be constructed - provided\nthey can get a rake-off in distributing the power produced at the dams.\nThey don't want power from which they don't get profit.\nThat's what you can expect from the special interest Republicans -\nfewer and smaller reclamation projects for irrigation and power, with the\npower that is produced, being turned over to private monopolies. That is\ntheir record.\nThe Eightieth Congress showed the attitude of the real rulers of\nthe Republican Party on this question, as it did on so many others. They\nhurt you and they hurt the Central Valley. They gave you a sample of what\nyou could expect if both the Administration and the Congress were controlled\nby Republicans.\nThe Republican Eightieth Congress cut the 1948 appropriation for\nthe Central Valley Project in half. Only when construction actually had\nto be halted on several phases of the project, could the Republican leaders\nbe persuaded to restore the funds to prevent further loss of time and money.\nIt was all that I could do to wring from the reluctant reactionaries\nthe consent to carry on the Central Valley Project. What hope would there\nbe of getting the Republicans to approve the vast new works that still\nneed to be undertaken?\nIn the Central Valley the people have also felt first-hand the\nresults of the influence that the private power lobby wielded so success-\nfully with the Republican Congress. Time and again, the Congress refused\nto appropriate money to build public transmission lines to distribute the\npower now available at Shasta Dam. Why? Because the private power crowd\nwants to buy the power at obe dam at a low price and sell it to consumers\nat a high price.\nThis private power crowd is the same short-sighted group whose\nrestrictive practices were responsible for the \"brown-out\" that caused\nyou so much trouble here last winter.\nYou can't get the benefit of low-cost power by dealing with\noutfits like that. The private power lobby is holding you up and the\nRepublican controlled Congress is helping them to do it.\nI see no reason why you should let a monopoly, which is run\nonly for private profit, obstruct the progress and economic advancement\nof the whole great State of California.\nI see no reason why you should suffer a \"brown-out\" to gratify\nthe greed of corporate monopoly. Nor do I see any reason why you should\nhave to keep on getting up an hour earlier every day when all the rest of\nthe United States is going off daylight saving time this fall.\nBut the Republicans who control the Appropriations Committee and\nother Committees of Congress think otherwise.\nCheap and plentiful public power is of little importance to them\nas compared with increasing the profits of their corporate friends.\nThe Republicans who control the Appropriations Committees of the\nHouse and Senate, on which the future of this great project depends, are\nnot Californians.\nThey are not Westerners.\n(OVER)"
}