s
University of California Berkeley
Sam R. Leedom
CALIFORNIA WATER DEVELOPMENT, 1930 - 1955
An Interview conducted and edited
*>y
Gerald J. Giefer
Statewide Water Resources Center, University of California
in cooperation with the
Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, Berkeley
Berkeley,
Sam R. Leedom
All uses of this manuscript are covered by an
agreement between the Regents of the University
of California and Sam R. Leedom, dated
15 August 1967. The manuscript is thereby made
available for research purposes. All literary
rights in the manuscript, including the right
to publish, are reserved to the Bancroft Library
of the University of California at Berkeley. No
part of the manuscript may be quoted for publi
cation without the written permission of the
Director of The Bancroft Library of the Univer
sity fo California at Berkeley.
PREFACE
The following interview is one of a series on "The Oral
History of California Water Resources Development" sponsored by
the Water Resources Center of the University of California and
conducted at the Los Angeles and Berkeley campuses of the Uni
versity during 1965, 1966, and 1967. In setting up the project,
the nature and scope of the work was described as follows:
The basic purpose of this program will be to
document historical developments in California s water
resources by means of tape recorded interviews with men
who have played a prominent role in this field. Much of
the published material on California s water resources
describes engineering and economic studies of specific
water projects. Little, however, is devoted to the
concepts, evolution of plans, and areas of authority
exercised by various interested Federal, State and local
agencies.
For example, there is little reference material
with regard to the transition of administration of the
Central Valley Project from the State of California to
the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the early 1930 s.
Similarly, the negotiations leading to contracts for
water between the State of California and the Metropol
itan Water District of Southern California are not
documented. Yet, both of these agreements had profound
effects on water resources policy in California. Re
corded interviews can piece together these important
links in California s water resources history. The
resulting material will provide a valuable fund of infor
mation for researchers in the years to come.
The Berkeley project is under the faculty direction of
J.W. Johnson, Director, Hydraulics Engineering Laboratory;
ii
Professor, Hydraulic Engineering, and David K. Todd, Ph.D.,
Professor of Civil Engineering. Gerald J. Giefer, Librarian,
Water Resources Center Archives, is responsible for the inter
viewing and processing of the manuscripts which are being
handled in co-operation with the Regional Oral History Office of
the Bancroft Library. Final manuscripts are available for
research at the Water Resources Center, UCIA; Department of
Special Collections, Library, UCIA; Department of Special
Collections, Library, UC Davis; Water Resources Center Archives,
UC Berkeley; The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley; and the Regional
Oral History Office, UC Berkeley.
Included in the series at this date are Harvey 0. Banks,
Sam Leedom, and Sidney T. Harding. The researcher is also
referred to oral history interviews on California water develop
ment done previously by the Regional Oral History Office with
Frank Adams, Louis Bartlett, Stephen Downey, William Durbrow,
Herbert Jones, Charles Lambert, and J. Rupert Mason.
Willa Klug Baum, Head
Regional Oral History Office
15 September 1967
Regional Oral History Office
Room 486 The Bancroft Library
University of California
Berkeley, California
INTRODUCTION
Sam Leedom was associated with California state water administration
for eighteen years. Prior to his state government service, he was
a newspapernan for fifteen years.
Mr. Leedom 1 s newspaper career began in Orland, Glenn County, in
192U. He worked also in Redding before joining the Sacramento Bee
in 1927j where he remained until shortly before undertaking
government service. His newspaper years were high-lighted by
several trips to the Orient from where he dispatched stories of
the Japanese In Manchuria (1933), and on his second trip (1936),
of life in the Dutch East Indies.
Els association with water in California began in 1939 when he was
appointed, in the Olson administration, as administrative officer
to the Water Project Authority. During World War II, Mr. Leedom
served in the Army with the rank of Captain: he had served also in
World War I with the Havy. Following World War II he became admini
strative assistant to the State Water Resources Board. He retired
from this position in 1957-
Mr. Leedom lives in El Granada where he and his wife have a house
on the side of a hill overlooking Half Moon Bay. They think now
that they gave themselves too much garden space. It was at their
home that this interview was recorded in 1966, in a room facing the
ill
sea and decorated vith pieces of the batik brought hone fro* the
East Indies. Mr. Leedom wanted mostly to "spin a yarn" about his
old friends Ed Hyatt and Bob Edmonston, vhich he does vith fondness
and respect.
Gerald J. Olefer
Librarian, Water Resources Center Archives
August, 1967
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ill
Personal reminiscences 1
Newspaper work in the Sacramento Valley 6
The Sacramento Bee 9
Ed Hyatt and R.M. Edition st on 11
The Marshall Plan l6
Ed Hyatt and the California Water Plan 17
Water Project Authority 21
Ed Hyatt and the Central Valley Project 26
Earl Warren 39
Central Valley Project Ul
Ilyatt and Edmonston ^5
California Water Commission 60
State Water Resources Board ^3
Index 81
(Interview No. 1, January 13, 1966)
Personal Reminiscences
G-iefesr: You vere born In Wyoming?
Leedom: No, I was born in Nebraska, but I grew up in a small
Mormon community in the Big Horn Basin in Wyoming. This
is in the early 1900 s. My father bought a newspaper in
Lovell, Wyoming in 1908. We were one of three gentile
families in the community. This made me a suspect
minority. At that time the Mormon Church in Salt Lake
was in the process of settling colonies all through the
Rocky Mountain area. They would send out to various
localities a group of about 100 farmers, artisans, etc.
and start the colony. It so happened that in the Big
Horn Basin they established three: there was Lovell
where I grew up, Byron up the Shoshone River about eight
miles, and Cowley across on the other side of the river.
This formed a triangle about eight miles to the side.
These people were trve pioneers in developing raw
land and putting it under irrigation. They did all of
it by the pick and shovel, horse and scrapper methods of
those days. In the particular locality where I grew up,
they diverted their water by gravity from the Shoshone
River which heads in Yellowstone Park. One of the first
large Bureau of Reclamation projects was built here. The
Shoshone Dam near Cody and canals extended down to the
Powell Plat which was a distance of about 20 miles. That
2.
Leedom: w* 8 among the first of the Bureau of Reclamation projects.
It was quite fancy compared to the Mormon project which
was another 20 miles down the river.
These Mormons were supposed to be able to make water
run uphill. If you looked at their canal which followed
along the foot of a bench at the edge of the valley, it
certainly did appear to run uphill.
Giefer: Where did they acquire this know-how?
Leedom: I don t know where they acquired the know-how. I think
it was from experiments in Utah. These people name from
what they called "Dixie" in southern Utah, which is down
around St. George. I believe there is an irrigation
system there built by the Mormons in those early days.
However, they did not understand drainage. Their canal
was built on almost a cobble rock base so they lost a
good deal of the water through seepage. The seepage
backed up behind cross ridges of hard pan and eventually
turned their farming area into white lakes of alkali on
which nothing would grow. I am talking about 1910. At
that time their crops were what was called lucerne, which
is alfalfa and sugar beets. Those were the principle crops
of the area. If they grew 18 tons of what we now consider
low sugar content beets to the acre, they thought they had
a marvelous crop. As a matter of fact, that became a
center of sugar beet growing, that area and the Powell Flat.
The Western Sugar and Refining Company built a sugar re
finery in my town of Lovell, Wyoming.
3.
Leedom: However, I did not become acquainted with irrigation
in California until after World War I. I came direct
from my discharge from the Navy at Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
The area around there was all under irrigation. I could
not believe it because there were no ditches. You saw
no running water anywhere in the Los Angeles area. It
was hard for me to believe that they were actually
irrigating. You could see the cement stand pipes at
intervals in places but it did not look like irrigating
to me.
Getting out of the Navy, I found that all you had
to do in Long Beach was to appear in your uniform and they
would give you a Job in the ship yards for a fabulous
salary in those days. I worked there from the time I
arrived in southern California in January of 1919, until
the opening of the fall semester at Berkeley. Then I
found that I could combine my studies at the University
with a night shift at the Moore Ship Yard down in Oakland.
I had the classification of riveter. Riveting is pretty
heavy work. I could also handle the chipping and calking
gun which is much lighter. So I went in as a chipper and
calker in the ship yard and worked there nights. I would
leave Berkeley on the key system train that ran me down
to the Oakland station. From there I guess I walked up
to the ship yards, or they may have had a Jitney trans
portation system. I don t remember. My connection with
water up to that date had been nil except for the irrigation
k.
Leedom: in Wyoming.
Incidentally, speaking of Wyoming and water, I had
never seen a pond of water larger than a lake about a
mile across before I enlisted in the Navy. I was sent
back to Chicago and up to the Great Lakes Naval Training
Station where I was confined like all others in the Navy
for two weeks in a camp to make sure that we were bringing
no serious disease into the ranks. Then we were given
a week-end leave. There was a lake shore interurban
which ran up through Waukegan to Milwaukee. On this
leave I had my first view of Lake Michigan. A friend
of mine from Omaha, Nebraska, who was in the same
company of the Navy as I, found out that there was a
lot of free entertainment in Waukegan so we boarded
this interurban train and started up there.
I was sitting on the right hand side of the car.
Suddenly here was an expanse of blue reaching to the
horizon. I had never before seen such a thing. I had
never seen anything blue which reached to the horizon
which was not a blue pine-clad mountain. I said to my
companion, "I thought there was a lake around here. What
is that hill out there?" He said, "You fool. That s Lake
Michigan."
But to get back to California water. After I went
to the University, I did not finish my final term. I had
to be out one semester to catch up on my college debts.
I decided, like a good many other young people, that there
5.
Leedora: was very little else that the University could teach one
so well informed as I was at that point. I had decided
at the University to become a mechanical engineer. At
the end of my sophomore year I came back to the fraternity
house in which I lived and roomed with a senior in engineer
ing. This particular night they were engaged in a very
difficult engineering problem. I came in, casually looked
over their shoulders, and went to bed. The next morning
when I got up, I thought, "What an idiot I must be to be
taking engineering when I did not have enough interest
in a senior year problem to even ask anything about it."
I immediately changed over to Letters and Science and
began to take everything which I thought would be required
to fit me for a newspaper career because I had grown up
with a newspaper since the time I could set type.
The summer of 1922 I spent as a linotype operator
up on a little paper in the middle of the Sacramento Valley
at Or land. It was located in the center of the Bureau of
Reclamation irrigation project, the Stony Creek project.
That actually was my first contact with irrigation in
California. They had great dreams of grandeur for the
future of that area. It was going to bloom and blossom
like no other area in California. Warren Woodson, a
promoter at Corning, had built a tower in the center of
Corning. In those days they were still bringing train
loads of middle -we stern land seekers to Corning. He
would take them up in this tower of his and show them
6.
Leedom: the expanse of orange groves and olive groves; that was
going to be the great future of California right there.
Newspaper Work in the Sacramento Valley
The following year, at the end of the fall semester,
I started up the Sacramento Valley with a banjo under
one arm and a suitcase under the other, all my possessions
in the world, looking for a Job, a newspaper Job. In
spite of my great learnings at the University of California,
I found that my services as a newspaperman were rather
lightly regarded by the editors who interviewed me. I
tried though. I hit all the towns from Sacramento to
Chico. It so happened there that I struck it rich, not
as a newspaperman but I got a job with a dance band
playing for the New Year s and Christmas dances. It
refinanced me for sure.
Then I tried Red Bluff. Finally at Redding I talked
with Walter Fink who was editor of The Courier Free Press.
After outlining to him my experience, and trying to im
press him with my brilliance, he sat back and said, "Well,
how much do you think it should cost me to let you experi
ment with my paper?" I told him that I had several bad
habits. I like to sleep indoors, like to eat, and I was
a little finicky about having clean shirts, and that I had
one very bad habit I smoked cigarettes. He told me, "You
go over to Mother Stone s. She has a boarding house around
the corner. It is a good one. Find out what it will cost
7-
you a month. Then you figure out what these other
necessities will cost you."
So I did; it was $60 a month at Mother Stone s
boarding house. I figured that the laundry and
cigarettes would not cost me more than $10 because
I had an ace in the hole in my banjo. Fink hired me
for $70 a month as a cub reporter on his newspaper.
There were two daily papers in Redding The
Searchlight was a morning paper and The Courier Free
Press was an afternoon paper. They are now combined
into one paper.
Giefer: Did you go back to school after that?
Leedom: No, I worked for Fink for two years. Then I leased
the Orland Register from Wigraore, the editor. I ran
that for eight months. I was trying to do both the inside
and the outside work. The result was that I overdid it
and finally had a breakdown. I think probably the bad
grape brandy that they made there had something to do
with it because I developed a rheumatic condition and I
had to give up the lease on the paper. After several months
of boiling out at the springs and recuperating, I went
back to work for Fink in Redding.
By then I was making $35 * week. No, I was making
$25 a week. Fink walked into the office one day and said,
"I ve got some relatives back in Pennsylvania and I am
going to take a little trip back there. If you get in
any trouble, Ore Chenoworth is our attorney. The fore-
8.
Leedom: man of the composing room is a gentleman and a scholar;
take his advice." With that he walked out and left me
with the paper on my hands. I did not hear from Fink
for two months. Then he sauntered in one day Just as
casually as he had walked out. He walked over to the
back issues of the paper and flipped through them. I
think he was looking more as an act then anything. He
came into my office and said, "I see we haven t any libel
suits on our hands. You ve done all right," he said,
"I think I will raise your salary."
That week end I got a check with a salary of $^5
a week dated back to the time when he had gone on his
trip.
Redding at that time was very much interested in the
investigation at Kennett being conducted by, I think, the
Division of Irrigation. Kennett was the location of a
copper smelter that had flourished to the extent that the
fumes from it had killed all the fish in the river; killed
off all the vegetation on the hillside; and made farming
something of a problem down the upper part of the Sacramento
Valley. But California had passed a law enforcing what
we now call smog control. The smelter finally shut down .
It was still running when I first went to Redding in 1923.
I think it closed down shortly thereafter. The interest
there, of course, was intense in the proposed dam at
Kennett .
There was just as much interest however in a proposed
Leedom: dam at Iron Canyon in Red Bluff, the rival city 30
miles down the highway from Redding. Red Bluff was
booming Iron Canyon while Redding was booming the
Kennett Dam project. Both were under study by the
state at this point.
The Sacramento Bee
It was not until I was offered a job with the
Sacramento Bee that I actually cane into close contact
with the water problems in California. The Bee was
an ardent public ownership supporter. That was one of
its basic policies. It had about three: one was public
ownership; two was trees, all trees were stately and had
to be conserved; three, if it could be called a policy,
was that it was not news until it was printed in the Bee.
By a fluke of circumstances I was only on the Bee
about eight months when I was made the city editor. This
is beside the point, but when I moved to Sacramento I had
a young doctor friend who had been made the prison doctor
at Folsom. Vfy wife and I used to run up there quite fre
quently on weekends. I would tour the prison with the
doctor so I became quite intimately acquainted with the
interior of the prison. The following Thanksgiving was
the Thanksgiving Day riot at the Folsom Prison. It
developed that there was not a soul on the Sacramento Bee
who knew anything about the interior of the prison, nor
did they have any pictures of it. I happened to be the
10.
Leedora: lucky person who did know so they moved me onto the city
desk. I drew diagrams, which our artists finished, showing
the layout of the interior of the prison and so on and so
forth. Then when we finally got finished putting out
extras at about two o clock in the morning, I crawled
into my car and went up to Folsom. I sat around for an
hour or so and then came back to the office and wrote a
color story of the thing. Carlos McClatchy, the son of
the owner of the Bee who had been a captain in the in
fantry during World War I and thouglt himself quite a
military man, had been at his father s home in Sacramento
as a guest for Thanksgiving. When the prison riot broke
out, he immediately took off and took full command of the
National Guard and everything else involved in the riot.
The next morning he wrote a page one yarn. He had the
grace to put my two column color story as a side box of
his on page one. Otherwise I would probably have been a
copy reader in what they call the "Sup" department t "Superior
California News" 3 for another 100 years. As a result of
that fluke though, I came to the notice of both C.K. and
his son. There was an opening coming up on the city desk.
They needed a city editor so I was moved in as a raw
recruit from the outside over these old heads who had
worked around there for 15 or 20 years.
Giefer: You had been there for how long six or seven months?
Leedom: Yes, six or seven months.
Giefer: How did you happen to come down to Sacramento?
R. M. Edmonston and Ed Hyatt, October 3, 1940
11.
Leedom: Through Roy Goodwin who was in charge of the "Sup-Cal".
You see there was not any "Northern California" on the
Sacramento Bee. It was always "Superior California". They
had a whole section of the paper devoted to the hill-billy
news from every crossroad in northern California. They
called it the "Sup-Cal" Department. The copyreaders in
this department had to take the scribbled notes of these
country correspondents and their telephone calls and
translate them into English. They had to get them into
the paper in readable form.
Giefer: Things like "our special correspondent in Orland?"
Leedom: I had been the correspondent in Orland and Redding
for the paper. I will say this for the McClatchy news
papers, the Bee s whole foundation and popularity was
based upon the fact that they carried the news of every
hamlet in northern California. They made a specialty of
rural news. Nations might be crashing all over the place,
but it was more important whether Mrs. Jones gave birth
to a daughter or a son. That was in 1927-
Ed Hyatt and R. M. Edmonston
That same year Ed Hyatt wms made state engineer. Sacra
mento at that time was a city of 65,900 people. If you
knew everyone who belonged to the Sutter Club and the
country club, and the outstanding state officials, then
you knew all the important people in Sacramento. As the
city editor, it was my business to know them, so I knew
12.
Leedom: Ed Hyatt from the day he was made state engineer. I
think so far as this record is concerned, I want to
deal largely with what I consider the two giants in
our water development from a state standpoint. That
is Ed Hyatt who served the longest time of anyone as
state engineer prior or since, and Bob Edmonston,his
right-hand man who came to the division much later than
Ed did, though; his hidden strength in the division. I
have always thought of them as a Castor and Pollux team.
One depended upon the other; the strength of one was the
strength of the other.
Edmonston was the engineering genius. Hyatt was
the brainy front man who knew when a thing should be pushed,
how far it should be pushed, and how to deal not only
with the state politicians but with the national politicians
as well.
Giefer: Hyatt was in the division while McClure and Bailey were
both there?
Leedom: Hyatt s career in what we now call the Department of Water
Resources dates back to 19l6. When he retired in 1950, he
had had thirty-five years in the state departments of which
thirty-three had been connected with water development in
California. He had spent two years with the California
Highway Commission between 19lU and 1916 when he transferred
to the, then, State Water Commission.
Giefer: Actually, Hyatt and Edmonston were contemporaries.
13-
Leedom: Ed was born and raised down in Riverside County right on
the edge of the desert. He went to school in his early
days out in Jacinto which is right on the edge of the
desert. His father then was the superintendent of schools
of Riverside County. I think, yes, at the time Ed was
graduating from high school in Riverside in 1906, his
father became state superintendent of education in Sacra
mento so the family moved from Riverside to Sacramento.
Ed actually grew up in Sacramento politics from the time
he was out of high school. He entered Stanford. His
class was 1910, the same as Edmonston s. He took time
off though. He went east to school for one year. I think
then that he just dilly-dallied for another year, but he
graduated in 1912.
Edmonston, on the other hand, grew up in Humboldt
County, the wettest spot in the state, or nearly the
wettest spot in the state, in a little village of Petrolia.
He never let anyone forget that he was from Petrolia,
Humboldt County. He went to school up in Perndale. He
often told me that during the flood stage of the Eel how
difficult it was for them to get to school because they
rode horseback down to the Eel River, crossed the river
by rowboat, went to school in Ferndale, then they made the
trip back; each time they made the trip it was necessary
to drag the boat far upstream then start out rowing and
land far downstream on the other side. Particularly during
these winter months when the Eel was in flood stage it was
Leedom: hard.
Bob graduated from Stanford in 1910. He immediately
went into the construction of irrigation works. I think
the South San Joaquin irrigation district was the first
one he worked on. Incidentally, one of his most valuable
assistants, P.H. VanEtten, also worked on that irrigation
project.
Both Edmonston and VanEtten were veterans of World
War I. Throughout their entire career, they were very
closely associated. While VanEtten never signed a document
other than P.H. VanEtten, he was always addressed by his
friend Bob as Percival Hicks VanEtten. As I say, I knew
Hyatt intimately long before I actually got mixed up in
the politics of water in California. I say intimately;
I mean as a newspaper man knows a prominent state official.
He was continually in the news columns from 1930 on
through the rest of his career, a period of 20 years. I
think there was scarcely a week that went by that Hyatt
did not make news. He was either in Washington on conference,
or someone from Washington was out here. He was one of
our best news sources around the state capital for the
Sacramento Bee because the Bee, you might say, was an
ardent supporter of the development of our natural resources,
particularly if it were done by public enterprise. Private
enterprise was frowned upon although the McClatchy chain of
newspapers and radio stations was probably one of the most
prominent, sprawling chains of private enterprise in the
15.
Leedom: state of California.
Giefer: How do you suppose something like this happens? Was
it a personal idiosyncrasy?
Leedom: It was a personal idiosyncrasy on the part of C.K. McClatchy.
Old C.K. was a very fine gentleman and a scholar, but he
had decided somewhere in his early days that our natural
resources such as water and power should be developed only
through public effort. Public ownership was the watch word.
He was all for irrigation districts and their private
construction because that was public construction. He
was bitterly opposed though to the development of any
of our streams by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company,
the Southern California Edison Company, or Western State
Gas and Electric Company. Like many successful editors,
once a policy was established on a paper, it was never
changed; it might be stupid; it might be senseless; it might
be anything, but it was never changed. As a result people
would say, "Well, I don t agree with old C.K. but he certainly
is a fighter. He never changes his positions." Which is
one of the elemental things concerning newspapers that
many people overlook. In order to be respected, establish
a policy and never change it, regardless of whether you
are proved wrong or whether you are right; don t change.
Then you become successful and respected.
Giefer: Do you recall from this early period Hyatt s opinion of how
things were going in the division?
16.
Leedom: Hyatt, in spite of being the promoter of what was a fabulous
proposal for those days, was actually a very conservative,
cautious man. He never tried to build an empire in his
own department. He kept his staff down to a minimum. He
and Edmonston had the ability to get good men. They had
men like VanEtten, Gerald R. Jones, Bob Jones, Jim Haley,
Ray Matthews, Stafford, Althouse, and in addition to that,
they were able to get support from the leading experts in
water and power development in the state. Look down through
the list of consultants in Bulletin 25, which proposed
the Central Valley Project and the "State Water Plan."
This actually was not the State Water Plan at all. It
was a plan for the immediate development of a major
project in the Central Valley, but it was called the
"State Water Plan."
The Marshall Plan
To go back a little, Ed Hyatt, when he got out of
college, went with the U.S.G.S. making surveys in the
state . Robert Bradford Marshall was the top man in the
Federal Geographical Surveys at that time. It has often
been said since that Ed s association with Marshall was
directly responsible for his creation of the Central Valley
Project. However, in the many years that I knew him
intimately, I did not get that impression. Marshall s
project, with its giant canals along both sides of the
Valley, was not a new idea. It had been proposed back
IT-
Leedom: in the l880 s or thereabouts as a private enterprise. They
were going to combine transportation of water with canal
boat transportation to supplement the railroads. Marshall s
plan was splendid on paper but it was not realistic in that
it cut across every irrigation development that had already
been built in the Central Valley, the Sacramento and San
Joaquin Valleys. It was impossible also from the standpoint
of construction. It interfered with water rights, water
supplies, already established districts. As I say, it
looked fine on paper and was a grandiose scheme, but Ed
Hyatt was too much of a realist to go for anything like
that.
Bd Hyatt and the California Water Plan
His state water plan was actually a kind of a will-o -
the-wisp that developed like a chrysalis. It started with
one man s idea and was improved upon by the next man. All
of these men- -Paul Bailey, McClure, previous state engineers,
had a hand in bringing the project to an engineering
fruitation. Each one of these previous plans was deficient
in some respect, even as the Central Valley Project as
proposed in 1931 was deficient in some respects. They
were going to pump water up the San Joaquin Valley. They
were going to use the San Joaquin River with a series of
dams and pump from one to the other and so on and so forth.
That has been changed, but basically the Central Valley
Project as it exists today is the same thing that was proposed
18.
Leedom: in 1931.
As I say, I knew of and about Hyatt through the
years from 1927 up to 1939 because he was news. Those
were the days of constant movement in our water development
particularly in the early 1930 s. Of course when Bulletin
25 came out we were in the throes of a great depression.
I think it was the following year that Franklin D. Roose
velt was elected and established the New Deal. He took
the county out of the doldrums and held up hope that maybe
the federal government would lend a hand in this monstrous
project out here. It was not then conceived that the
federal government should take it over by any manner
or means. But, what the state wanted was some federal
assistance.
Giefer: Incidentally, what were Hyatt s politics?
Leedom: Ed Hyatt was a die-hard, dyed-in-the-wool, conservative
Republican. This reminds me of one of the most embarrassing
days of his life, I think. Ed had worked with every, what
I call old water-wheel, in the Sacramento and San Joaquin
Valley. Most of them were very conservative farmers, big
farmers and successful farmers, almost to a man die-hard,
conservative Republican. It camealong the time of the
ground breaking (I think it was in 1939) for the Friant
Dam out from Fresno. The Bureau of Reclamation planned a
big ceremony to draw attention to their ground breaking
activities down there. The old water-wheels Joined in
with them, but they took over the matter of the ceremony
19.
Leedom: to the point where they virtually crowded all of the
Bureau people out of the picture. But the guest of
honor for the occasion was Harold Ickes, director of the
Department of the Interior; Harold was not about to be
shoved aside by anyone. They were holding a dinner in
his honor at Fresno. All of the prominent California
Democrats were at the head table. Ickes was flanked
on one side by Governor Olson and on the other side by
Frank Clark who was the Director of Public Works, and
so on down the table, all the very prominent Democrats.
Sitting alone at the head table in this great welter of
New Deal Democrats was poor little ol 1 Ed Hyatt. He
sat there facing out in the audience all the die-hard,
conservative Republicans of the San Joaquin and Sacramento
Valley.
Incidentally, everyone for as long as I could remember
Ed was always referred toSd as "little ol 1 Bd." Actually,
Ed Hyatt stood about six feet tall. When he squared his
shoulders up, he was rather broad shouldered. He was
very thin though and kind of slouched and had an utter dis
regard for his clothes. He usually looked as if he had just
come off second best in a wrestling match with Harpo Marx,
but that was probably why everyone referred to him- -poor
little ol 1 Ed. He was far from being a little man and was
a great outdoors man. He loved to ride and hike. He was
an ardent fisherman. I guess he came by it naturally.
His father before him was a great outdoors man, a great
20.
Leedom: naturalist, but very careless about his manner of dress.
I had this story from Merritt Nickerson, who was the
photographer for the Department of Public Works for many,
many years: One time there was some function in the capitol
when the leading state officers were to attend accompanied
by their wives. The elder Hyatt was walking down the
corridor of the capitol. Nickerson overheard him tell
his wife, "Now you Just walK ten feet behind me, Mrs. H.,
and no one will know you are with me."
Edmonston, on the other hand, who was born in a very
mountainous, attractive area, cared nothing whatsoever
for hunting, fishing, or outdoor sports. He did have one
foible, however. If there was a crooked mountain road
as an alternate to a well traveled road, he would take
the crooked mountain road that led back into the hills,
past dam sites, and to on and so forth. When he got
back where it was impossible to go any farther, he would
get out and hike. He was a huge man and he would scramble
up and down the hills with the best of them in spite of
the fact that he had a bad leg which he got from a const ru-
c tion accident, I think, when they were building the dam
at Lake Spaulding. He was working then for the Western
State Gas and Electric which later was absorbed by the
P.O. & E. I don t know just how the accident occurred, but
his leg was badly broken in several places. It bothered
him for the rest of his life.
21.
Water Project Authority
Leedom: Let us get back fo the beginning of my real involvement
in vater resources development in California. In 1938
Senator Olson was campaigning against Frank Merriam for
the governorship and won the election. When he was inau
gurated in January of 1939> the whole picture in Sacramento
changed. The capitol was filled with a horde of hungry
Democratic office seekers because it was the first time
in 30 years or more that a Democrat had been elected
governor of the state of California. During that
Session of the legislature, I was working for the Associated
Press and became well acquainted with George Killion who
then e Olson s public relations man. The governor was
having great difficulty in finding worthy Democrats to
fill open state offices. He made Killion Director of
Finance, Director of Motor Vehicles, and an acting office
holder in three or four other positions. This, of course,
eliminated his usefulness to the governor as a public
relations man. George asked me if I would step in and
help out in the governor s office. With my background
with the McClatchy newspapers, it was assumed that I was
an ardent public ownership advocate, a sound New Dealer,
because the McClatchy papers had supported Roosevelt
from the beginning of his candidacy. And I guess that I
was sold on the New Deal and its program of socialization.
However, any competent newspaper man can write just as good
a speech for a Democrat as he can for a Republican or he
22.
Leedom: is not worth his salt to begin with. You have to be
like an attorney. You take a case and you are either
for this or against something. If you are a competent
attorney, then you prove your case.
At any rate the governor s office was short on
funds for staff. They solved the problems by hiding
out in the various departments the men who could aid the
governor s cause. Because of my background with the
McClatchy newspapers, it was felt that the best place
for me would be executive officer of the Water Project
Authority. I was put on TAU there, took the civil
service examination, and subsequently was appointed the
administrative officer of the Water Project Authority.
At that time Ed Hyatt, of course, under the law was the
secretary of the Authority. It was the duty of the
administrative officer to do the secretary s work.
That was my first acquaintance with Bob Edmonston.
Up to that time he had been just a name to me. When I
first walked into his office, he was seated as usual at
this desk. He was a huge man, always in white shirt
sleeves as I was later to find, always with a cigarette in
his mouth, the ashes dripping down his necktie. He rather
reminded me of a wily old elephant. He knew you were there
but he did not let on that he knew it.
At that time Frank W. Clark was the Olson appointee
as the Director of Public Works. He was cramming the
Division of Water Resources with New Dealers, actually with
23.
Leedom: the objective of ousting Hyatt who was far from sympathetic
with the ardent New Deal objective of socializing all water
and power resources in the state. They installed Louis
Bartlett, a little attorney, I guess 65 years old, from
Berkeley, a member of the Commonwealth Club whose principal
objective in life was to beat the drums for public owner
ship. Secretly Clark was touting Louie to take over the
position of Chief of the Division of Water Resources although
he was not an engineer. It would have involved some shifting
of the law but that has been done before . He c Bartlett 3
had a dual capacity- -one, to see that Hyatt and Edmonston
initiated a vigorous campaign for public ownership; and
the other, to report directly to Clark on any variation
from this objective.
Giefer: How did Bartlett fit into the Commonwealth Club? They
certainly were not for public ownership, were they?
Leedom: No, but they had a very large collection of members and
he was one of the odd -balls in the Club. He was a shrewd
little attorney, but unsound. He was like all idealists- -
he had a nebulous objective that he did seem to be able
to rationalize with the reality of the situation.
At the time I went to work for the Authority, they
had collected a group in the Division headed by Bartlett
which included a couple of so-called power experts, Ernie
Rollson who bad been the city manager in Redding which
had a municipally owned power system was one. Then there
was a so-called fiscal expert by the name of Crocker, and
2k.
Leedom: several others. Their purpose was to issue a bulletin
which would show the advantages of public ownership of
power. Edmonston, of course, was in charge of this
endeavor. Without appearing to do so, he checkmated
them at virtually every move. In other words, he said,
"Okay now let s take Redding. It has municipal ownership.
Let s find out what is off the tax rolls in Redding, that
would have been paid by a private utility, what rate
benefits do the consumers get, and so on. How much of
this is supported by taxes. Let s see how much of this
is hidden away on the library funds, and how much of it
is hidden away here, and hidden away there." He knew
all of the cover-ups, you might say, used to make public
ownership most desirable.
Being an appointee direct from the governor s office,
I of course was under suspicion as being a spy and a cut
throat for some time. However, Ed and I hit it off immediately.
It was not very long before I became cognizant of the under
ground politics that were going on. My sympathy was entirely
with Hyatt. The Water Project Authority at that time was
comprised of Frank Clark, the Director of Public Works;
George Killion, Director of Finance (both of these were
Olson appointees); Earl Warren, then Attorney General;
Gus Johnson, a Republican hold-over; and Ray Riley, State
Controller. This gave the Authority a membership of two
Democrats and three Republicans. The three Republicans
of the Authority were not too terribly, to say the least,
25.
Leedom: in accord with their chairman s views on public owner
ship. My position as administrative assistant, under
direction of the chairman, was not the most comfortable.
Clark had the habit of giving orders without seeking
the advice of the Authority. Then he would have them
countermanded by the majority on the Authority. For in
stance, it was the second year of the exposition on
Treasure Island where the Authority had a Central Valley
Project exhibit. It was proposed that a pamphlet on
the Central Valley Project particularly emphasizing
the desirability of its cheap power feature be boomed.
I think it took me five months of preparation and revisions
directed by Clark, and re-revisions directed by the Water
Project Authority. When it was finally issued, it was
a very adequate pamphlet. Far under the desires of the
department and Clark, but a fair statement of fact. In
cidentally, I was in charge of that exhibit on Treasure
Island. For the first time we accomplished a method of
super-imposing motion pictures on a slide background. The
exhibit comprised a sixty foot diaramic screen, one of the
first diaramas in California. With sets of balopt icons
we showed a huge map of California 60 long and 20 high.
This map changed with the story of the development of the
Valley. Then, with a series of three automatic moving
picture projectors we showed the actual scenes of construction
of the Central Valley Project in their location on the map.
We showed irrigation works, products and so on, to animate
26.
Leedom: the show, which lasted some 15 or 20 minutes. The
whole thing was operated from a very rudimentary fore
runner of our computer or punch button system of running
things. The voice, the background music, all of the
balopticons, moving picture projectors, the opening of
a double set of curtains, one heavy outer curtain with
a golden curtain behind it on which the original map
of California was first dimly shown as the curtains opened
on our diaramic screen. It all ran off of this one machine
which was constantly going on the blink. It required the
work of an electrician almost daily during the run of the
second year of the fair. It did attract a great number
of people though. It brought to them visual evidence
of the progress of the project up to that date.
Giefer: This was in 1939 and 19^0?
Leedom: 1939, the fair ran 1938 and 1939 and this was the second
year of the fair. I was on the island practically all
the time. We, Merritt Nickerson and I, took all the moving
pictures. I did my own cutting and pasting of the film.
It turned out to be a pretty good little exhibit.
(Interview No. 2, January 18, 1966)
Ed Hyatt and the Central Valley Project
Ed has often been called the father of the Central
Valley Project. I think he was probably both father
and mother of the project. He was directly responsible
27.
Leedom: for it being authorized by state law.
The project itself was, of course, the culmination
of a long series of engineering studies in which Ed
participated actively from the early 1920 s onward.
His background in the division was such that, of necessity,
he became acquainted with the leaders in irrigation
development in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys
and in southern California and the Imperial Valley.
Every irrigation district in the state, new or old, had,
and still has probably, water rights problems. The
Division of Water Resources was the last recourse in
these questions outside of the courts. As a consequence,
Ed had a wide acquaintance not only with the people
directly responsible for the management of the irrigation
districts, but also the basic problems of the districts
both in engineering and legal areas. You have to remember
that, in 1920 and 1921 when the final engineering studies
were authorized for the Central Valley Project, the state
was relatively small in population. It had about three
million people of which a relatively small minority were
concerned with the water development in the state. The
large industrial centers were not particularly concerned
with water problems at that time. Therefore, out of the
three million people Hyatt became personally acquainted
with virtually everyone in the state who dealt with the
development of water resources. As I said before, Ed s
manner of dress and simplicity of approach to the individual
28.
Leedom: created confidence among the farmers and others who were
engaged in developing the water re sources.
Giefer: He was being sent out on assignments?
Leedom: Either through being sent out or through people coming to
the Division for advice or with their problems. In
addition to that, the field studies which were being made
of the Central Valley Project through the period of 1921
up until 1931 brought the Division of Water Resources
and the personnel of the Water Resources in close
contact with the farmers in the irrigation districts
throughout the state.
With this large acquaintance, it was only natural that
when he became the state engineer in 1927 the people in
water development would turn to their friend Ed Hyatt
for advice or help with their problems. When Bulletin 25
was finally issued in 1931, Ed in turn went to his former
friends for their support.
During the 1920 s it must be remembered that the
Water and Power Act which would put the state in the water
and power business had been defeated at the polls at least
three times. It was defeated in 1922, then in 1921*, and
again in 1926. So when the Division of the Water Resources
under the direction of Hyatt proposed construction of a
project of the magnitude of the Central Valley Project,
it can readily be seen that it was almost an insurmountable
problem to convince the people of the state as a whole that
this was a necessary and meritorious project. Recognizing
29-
Leedom: this backlog of apathy or unconcern regarding vater problems
on the part of the people, Hyatt was saddled with the Job
of selling the project to the people of California. It
was a slow process.
It was not until 193^-jthr^e years after the project
was proposed by the Division, that it was finally authorized
by the legislature. Then after the legislature had passed
the Central Valley Project Act, it -was forced into a ref
erendum. This was when Ed s friendship with leaders in
agriculture and business began to pay off. He was
responsible for organizing what was called "The Central
Valley Project Association" which consisted of key figures
in business, farming, industry, up and down the Sacramento
and the San Joaquin Valley; Clarence Bruener of Sacramento;
Jim Fauver of Visalia; Roland Kern of Bakersfield; and a
number of others. I cannot recall all the names of the
men who were active in the Association. This organization
provided the funds to finance the publicity necessary to
sell the people of the state on the need for the Central
Valley Project. The services of Clem Whittaker were ob
tained. If I am correct, Bill Warne, now the Director of
the Department of Water Resources, as a young newspaperman
was hired as one of Clem Whittaker s assistants to help
promote the Central Valley Project.
Giefer: Wasn t it out on the coast, where the campaign was really
pressed?
Leedom: Yes, the fear was that southern California would be indifferent
30.
Leedom: to the project because there was no provision in it to
bring water into southern California. However, the San
Joaquin Valley was in very dire need of additional water
supplies.
The Association realized that if they did not sell
Los Angeles on the need for this, that it was a lost cause.
So they boomed the fact that if the farmers in the San
Joaquin Valley, where this water was destined did not get
this water, then Los Angeles would lose its business of
marketing the products of the San Joaquin Valley. They
also inferred that if Los Angeles did not support them,
San Francisco would be given preferential treatment in
marketing farm products. This was therefore a matter
which affected their purses. Of course, when you affect
the purse of a businessman, then he becomes interested.
So, the businessmen in Los Angeles picked up the cudgel
for the Project and in the final referendum, it squeeked
through by a very narrow margin. However, it was adopted
and the $170,000,000 bond issue was voted.
Once that major bridge had been crossed, the state
was confronted with the fact that $170,000,000 would not
be sufficient or could not be raised to build the project.
The Division and Water Project Authority, under the rec
ommendation of the legislature, turned to the federal
government for financial assistance.
I want to backtrack just a little on that. At the
time of the referendum, the fabulous Jimmy Rolph was our
31.
Leedom: Governor. Rolph was sold on the need for the Project
through his good friend and political supporter Matt
Sullivan of San Francisco. In addition to setting up
the California Water Resources Commission, the governor
decided that he would appoint a super-duper committee
to end all committees, a state-wide committe of 380
people representing every interest in the state to assist
this Water Commission in supporting the Central Valley
Project, which he did. Rolph on one of his visits to
Redding heard, inaccurately, that there were two dam sites
which he assumed were to be of equal value. Actually,
it was the site of the Shasta Dam at Kennett and the
Afterbay Dam at Keswick. In a burst of exuberance Jimmy
said, "Well, let s build them both." He wanted two big
dams. That was the kind of a gentleman he was. If he
were for anything, then he was wholeheartedly for it. While
his name does not often appear in the record of the deve
lopment of our water resources, he actually played a very
important role during his period as the governor of the
state of California in creating interest in the project.
If there ever was a showman in our governor s office,
Jimmy Rolph was that, in addition to being a very sound
and shrewd politician.
To get back to Hyatt, under the direction of the
legislature federal assistance was sought. The Water
Commission, the Water Project Authority created by Central
Valley Project Act, and the Central Valley Project Association
32.
Leedom: all began sending delegations to Washington to appeal for
federal assistance. Hyatt, naturally, accompanied each
of these delegations back to Washington. In addition,
before federal assistance could be obtained, a report on
the engineering and economic feasibility of the project
had to be made by the federal agencies. Therefore, the
Project vas reviewed by the P.W.A. , the Bureau of Reclamation,
the Army Rivers and Harbors Board, the Federal Power Comm
ission. Each of these agencies reviewed and made a report
on the project . , So Hyatt was on a constant circuit be
tween Washington and Sacramento. During this period, as
I have said before, he was news. He was news every day
of the week almost. He was the kind of state officer that
you could pick up the telephone and ask for Hyatt and
he would come on. You could say, "Ed, how about this dis
patch out of Washington?" He would immediately fill you
in with the background details necessary to make a good
story out of an otherwise brief, dry paragraph out of
Washington.
His contacts in Washington included not only the
Army and the Bureau, but the United States Geographic
Survey with which the state had a cooperative contract in
napping large portions of California. After I began making
trips back to Washington with Ed, his approach to these
officials was always that they were chiselling bureau
crats and he was representing the pocketbook of California.
You would think that every penny that was put up by the
33-
Leedom: state on a cooperative contract with the federal govern
ment came directly from his own pocket.
Giefer: He was just channeling the money back where it belonged,
is that it?
Leedom: That was for sure.
Giefer: You were telling me that he kept a little book that he
used, to give himself entree...
Leedom: Yes, I ll tell you about that. I did not know it was in
existence until after we had made a couple of trips back
to Washington. It surprised me that he would be able to
walk into any office in Washington Senator, Congressman,
the Chief of Engineers, over in the U.S.G.S. offices, and
the Department of the Interior offices, and immediately
be greeted by a great smile by the secretary who was the
receptionist. Ed would ask her about either her children,
or how her ailing mother was if she was single; when she
expected to get married, and countless personal details
about each of these receptionists. It was not until a couple
of years later that I discovered that Ed had a habit of
chatting with these secretaries and with gentle probing
find out something personal about them regarding their own
family, or this and that. Then when he left the office,
he would make a note of it in his little black book. He
had the ages of their babies if they were married; he had
their wedding anniversaries ; little items like this which
when used on return trips made each of his appearances seem
as though he were Just a member of the family because of his
Leedom: inquiries into their personal welfare. It was one of the
many reasons he was greeted with open arms in every office.
In addition to that, Ed, despite his rather unassuming
appearance, had a very keen mind, and a faultless memory.
In his dealings with the officials behind these receptionists,
he seemed to be greeted with equal welcome. There was very
little formality in his dealings with the Washington offi
cials except where it \* required. Virtually all of his
contacts you could consider informal in nature. I believe
they yielded greater results than a formal approach to
every problem, and there certainly were innumerable prob
lems.
From the time of the appearance of Bulletin 25 in 1931,
up through the final passage of the Central Project Act and
its adoption after the state referendum, you must remember
it was at the height of the Depression when money was scarce.
There had been a drastic change in Washington though under
the Roosevelt administration. They had innumerable agencies
set up in the government trying to assist people nation
wide out of the Depression. The P.W.A., the N.R.A., count
less alphabetical organizatlms and the so-called brain trust.
They were looking for opportunities to expend federal
money where it would assist in the recovery from the
Depression. The Central Valley Project appeared to be
a very likely project in which the federal government
could extend some of its relief funds. The more the
federal agencies looked over the project, the better it
35.
Leedom: looked to them. I think under the "Old Curmudgeon" as
he was called, Harold Ickes, the long range possibilities
of the Central Valley Project were immediately recognized
and smiled upon. Ickes recommended to the President that
this was a project the Department of the Interior and the
Bureau of Reclamation might well take a hand in. This I
do not know from personal experience but I do know the
results.
You see memory is like a scuba diver s view of an under
water reef. It is decorated with the light and shadow of
events that follow. My memory is not a true picture of
what happened at that moment just as the scuba diver s
view of an underwater reef is colored by the sunshine
or clouds or wind on the surface or turbidity of the
water. It is not a true picture of the reef. Well,
memory is like that, I believe. What you think you
remember today is colored with subsequent events. I
believe that is true of my memory of the mid-thirties when
the project was being promoted.
Giefer: At this time you were working for the Bee and in touch with
Hyatt. Were you making any trips with him at this time?
Leedom: No, at that time they were all trips to Washington by
Hyatt or trips by the officials at Washington out here to
look the project over; we had Congressional committees
touring the project and innumerable officials. All the
basic data though was in the hands of the state. This
was very important. When it was finally decided that the
36.
Leedom: federal government would invest money in the project, it
actually required adoption as a federal project. After
the preliminary appropriation which was never spent, that
was the $6,900,000 of federal money that was put up for
the construction of Friant Dam, it was found that it would
be impossible to build Friant Dam without first building
Shasta Dam. On the recommendation of, I presume the Army
and the Department of the Interior, the Central Valley
Project was reauthorized in 1937- An additional appropriation
of $12,500,000 was approved in the Interior Bill by the
President in September, 1937- That is really the beginning
of true federal involvement in the Central Valley Project.
Of course, at that time, as I said, all of the basic
data was in the hands of the Division of Water Resources
of California. The federal government had approved it
as a federal project, but it had no basic data with which
to begin the construction of the project. It led to a
series of cooperative agreements between the Water Project
Authority representing the state of California and the Depart
ment of the Interior representing the federal government
by which the state s basic data was made available to the
Department of the Interior so they could initiate the
construction of the project.
It was assumed from the first by the state that this
would be a joint venture, but by 1939> when I first became
actively connected with the Water Authority as an admin
istrative assistant, it had become evident that unless there
was a definite showdown, the state would be eased out of
37.
Leedora: the picture. There were many conferences between Bureau
officials and the Authority (which was largely dependent
upon Ed Hyatt for its representation), to settle the
question as to the role the state should play in connection
with the project. Out of each of these conferences, nothing
developed further than a temporary contract to continue
the relationship between the Authority providing the
basic data and the Bureau continuing the construction.
This was the situation in 1939 when Olson became the
Governor.
To further complicate the matter, immediately on the
day that the governor assumed office, he had a heart attack
and was taken to the Sutter Hospital in far from satis
factory condition and placed under an oxygen tent; for
several days it was a question of whether he would ever
assume the governorship. There was, of course, great con
fusion among the Olson appointees because if this attack
proved fatal to the governor, Ellis Patterson, the lieute
nant governor, would take over and there was a question
of whether they would remain in office. This condition
continued all during the first session of the legis
lature. I don t believe the governor got back into the
office until just about the close of the first session of
the legislature, so all business was conducted from the
hospital bed through his son Richard as an indirect
emissary from the father to the key men in the administra
tion, which was not like direct communication.
38.
Leedom: It was at the end of the session that I went to
work in the governor s office. It was only two or three
months before I was transferred over to the Water Project
Authority, still more or less, rather more than less,
responsible to the governor s office. I think I said
before that coming out of the governor s office to the
Water Authority, I wag regarded with some suspicion,
particularly by Bob Edmonston. Even probably by Hyatt.
But by the end of my six months probationary period, Clark
had become equally suspicious of my position with the
Authority and attempted to have me fired before I be
came a permanent employee of the Authority. Ed Hyatt
and Earl Warren, George KLllion and even Olson jumped
on Clark for it so he dropped it.
In the meantime, I had learned a great deal about the
difficulties that confronted the Division and particularly
Ed Hyatt as the head of the Division. On the one hand there
was the federal government very reluctantly giving the
state any encouragement as to participation in the project.
On the other, there was the Olson administration red-hot
on public ownership and planning the take-over, if possible,
of the sale of water and power which would be produced by
the project. Ed was certainly in the middle. It required
some dexterous maneuvering to keep abreast with the
administration s desires and objectives and to fight off
the federal government s encroachment. As a state officer
under the direction of the legislature, and as the executive
39.
Leedom: officer of the Authority, the Secretary of the Water Pro
ject Authority, it was necessary for him to follow the
state s objectives.
It must be remembered that in the 1939 session of the
legislature the Pierovich Bill, which in effect would have
set up a little T.V.A. in California permitting the state
to act as the distributing or selling agency for the pro
ject s water and power, was defeated by a very narrow
margin. This, of course, left the state in an even worse
position than before with the Central Valley Project. How
ever, that did not discourage Hyatt, nor the Water Project
Authority. I mean it did not keep them or restrain them
from seeking additional funds for the project, which they
did every year, it was one of the principal Water Project
endeavors .
Earl Warren
In 19^2, I was commissioned in the Army and that is
the end of my connection with the Water Project Authority.
However, after I finished with my war duty, I again went
into state service, this time with the newly created State
Water Resources Board. That was during the Warren Admini
stration.
Speaking of Warren, I want to emphasize his ability
to grasp details and to retain them indefinitely. When I
was still with the Authority and he was the Attorney General,
his aspirations for the governorship were already evident .
Leedom: He asked Ed Hyatt to fill him in on what was basically
necessary to be well informed on vater problems in
various areas of the state. Hyatt delegated ae to go
down to Oakland armed with such material as I thought
would be of assistance and to spend a couple of days
with Warren. We did that at his house out in Oakland.
We would start early in the mornings with the briefings,
work until noon, then after lunch begin again and work until
five o clock in the afternoon. To my amazement, in spite
of the fact that I was loading him with statistical material
of all kinds regarding the water resources of the state
of California and background material, he could play it
back to me almost like a tape recorder. He was a very
easy man to work with. Once he assimulated any data,
he seemed to retain it indefinitely. That was the only
water briefing, so far as I know, that Warren had before
his campaign, although as attorney general and W.P.A. mem
ber he had a good general picture of California s water
problems. Yet, he used it extensively throughout his
campaign.
His interest in water continued from the time that
he was on the Authority right through all his years of
the governorship. It directly resulted in his recognition
of the need of an additional agency in the state to handle
not only the problems of the Central Valley Project, which
was the direct responsibility of the Water Project
Authority, but also the numerous flood control and other
Organization meeting State Water Resources Board, November 1, 1945
Standing: Howard Cozzens, Royal Miller, B,Z. Eteheyerry, Lester Ready,
R.7. Meikle, and Ed Hyatt
Sitting: C.A. Griffith, Bradford 3. Crittenden, Governor Earl Warren, and
Phil Swing
Leedom: future water development programs in the state. He backed
the legislature creating the State Water Resources Board
and appointed its initial members. They vere chosen by
lot for their terms. In other words, you drew lots
whether you received a two year term or a four year term
and the terms were staggered.
The membership of that first board included Royal
Miller of Sacramento; Lester Ready, one of the consulting
engineers on the original Central Valley Project, the
electrical expert; B.A. Etcheverry, the Dean of Engineering
at the University of California; Roy V. Meikle, the long
time general manager and engineer of the Turlock-Modesto
Irrigation District; Howard Cozzens, for thirty years
the County Engineer in Monterey County; and Phil D. Swing,
an attorney and ex-Congressman from San Dfcgo: I think
that is it.
Central Valley Project
Giefer: To go back to the thirties again, why didn t the state
back in the early thirties ask to have the federal funds
through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation? Why
did they instead...
Leedom: I cannot answer that. They went, of course, originally
to the P.W.A. The P.W.A. asked for a feasibility report
which Ray Matthews made, I think, almost single handed.
I don t know though why they did not go to the Reconstruction
Finance Corporation. Probably it was because the R.F.C.
Leedom: was for industry of a private nature rather than the P.W.A.,
which was for public works projects. I am only assuming
that, but I think that is why the effort was made to get
P.W.A. funds. Then of course, when the P.W.A. was folding
up, they transferred their part in the C.V.P. to the De
partment of the Interior where the Bureau of Reclamation
was the construction agency in the water business in the
federal government. As I contend, they, presumably Ickes,
took one look at the project and decided that it was much
too good for those people out in California, that it
should be a federal project and that its long range em
ployment and other benefits to the federal government
were much greater than the state realized. I still
believe that it was naive, not only on the part of the
state legislature, but the state administration, one
succeeding the other, to believe that the federal govern
ment would put up money to assist them in building a state
project without taking over completely once it got its
foot in the door, which is exactly what happened.
Giefer: You made a remark when I first met you, something to the
effect that there was a point at which P.O. & E. could have...
Leedom: Yes, when the state found that it was in difficulty in
financing the project under the $170,000,000 bond issue,
the time was right for a great private power interest to
step in. The door was wide open for them. If they had
stepped in and said, "Now you have a fine project here and
it has a large power potential so we want to help you build
Leedom: that project. e will help build that project by under
writing the power facilities of it." It would have made
it easily feasible for construction as a state project
along with the federal contribution on flood control. But
the power companies were fearful of any state project
that would develop power. They short- sight edly opposed
the project from its inception. Their oppostion, of course,
immediately closed the door and made them the bitter enemies
of those promoting the Central Valley Project. It then
evolved into a public and private power fight, with the
power companies opposing the project although I don t
believe their opposition to the project as such had any
particular effect on Washington. It was effective enough
to block the state s little T.V.A. to handle Central Valley
Project power. It only served to change the distributing
agency from state to federal. That of course is hind
sight on the whole thing. The door, as I say, was wide
open to them if they had been far-sighted enough. They
could today be handling all the surplus power of the project.
The project itself is a large power eater and ties in na
turally with the private system. During certain periods
there is a lot of surplus power available on the project
not required for pumping. That is a valuable asset, or
would have been a very valuable asset, to the private
utility company.
Giefer: What was Hyatt s relationship to the private power people?
Leedom: It was good, I would say. He recognized their position
kk.
Leedom: fvdly. They recognized his position fully. I do not be
lieve that there was any personal enmity between them.
They recognized that it was Hyatt s job to promote the
project as a state project. He recognized their position
as a private utility attempting to protect its own interest.
On this public and private power deal, one of the
lessons I learned when I went with the Water Project Auth
ority was that there is no such thing as cheap public
power. I was a newspaper man. Invariably I had used
the word "cheap" in describing public power. It is
just like describing the delta lands. You never refer
to them as other than the "rich delta lands." So it
was always "cheap public power." It was not until I
went to the Water Project Authority, when under Bartlett s
direction and Edmonston s direction this sbudy of public
power systems was being made, that the basic principle
of power was fully developed for me: that it cost just
as much to develop a kilowatt of power by hydro or steam
whether it is public or private, except with private power
you probably have a little higher efficiency in economics
of the development of that power. This is assuming that
in the establishment of two hydro-plants on two identical
rivers, one by a public agency and one by a private agency,
the kilowatt development in the private agency s power
house costs just as much as the public power house s and
vice-versa.
( Interview No. 3, February 17, 1966)
Hyatt and Edmonston
Leedom: Well, I think in order to develop the background on the
Hyatt-Edmonston relationship, it is necessary to go back
to the early 1920 s. Ed Hyatt was made Deputy Chief of
the Water Commission in 1922. He became Chief of the
Division of Water Rights in 1924. At this time there
was a very definite move in California to put the state
in the business of developing its water and power resources.
Under the leadership of the League of the California
Municipalities there was drafted in 1921 a so-called
Water and Power Act which was placed on the Initiative
ballot in 1922. This initiative would have granted the
state the power to engage in the development of not only
its water resources, but the power that could be
generated in that connection.
This bond issue was defeated in 1922. It was brought
up again in 1924 and defeated, and again in 1926 and de
feated.
I think that one of the controlling factors in the
defeat of these bond issues was the fact that the state
had no definite plan for the development of its water
resources. The recognition of this need was expressed by
the legislature in 1927 when it created the Division of
Water Resources, and made an appropriation to the state
engineer for surveys and studies leading to a master plan
for the development of water in California.
U6.
Leedom: Now it must be remembered that Hyatt in connection
with the Water Rights Commission of necessity came in
contact with virtually every leader in California s
water development because every irrigation district, rec
lamation district, and water district of any kind almost
invariably ran into difficulties over its water rights.
It was necessary to refer many questions to the Water
Rights Commission.
Along in connection with this, undoubtedly the
Division was very much interested in having the state
engaged actively in the development of its latent water
resources.
In 192^, Bob Edmonston came into the Division. He
had been in construction work as an engineer in irri
gation works, building dams and other hydroelectric
developments. While Hyatt was largely engaged in making
the necessary contact political, financial, and otherwise,
to put the state in the water and power business, Edmonston
from 192k until 1927 was engaged in the engineering work
which was to lead to the California Water Plan, or rather
the State Water Plan they called it, the State Water Plan
of 1931.
Hyatt became State Engineer in 1927. Prom then on
he, except for advisory work, left the engineering largely
up to Edmonston who became his deputy in 1927. Edmonston
was a man who could accomplish a great deal of work on his
own. He never depended fully on anyone else s figures.
Leedom: He had to go through the figures himself before he was
satisfied that they could be put into print, or published
in a bulletin. He was meticulous about this. This meti-
culousness in checking the engineering figures and data
stayed with him constantly until the time of his re
tirement in 1955.
Because of the nature of his work, he was completely
sold on the idea that the state itself could develop its
own water resources. . .whenever the problem was beyond the
reach of the individual agencies, such as irrigation dis
tricts, East-Bay Utilities, San Francisco s Hetch Hetchy
and the Metropolitan Water District in Southern California.
There is another factor which should be brought into
this discussion and that is the Legislature Joint Interim
Water Committee. This committee was created in 192?.
Bradford S. Crittenden of Stockton, then an assemblyman,
was named chairman of this committee. The committee held
meetings throughout the state during the periods between
the sessions of the legislature, which then occurred only
every two years. They sounded out the feelings at the
grass roots and obtained information on what various
localities felt should be done on the development of
water resources. At regular two year intervals they re
ported their findings to the legislature.
It devolved upon Crittenden s Committee therefore to
make recommendations to the legislature which could or
would put the state in the business of developing its water.
U8.
Lcedom: When Bulletin 25 was issued in 1931, it was endorsed by
the joint legislative committee. That is the real beginning
of the Central Valley Project as it is now known. The
project was laid out in detail in Bulletin 25. Crittenden
authored the bill which would authorize the state to build
the Central Valley Project and authorized a $170,000,000
bond issue for this purpose.
Hyatt, of course, played a tremendous part in getting
that act passed by the legislature, and in defeating the
referendum which would have recalled the act of the legis
lature. At that time the United States and the world at
large was at the height of a terrific depression. There
was a question of whether there would be a market for the
$170,000,000 bond issue. President Roosevelt had been
elected and started his reversal of the depression through
innumerable measures designed to pull the nation s economy up
by its bootstraps with liberal doses of federal financial
assistance. It was only natural that the state would
turn to the federal government to assist the financing of
the Central Valley Project. There was a large degree of
flood control involved. Under federal law the state was
entitled to a contribution from the United States government
for the flood control and navigation values involved in
the project. The project was studied by a number of
federal agencies and eventually President Roosevelt made
an emergency appropriation to initiate the construction
of Friant Dam, which was putting the cart before the horse.
Leedom: When this was pointed out to the Secretary of the Interior
and the President, that appropriation was reversed and
made for the construction of any part of the project.
I have gone over the fact that the federal government,
except for the state data, had no data of its own. There
fore, they entered into a series of cooperative contracts
with the state. The first of these was signed by Elwood
Mead as Reclamation Commissioner. Mead was a true conser
vationist. He fortunately was not of a bureaucratic type
of mind. He didn t demand that it be done by his bureau
or not at all. If you look back at the feasibility
report on state ownership and operation of the Central
Valley Project, you will find in the first cooperative
contract a definite assurance on the part of the federal
government that the state would participate, if not in
the construction at least in the operation of the project
once it was completed. I quote from the first memorandum
of understanding which was signed in January of 1936 by
Mead. It says: "It is contemplated that at the earliest
practicable date a contract will be entered into betveen the
United States and the Water Project Authority, providing
for, but not limited to: (a)The operation and maintenance by
the authority of useful units of project, upon presenting
assurance of payment satisfactory to the United States of
n*
the cost thereof. This was a very definite statement on
the part of the federal government that the state was ex
pected to take over, operate, and maintain the project if
California State Water Project Authority, Feasibility of State
ownership and operation of. tkiie Central Valley Project of California.
(1952), P. ?2.
50.
Leedom: it could pay the costs of the project, that is assure re
payment of the cost of the project.
In the second and third supplemental contracts be
tween the state and the federal government, the language
that I have Just read was changed to: "It is contemplated
that at the earliest practical date and as soon as per
mitted by law, a contract will be entered into, ... " etc.*
That was the first hedge on the part of the federal govern
ment, the seven words "and as soon as permitted by law."
However, up until 1939 the state still held hope that
it would be permitted to maintain and operate the project
after its completion. In 1939 though, Secretary of the
Interior Harold Ickes wrote a letter to the Authority,
dated April 13, 1939, which contained the final hedge.
He says: "Federal reclamation laws, as construed by
the Department of the Interior, especially with respect
to the principal part of the irrigation water made
available from a project, re quire that repayment
contracts shall be made only with agencies which have
the power directly to assess and to create liens on the
property of water users. It *es the understanding of
the Secretary that the Water Project Authority does not
have such power and therefore it is doubtful if the
authority could be the contracting agency for the pur
chase of the principal part of the water supply to be
made available for the project." He ended up by saying,
"I suggest that you explore further the possibilities, and
*Ibid.
51.
Leedom: I would appreciate receipt of any concrete plan which may
be evolved. I assure you that I consider your efforts
to be worthy of encouragement, and I pledge my active coop
eration in any plan which will lead to the maximum public
benefit."*
That was a nice face-saving statement which did not
mean a thing because nothing concrete developed from
further exchanges in letters. It was clearly evident to
Hyatt and to the governor and to the Water Project Authority
that the federal government had no intention whatsoever
of releasing any part of the Central Valley Project to
the state.
Giefer: Had they any way of knowing before they got this letter
that this was in the wind?
Leedom: Yes, with each of the contracts between the state and the
federal government it became more difficult on the part
of the state to get the federal government to give them
any assurance. It was a graduated step-by-step elimination
process.
Hyatt, as the man who fought the battles in Washington
and Sacramento, of course, was very disappointed that
the Project for which he had worked and lived and fought
for so many years was taken out of the hands of the state.
Edmonston in the background was intensely bitter.
His references to the Bureau of Reclamation are not for
the record. They were far from complimentary.
However, I will say this for Ed Hyatt, and for Edmonston
*Ibld., p. 23.
52.
Leedom: when he became State Engineer, both consistently fought
for adequate appropriations for the project. In fact,
I believe in a number of cases they urged larger appropri
ations from Congress for the project than was actually
sought by the Bureau of Reclamation or the Department of
the Interior. Hyatt never, in any public appearance,
indicated that he was otherwise than perfectly happy
with the construction of the project by the federal
government. If he felt as though he had been shoved
aside by a more powerful agency, he never made a point
of it in meetings either public or private as far as I
can remember.
I do remember one day after a particularly long
session of negotiations, Hyatt made the off-hand remark
that, "You know, we have some 8,000 or 10,000 years of
written history, and so far as I can see, man has changed
very little in that time. We have not done away with greed
or avarice or lust for power." But that was purely in a
private conversation and not in character with his public
statements at any time.
Giefer: He did have a public face then, didn t he?
Leedom: His position, I believe, was that he recognized the terrific
need for the project in California and he would rather it
was built by the federal government, if necessary, than
not built at all. It was the lesser of the two evils.
Even in 19^0, when the state was trying to set up
its little CVA (Central Valley Authority) for the purpose
53.
Leedom: of handling the water and power from the project, hope for
state participation in the project had not diminished.
In the background, Hyatt and Edmonston were working on
a plan by which the state could actually buy out the
Central Valley Project. In 1951, there had "been a
Senate concurrent resolution introduced, asking the
Water Project Authority to report to the legislature
not later than June 15, 1951 on the status of studies re
lative to the future ownership and operation of the Central
Valley Project by the state, and to furnish to the legis
lature by 1952 a report on the legal and financial feasibility
of the state s assuming ownership.
In the Budget Bill of 1952, there was included an item
of $10,000,000 for the acquisition of the Central Valley
Project by the state on a self liquidating basis, in
other words to pay the initial installments.
Edmonston produced the feasibility report in 1952.
It was a very comprehensive report which covered not only
the cost of the project, but the proposals for financing
it by the state, the legal steps that would be necessary,
in fact, a complete diagram of how and why- -how the state
could assume ownership of the project and at what cost.
In that report incidentally, it was shown that the project
authorized by the state at a cost of approximately $170,000,000
under the Bureau s construction program and with the addition
of Folsom Dam had mounted from $170,000,000 to $635,000,000.
Even at this figure the report showed that the state
5*.
Leedom: could purchase the project, pay off the cost and be making
money by about the year 1995 or the year 2000. Revenues
would then pay for the entire project and the state would
be out of the red by that time.
But as I say, prior to 1952 or subsequent to the
issuance of the feasibility report, it was quite evident
that the state was not going to be able to lay hands on
the project.
However, Edmonston long had been working on a much
broader plan, a plan which is now known as the California
Water Plan, comprising the construction of the Oroville
Dam on the Feather River and the Tehachapi pumping plants
which would take water from northern California clear
down to the Mexican border, San Diego County.
I think I had better tell you a little about Bob Ed
monston. He probably had one of the best creative engin
eering brains in the state. When he drew up the California
Water Plan in rough outline, this was before the engin
eering data had been compiled on it, the engineers in the
Division called it the Paul Bunyan plan. It...
Giefer: When was he working on this approximately?
Leedom: Studies for this plan were given initial authorization by
the legislature of 19^7, chapter 15^1. Plans were deve
loped in the ten years from 19^7 until 1957 by the staff
of the Division of Water Resources, first under the direction
of Hyatt, until his retirenent in 1950, and then under the
direction of Edmonston, until his retirement in 1955- There
55.
Leedom: was no dam too high or too vide or too big for Edmonston e
imagination. The Eel River Den proposed in this plan, I
believe, would be the largest dam in the world. This
would be the largest dam in the world of any kind. The
Feather River Dam at Oroville is probably the largest
structure of its kind to date. I am not sure if there
is a larger one in Russia or not. It certainly is larger
than anything in Europe, Africa, the United States, or
Canada.
Bob never overlooked the possibility of following the
highest line for transportation of water. As a matter of
fact, in some respects, he resembled Robert Marshall,
except Bob s plan was usually to put the main canals at
a higher elevation.
I remember one day we were driving out to the airport
in San Francisco. He had the driver pull off the road and
turn back up behind Candlestick Park. He pointed out a
highway route over the top of the hills which would lead
directly from the Golden Gate Bridge to Candlestick Park
and how a bridge could be placed across the Bay at that
point. There would be practically no interference with
residential development and very little interference with
industry down on the Bayshore because you would bridge
over the industry. Later he proposed this route to
George McCoy, the Chief Engineer of the Division of Highways,
but it was too much for George to swallow. However, it
would have made a very logical and fine direct route. At
56.
Leedom: that time there was virtually nothing on top of those
hills from the Golden Gate right across to the bay. You
vould have dropped down off the hills and you would have
had a brand new crossing of the bay. It would be able to
feed direct from the north coast into the San Joaquin
Valley with practically no interference in San Francisco
traffic.
As I say, he probably had the finest engineering
brain of anybody I ever knew. Yet, basically there was
a strain of the college boy in him he never got over
his college days once he was away from his desk. Every
year, unfailing, he made a great deal of Guy Fawkes
Day. It took me some time to figure out just why he
was so jubilant on Guy Fawkes Day until I remembered
Guy Fawkes had tried to burn down the Parliament. I think
that s why Edmonston admired Guy Fawkes. Edmonston had
a suspicious view of politicians. Hyatt on the other hand
was a very fluent speaker and at ease in any company.
Edmonston spoke with great difficulty. For a man with so
fine a background in engineering, and well educated in
other fields, he was inarticulate in the extreme when he
made a public appearance. He dreaded having to go before
committees and the legislature.
As a matter of fact, a Congressional Committee was
out in California looking into something. I have forgotten
what their purpose was but Glair Engle was the Chairman
of the Committee, or acting chairman here in California.
57.
Leedom: They were meeting over in the Capitol Building and notified
Bob that he was to appear before them at ten o clock on
the following morning. Well, Bob was busy with something
else at the moment so he sent Tom Waddell, his assistant,
to appear in his behalf. Engle was not only shocked at
this disregard for a Congressional Committee, but he was
terribly angry about it. They were going to charge Bob
with contempt of Congress if he did not appear immediately.
Finally Edmonston,raost unwillingly, appeared before the
committee.
He had a habit when among convivial friends of cutting
off neck ties a pure college boy stunt that you would not
expect of an engineer of his stature.
I remember one time when we went down to Texas to a
National Reclamation Association meeting. At that time,
Edmonston had been appointed State Engineer, was President
of the Western State s Engineers, and it was necessary for
him to make several talks before the Association. There
was a dinner given one evening which everyone foresaw as
a very stuffy affair, so Bob and a number of his cronies,
Arvin Shaw, Ray Matthews, a couple of engineers from Los
Angeles, a party of about eight, went to a place that
specialized in Texas steaks on the outskirts of the city
rather than going to the NRA dinner. The evening was quite
convivial. As we left this ateak house, there was a broken
piece of curbing that weighed all of thirty pounds lying
beside the sidewalk. Bob picked it up, trundled it into
58.
Leedom: his car, took it back to the hotel with him, got a bell-boy,
had it nicely wrapped in paper and had it delivered at two
o clock in the morning to Charley Kaupke s door. Kaupke
of course was furious at being awakened at two o clock
in the morning to get a thirty pound curb stone. The
funny part of it was that C.A. Griffith, Chairman of the
State Water Resources Board at the time and also at this
convention, blamed me to his dying day for being at the
bottom of this rock for Charley Kaupke business. He
never suspected Bob Edmonston. Incidentally on that trip
I was hired by Edmonston at a salary of $0.00. Every
time I would turn out a resolution or finish a speech
for him, or do another task, he would add another zero to
my salary. Finally he boasted that he had an assistant
whose salary ran into six figures.
Bob worked himself to death. As I sy, he was very
meticulous, checking everything. Everything had to be
checked by him in detail. The last six months in office,
I think, he worked maybe l6 hours a day on Bulletin 3 and
the other things that were necessary for him to do. But
he had to check every figure in Bulletin 3, the California
Water Plan. Of course, it was necessary for him to retire
because of his health, but that was only part of it. He
was not on particularly friendly terms with the governor,
but health was actually the basis because he only lived
about 8 months after he retired. He was a sick man all
during that time.
59-
Giefer: This was"Goody"Knight?
Leedom: That was Knight, yes. Knight, you know, would call you
over for a conference to be briefed on some water problem
here or elsewhere. The minute you walked in, he started
talking to you and you never got to tell him anything.
He was peculiar that way.
Giefer: How did Edmonston take his elevation to State Engineer?
Leedom: He welcomed it, I think, from the standpoint that it
gave him free reign on building this giant California
Water Plan. Of course, this thing is not only the Feather
River Project; it involved diversion of the KLamath River,
the Eel River. It covers the whole state; it is truly a
California Water Plan, and a tremendous thing. Except
for a few engineers, people do not recognize the magnitude
of the Job that was done under his direction. He was,
I think, very happy to become State Engineer, although
he dreaded the public end of it. He disliked having to
go before the Finance Committee and the Ways and Means
Committee. He dreaded most of the appearances that are
necessary. . . the State Engineer is always at the Irrigation
District Association meetings, the NRA, innumerable meetings
all up and down the state. His presence is almost obligatory
at these things. That part of the job I know that he
thorougly disliked. The engineering part he reveled in.
Giefer: When you say, "He welcomed the post," had he in any way in
the last years of Hyatt s administration chaffed under the...
Leedom: No, he and Hyatt got along swell. He was very happy to
6o.
Leedom: have Ed out there In front; he wanted no part of that at all.
As I way, from 19^7 on he was working on his "baby." It
was going to be the California Water Plan. The last three
years of Hyatt s state engineershlp, Edmonston was com
pletely immersed in the studies that were leading to the
California Water Plan. They had put up a Quonset hut
on some property over across the Sacramento River to house
the increased staff that was necessary to work on this
California Water Plan... Bob would have been happier
working there than working in the front off ice.
California Water Commission
Giefer: Well, it sounds to me as though in the period, say, 1925
to 1950, the pivotal figures were Edmonston, Hyatt and
Crittenden.
Leedom: I would say so. Of course, before Crittenden. . .well, they
were the pivotal figures; there was no doubt about that.
In addition to these three pivotal men, the influence of
the California Water Resources Commission appointed by
Governor Rolph in 1931 shouldn t be overlooked: Arthur
B. Tarby; Shannon Crandall; Matt Sullivan he was the
chairman from San Fransisco and a boson friend of Governor
Rolph; James Burke, a Visalia water attorney; Jesse
Poundstone from up around Colusa; R.C. Hardison who was
also from up in the valley, I believe; Francis Carr from
Redding, an attorney; Colonel Barton who was the manager
of the State Reclamation Board; and of course, Ed as ex-
61.
Leedom: officio member of that commission. That commission probably
gave more prestige to the Central Valley Project than any
other subsequent or former commission.
Glefer: Can we say something about this commission, some rf the
relations between the legislature and the commission?
Leedom: I don t knov much about the commission except that it
formed a political front statewide for Jimmy Rolph in
favor of the Central Valley Project. The Joint Legislature
Interim Committee on Water Problems, however, was a diff
erent thing. The committee s purpose was to go out in
the grass roots and find out the sentiment of the people
and build up sentiment for whatever the committee believed
was necessary. They didn t only meet in the Sacramento
Valley and the San Joaquin Valley where there was a very
definite need for additional water supplies, they made
tours up the north coast where you have terrific flood
control problems and they toured southern California.
I think over the years from 1987 up until his re
tirement in about 1952, Crittenden was the chief waterwheel
in the legislature. The Interim Committee is still in
existence, I believe, with Carley Porter and Mrs. Davis. Pwter
is the man who has replaced Senator Crittenden. I don t
know whether Grunsky is on that committee or not, but it
still is a very active committee.
Giefer: I am not sure whether an "Interim Committee" still exists.
Leedom: They call it the "Joint Legislative Water Committee," I
think.
62.
Giefer: Colby, in the Senate.
Leedom: Colby from Merced, yes. I don t know who else is on though.
Giefer: Is there a distinction to be made here about engineers
dominating. . .
Leedom: Well, the Water Authority was set up for a very specific
purpose, only to handle the Central Valley Project and
maintenance operation of the Project. When the 19Mt- Flood
Control Act was passed by the Congress which spread the
Flood control activities of the federal government over
a much wider field than it had been under the Corps of
Engineers, there was no state agency prepared to undertake
the survey of new flood control projects and what would
be required as local contribution.
I know Crlttenden introduced a bill which set up the
California Water Commission; it was the State Water Board
at the time. He got an appropriation for distribution to
these local agencies to assist in the local contribution
required under the 19^^- code, but it was an entirely new
field of endeavor. The State Reclamation Board, while it
had power to act on the Sacramento River flood control
project, didn t have power to go outside of that. The
Water Authority could only deal with the Central Valley
Project. That is why the State Water Resources Board was
created. Of course, that has evolved from an agency which
reviews these projects and hands out the money to an entirely
different thing. Now it deals with approval of the rights
of way for the Feather River Project and basic water prob
lems statewide.
63.
Leedom: There was no conflict though. The Authority could not
function as was required under the federal law, nor could
the Reclamation Board so they set up a brand new agency.
(Interview No. **, September 2, 1966)
State Water Resources Board
I think earlier I mentioned the fact that Governor
Warren was deeply interested in water development in
California. He, as Attorney General, was a member of
the Water Project Authority and became very familiar
with the efforts of the Authority to develop the Central
Valley Project. At the 19^- session of Congress, the
Rivers and Harbors Bill was adopted as a post-war construction
program to take up any sudden slacking off in employment
nationwide. The Act authorized the expenditure of $kOO million
for rivers and harbors and flood control projects nation
wide. The 19^^ Act authorized construction by the Corps
of Engineers of eleven multiple purpose and five flood
control reservoirs and related and supplemental channel
and levee improvements in the Sacramento and San Joaquin
Valleys; a number of projects in Southern California, in
cluding the Los Angeles Flood Control Project, and develop
ment of San Diego Mission Bay Project; and the Pajaro
project in Monterey County. All of these projects were
then re-authorized by the State. When the Federal Flood
Control Act of 19^ vas adopted by the Congress, a portion
Boa?d Circa 1957
rtt L. Grubb,
, AdiniatratiTt
-old ?r, rlc*.
Leedom: of the Act provided that, in order to obtain the federal
funds for construction of these projects, it would be
necessary for local agencies to contribute costs of rights-
of-way and a certain portion of the projects costs. There
was not statewide provision in California for doing this.
Senator Bradford Crittenden at Governor Warren s suggestion
and with his assistance, had introduced in the legislature
a State Water Resources Act of 19^5- It became Chapter
151^. This Act authorized the State s contributions in
the sum of $30 million to assist local agencies in the
purchase of the rights-of-way provided for in the Federal
Flood Control Act of 19^-. The Act also set up the State
Water Resources Board and gave it wide authority, not only
in allocating funds to the flood control projects authorized
in the state and federal acts, but wide powers in inte
grating and directing at state level the development of
water resources projects of all types. It was the first
time that a commission or board had been set up for this
purpose. Prior to that the state had the Reclamation Board,
which dealt only with the Sacramento River and San Joaquin
River delta flood control developments. The Board was to
be statewide in nature; that is, representative of all
factions of the state.
In November, 19^5* Governor Warren appointed a seven-
man board which was geographically representative of the
entire state. Ex-congressman Phil Swing of San Diego was
appointed; Howard F. Cozzens, the County Engineer from
65.
Leedom: Monterey County represented the coast section. Roy V.
Meikle of Turlock represented the middle San Joaquin
section of the state. Lester Ready of San Fransisco
was an electrical consultant with state wide connections,
and B.A. Etcheverry, Professor Emeritus from the University
of California, of course, had very vide water development
experience. Royal Miller of Sacramento was at that time
the head of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and
I believe he still is now. The terms of the Board were
staggered and allocated by lottery. Royal Miller was
elected the first chairman of the Water Resources Board.
Shortly after the Board was appointed, Ed Hyatt came to
me and asked me if I would serve as the administrative
assistant for the board. At that time I was head of a
public relations firm in Sacramento, and I had just
completed writing for Brad Crittenden of the Joint Legis
lative Committee on Water Problems a report to the legis
lature. He reported bi-annually on the activities of the
joint committee. I had been giving them a hand on these
reports from the time I was with the Water Project Authority,
with a lapse during the time I was in the service. As I
think I mentioned before, my experience with the Water Project
Authority was not altogether happy in that I found it a
frustrating Job because of the political divisions on the
Authority. I was doing quite well in the public relations
firm, and was not very enthusiastic about going back into
state service, but Ed was a very presuasive gentleman, as
66.
Leedom: was Royal Miller, and they assured me that this would be
an entirely different set-up. There vas no division among
the appointees politically, and they thought I would find
it a very congenial and interesting job. Anyway, I was
ready to give them a hand. The Governor had called a
statewide conference for December 6 and J, 19^5> and
had invited every agency that had anything to do with
water in California to attend. That meant irrigation
districts, flood control projects, reclamation projects,
multiple purpose projects such as the Central Valley
Project. It included the Corps of Engineers, the
Bureau of Reclamation, the Soil Conservation Service,
National Resources, Fish and Game, Forestry; in fact,
everyone that had anything to do with our natural resources
development .
It required a good deal of leg work to get this con
ference organized. While I had not yet accepted the
definite Job with the Board, I lent my service to Ed to
help him because all of the arrangements fell on his should
ers. From the middle of November until the conference, I
worked steadily.
Giefer: Was this conference the Governor s idea?
Leedom: The Governor called the conference. The purpose of this
was to introduce to all the agencies the new State Water
Resources Board, the newly appointed State Water Resources
Board, and focus attention upon them and their activities
in trying to integrate a statewide program of water development.
67.
Leedom: Very few people recognized the importance of the Act which
the legislature had passed, its far-reaching effect on water
development in California. The Board was empowered to
initiate studies anywhere in the state that they felt were
feasible and desirable, that is, economically and other
wise necessary projects.
In addition, the legislature had set aside $30 million
for use by the Board in allocating funds to local agencies
where they thought it was necessary to make a contribution
on the federal flood control projects. This subsequently
ran into many millions more than the original appropriations.
They had to add to that subsequently. I think they are
still in the process of paying local contributions.
Giefer: In the formation of the Board, can you say anything about
the forces that were involved? There were Warren,
Crittenden, and Hyatt?
Leedom: Hyatt, of course, recognized the importance of the 19^4-
Flood Control Act. He and Crittenden had worked closely
together over many years on water legislation. When Hyatt
brought to the Governor s attention the importance of the
Federal Flood Control Act of 19^ and its bearing on the
projects proposed in California, Warren immediately and
very enthusiastically supported the Crittenden Bill in
the legislature. Actually, I don t believe there was very
much opposition to the legislation. It was generally
recognized that the state was going to have to make some
provision for an integration at the state level of the
68.
Leedom: projects proposed and the financing, because in most cases,
the local agencies didn t have funds sufficient to make
the local contribution. Take, for Instance, Los Angeles
County the rights-of-way for the Los Angeles Flood Control
Project had already run into millions and millions of
dollars. I think Colonel Hedger testified at one time
that for the flood control project, the Los Angeles County
Flood Control District had put up more money on its own
than the combined contributions of the state and federal
governments. San Bernardino County had a flood control
project which was very costly from the standpoint of
rights-of-way. On the Sacramento River flood control
project, for another instance, the local agencies didn t
have the money to provide these rights-of-way, but through
the Reclamation Board they had been allocated state money.
So there was a precedent for assisting these other projects
statewide .
I think it was generally recognized that the Act was
a necessary step at that time.
The chairman of the original board recognized Immed
iately the importance of the provisions of the Act in pro
viding a stepping stone to engage the state actively in
the development of its water resources. He was even willing
to have the Board tackle the very controversial and almost
unsolvable problem of flood plain zoning. The problem still
isn t solved twenty years later and probably will never
be solved. But I cite that to give you an idea of the
69.
Leedom: boldness of the thinking of the Board members at that time.
Miller was a fine organizer. He believed in getting
everybody in under the sane tent, and instead of striking
out single-handedly, to try to bring the various groups
together in a unit to not only get authorizations for
additional flood control projects in California, but each
year to obtain sufficient appropriations for the projects
that were already authorized. At his insistence, the
representatives of the various statewide flood control pro
jects were called into conference with the board and asked
to present to the board what they felt were their needs
for the following year in the way of federal and state
appropriations. Out of that was formed the California
Flood Control Conference, a body of men who represented
the various flood control projects up and down the state.
Each of these agencies had been in the habit of going
back to Washington, sending two or three men every year
and making a single-handed appearance before Congress.
It was like shooting at a pin-point with a blunderbuss.
They scattered their shots all through the hearings. Miller
insisted they all get together and present all of it as one
program and each agency would support the other s program.
He was successful in doing this, and the fact that the
Board took the trouble to screen these requests for federal
funds prior to the appearance before the House and Senate
Appropriations committees made a good impression on the
committees before which these people appeared. Instead of
70.
Leedom: appearing over a period of six weeks to two months, the
Board arranged that they could all be heard on a single
day at a single hearing. After, I think, the first year
that we went back to Washington, it was necessary to make
two trips because we couldn t get the House and Senate
heraings synchronized so that we could make a single
appearance. However, the second year that we appeared
there we were able to have the hearings held in tandem so
that we made a single trip back to Washington. It was
a big savings to local agencies from the standpoint of
expense and to the Water Resources Board itself.
Miller also immediately recognized the necessity of
getting this program underway very early so that the Board
itself could go to the Bureau of the Budget with the pro
posed program and screen it with the Bureau, because
actually the first word and the last word is with this
Bureau. If the Bureau of the Budget says you are asking
too much money, there is very little likelihood that you
are going to get any more than the Bureau will go for.
So it was arranged that the local agencies would appear
before the Board, say in July, with the proposals they
were going to take back to Congress the following spring.
With that information, arrangements were made with the
Bureau of the Budget, and usually the chairman and myself
as executive officer of the Board, Hyatt or Edmonston, and
frequently one or two members of the other agencies, usually
Hedger from the Los Angeles District because it required
71.
Leedom: the largest appropriation, and always a member of the
Reclamation Board to represnet the Sacramento River Flood
Control Project, five or six of us would go back and meet
with two or three key people of the Bureau of the Budget
and go through these projects one by one with them. We
would say, "this is what the local agencies think they will
require, but this is what we think the Corps can spend
on the project Do you think it is reasonable?"
The Board would subsequently adopt a program that was
approved by all the members at the conference. In federal
appropriations it would run up to $100 million a year,
California alone. You must remember that the original
federal act had provided only $UOO million for all of these
projects nationwide. So California was bucking the Miss
issippi River and all of the rivers and harbors projects
in the East and the South, and you must remember that
those committees in Washington were then and still are
largely controlled by seniority. Most of the seniority
was in the South, so we had very stiff competition to
buck on the basis of the amount we were asking. The
Board was surprisingly successful in obtaining the amounts
they were after. Usually Congress would appropriate in
the final "bill virtually what the Board had asked for.
The deficiencies were largely in appropriation for
additional studies for getting new projects initiated.
The going projects by and large were allocated what the
Bureau of the Budget and the Corps of Engineers had said
72.
Leedoni: the Army could efficiently spend on the budget.
I think that that covers the initiation of the
State Water Resources Board and the part that Warren
and Hyatt played in it. Of course, the Board undertook
regional studies and was allocated funds liberally by
the legislature to conduct these studies, and the results
of the Board s initial studies have shown in what we
nw call the California Water Plan and the Feather River
Project, which is now far advanced and will be delivering
water to Southern California in another three years.
Giefer: The state Water Resources Board as such lasted until 1955?
Leedom: No, I think it was 1956 perhaps. Well, they changed the
title of it, and the powers of the Board I am not sure
about this but in following the proceedings of the Board,
it appears to me that the powers have been whittled away
or transferred to the point that it now is more or less
a rubber stamp for the Director of the Department of
Water Resources.
The allocation of funds for these flood control pro
jects" is now a department activity. I do not believe that
they now initiate any more studies. T Qe title has now
been changed to the California Water Commission. I think
a lot of changes in the Act were made at the time the
Division was made a Department, and the powers that were
originally invested in the board are now more or less in
vested in the Director. This was in 1956. The Water Board
continued in DWR, Division of Water Resources.
73.
Giefer: You were with them until-- when did you retire?
Leedom: 1957. I was with the Board from 19U5 until November, 1957-
Giefer: The Board met in Sacramento?
Leedom: We met all over the state. The headquarters was in
Sacramento, and most of the routine meetings were held
there. But they made it a point to hold meetings through
out the state, particularly in areas where there was a
proposed new federal project. For instance, they met
several times in Santa Rosa and Ukiah and on up the coast,
even in Crescent City. They met in San Diego, down in
the Imperial Valley; they held meetings in the Mojave
Desert. They held meetings all through the Mother Lode.
I would say virtually in every part of the state, where-
ever there was a problem, they would go and hold a public
hearing.
Back in the very early days of the Board, I think in
19U6, or Vf, there was wide dissension in Los Angeles
County over the construction of the Whittier Narrows Dam,
with the district Just about evenly divided on how the dam
should be built and where. Everyone admitted that it was
necessary, but nobody wanted it built the way the district
wanted to build it. It happened that they had a freshman
Congressman down there, by the name of Richard Nixon, who
was right in the middle of it. So the Board held a hearing
down in Whittier and heard all sides of the question and
testimony from the Los Angeles County Flood Control District
as to what problems were involved. They decided to support
7*.
Leedom: the district in its proposal. I remember well going with
Royal Miller into Dick Nixon s office in Washington, and
Miller, who was not always a diplomat, laid it on the line
to Nixon as to what the Board s decision was. He told
him in so many words, "Now Mr. Nixon you have to get
off the middle and go along with us . " The sweat broke
out on Nixon s forehead; he was a very troubled young
man, because his district was split 50-50. Any way he
went he was in trouble, but he did support the Board and
the district on the solution of the Whittier Narrows
problem.
Royal Miller, the first chairman of the Water Resources
Board, was a very successful businessman. He had a large
automobile agency in Sacramento and branches in half a
dozen towns up the valley. In Redding, Willows, Chico,
there was a Miller and somebody else. He had interest in
Dodge firms up and down the Valley. He was an enthusiastic
supporter of public development of water and power re
sources in the state. He also understood organization,
and he insisted that when we went back to Washington we
go at least three days early in order to make a personal
call on each member of the California delegation in the
House and to the two Senators. We made calls on the Corps
of Engineers, a courtesy call at the Bureau of the Budget, and
usually courtesy calls on the members of the Appropriations
Committee. This involved a great deal of corridor traffic,
but the effect was good because it brought to the attention
75.
Leedom: of the Congressmen the activities of the Board, and the
Board s objectives. In addition to that, it served another
purpose. The time before the Appropriations Committee is
limited, and in the California delegation alone there
would usually be some 30 to Uo people, all wanting to appear
before the committee. Where you have that many people
on about 20 to 30 projects, it becomes a question as to
how much time can be devoted to each project. When the
Clerk of the committee said, "The committee will allocate
three hours tomorrow morning or day after tomorrow for
your appearance; that s the best we can do for you,"
Miller would hold a meeting of the delegation in his
room at the Statler Hotel. He always had a suite and
made it the headquarters of the California delegationj
then he would inform them how much time the group had
and almost arbitrarily set up a time limit for each
project so that each project representative did have time
to appear before the committee. He had them limit their
statement to as short a period as possible and then present
a written statement with the statistics and data necessary
to back up their statement. This was an entirely new
approach to the question of hearings, and in spite of the
fact that it arbitrarily cut some of the delegations down
to much less time than they desired, they took It in stride
and agreed to go along with it because they soon discovered
it was the most effective way of making a presentation in
Washington. As a result of Miller s organization along
76.
Leedom: these lines, invariably when the delegation had finished
the presentation, the committee chairman complimented
the California delegation on the manner in which, it made
its presentation. I believe it also impressed other
committee members.
Miller served, I believe, two years as chairman. Then
he had a rather severe heart attack and found that he would
not be able to keep up the pace necessary as chairman and
resigned. C.A. Griffith of Azusa, who had been president
of the Azusa Foothill Citrus Company, a large development
on the outskirts of Los Angeles, became chairman.
Azusa Foothill Citrus Company was one of the last
large holdings to give way to the residential encroachment.
It was a corporation with stockholders, and they held out
a long time against the general encroachment from the out
side, but eventually the imbalance between the returns from
the orange groves and nut trees and lemons grew so large
that they began to sell off.
Griffith was an entirely different personality from
Royal Miller, who was very much the hard-nosed businessman.
Griffith approached things strictly diplomatically. He
was a very kindly person and very well versed in water
problems. He had been engaged in that San Gabriel deve
lopment, which was the source of the water supply for the
Azusa Foothill Citrus Company, and had a very good back
ground in water development in general in the state. Clair
Hill was appointed to serve and served until I retired in
77.
Leedom: 1957. He was still serving when I retired. I think he
retired from the Board and was placed on the State
Engineering Board in 1958 the Board that qualifies
engineers as to state regulations. I believe Arnold Frew,
who was active in the Walnut Growers Association and
several other agricultural associations, succeeded Lester
Ready when he passed away. Frew came from King City.
I might say that during all my term as administrative
officer of the Board, I found the appointments made to
the Board, largely filling vacancies caused by the death
of the members of termination of term, were all very high
caliber men. Without exception they had a wide knowledge
of the water problems in California and viewed them, not
from a local standpoint, but from a statewide standpoint.
Roy Meikle, an original member of the Board, of course,
had been chief engineer of the Turlock Irrigation District
almost from its creation and still is consulting engineer
for that Board. His life-long dream of building new Don
Pedro is nearing fruition now in 1966. I believe they
have an appropriation fou the initiation of construction
in the budget this year. Phil Swing, the ex-congressman
from San Diego, was co-author of the bill which authorized
the construction of Boulder Dam and had a very extensive
knowledge of the water problems in Southern California.
He was in law practice in San Diego. He engaged, I think
up to the time of his death, in the long, drawnout Pallbrook
case. They were suing the federal government to retain
78.
Leedom: some of the water for local use instead of allocating it
all to the marine base. He also bad a very vide knowledge
of the Colorado River problems, having initiated legis
lation, the Swing- Johnson Bill. I have a little anecdote
about that. Hiram Johnson was a very fine gentleman and
a very great diplomat. Swing as a young congressman was
very enthusiastic, and also very verbose and inclined to
talk out of turn at times. There was a conference to be
held on the Swing-Johnson Bill authorizing federal parti
cipation in the Boulder Dam project. As the story goes,
Hiram Johnson said, "Now Phil, when we get in this con
ference, I would like to have you sit next to me be
cause I ll need your assistance in dealing with these
people." So Swing sat on Johnson s right. During the
conference there arrived a moment when there was a
question as to which way the decision might go . Swing started
to open his mouth and Johnson reached over, stepped on
his foot, and said, "Phil, will yo hand me that paper?"
With his vast background and experience in water
problems in California, B.A. Etcheverry s Board was
invaluable. I recall when they first proposed a project
of a fresh water barrier down in Los Angeles County as a
means of holding back the salt water intrusion, the Board
financed this project through appropriations to the Board
for the Los Angeles Flood Control District. The district
purchased the water, and the board provided funds for
I
79.
Leedom: sinking the veils and pumping this fresh water underground.
At each meeting there would be a report on the progress
of building this fresh vater barrier. I recall that
Professor Etcheverry used to look at the figures very
carefully and ask some very probing questions about hov
much of this water was being wasted seaward and how much
of it was actually building up the barrier. He asked
a lot of questions that were difficult to answer. I
do believe that that barrier did eventually work out,
and that they are now planning another up in the Ventura
Section. I think instead of using Colorado River water
on it now, they are using reclaimed sewage water, but I
am not sure about this. Etcheverry s approach to every
problem was very scholarly, but he also had a fine sense
of humor. Quite frequently when the Board was involved
in a long and tiresome discussion of some problem, it was
Etcheverry who relieved the pressure with some Jokes of
his own. He always could come up with a bright saying or
a light turn of affairs to make it look a little more
possible or probable of solution. I think the Board
suffered one of its greatest losses from the standpoint
of an advisory mind when Professor Etcheverry passed away.
In addition to him, there was Howard Cozzens from
down in Monterey. He had the longest record as County
Engineer of any engineer in California. Unfortunately
for Howard, one of the first projects the Board had to
tackle was on the Pajaro River rebuilding some old levees
80.
Leedom: down there to project some very rich farmlands. The Pajaro
is a very strange river. It can rise and disappear in the
sand, and rise again, during a summertime. But in winter
it produces a lot of water and it did cause considerable
damage down there. While the farmers wanted the flood
protection, they also wanted to preserve all the land they
c ould, and when it came to the purchase of these lands from
them for their own protection, they demanded the very
highest price that they could possibly get. This was
embarrassing to Howard.
81
INDEX
Althiuse, Irvin 3-6
Bailey, Paul 17
Bartlett, Louis 23
Bruener, Clarence 29
California ^lood Control Conference 69
California (State Department of Public
Works, Division of Water Resources U5
California (State) Legislature, Joint
Interim Committee on Water Problems kj-^3, l
California (State) Water Commission 72
California ( State )Water Resources Board 39, Ul, 62, 6U-30
California ( State )Water Resources Coura-
Isslnn 31, ^0, 62
California (State) Water Rights Comm
ission ^6
California water conference (19^5) ^
Cali-foniia Water Plan 5*4, 58-60
Central Valley Authority 52
Central Valley Project 1^-lS, 25-39, ^3-^3, W-5 1 ^
Central Valley Project Association 29, 31
Clark, Frank W. 22, 23, 2k, 25, 33
Corning, California 5
Courier Free Press (Redding, Calif.)
Coszens, Howard Ul, U, 79
Crittenden, Bradford S. U7-U8, ^0, ^1, ^5
Edmonston, R. M. 12-lU, 20, 22, 2k, ^-^1 , 51,
Etcheverry, E. A. Ul, 65, 78-79
Fauver, Jim 29
"Feasibility of State ownership and
operation of the Central Valley
Project..." 53
Fink, Walter C
Flood control act (19^) 63-6^, 67
Folsom Prison 9
Frew, Arnold 77
Grifnta , C. A. 7^
Haley, J. J. l
Hed^er, Harold 8, 70
Hill, Glair 7^
Hyatt, Ed 11-20, 2^-39, ^5-^, ^, 51-53
Hyatt, Ed Senior 20
82
Johnson, Gus
Johnson, Hiram TO
Jones, Bob
Jones, Gerald R. l6
Kaupke, Charles ^Q
Kennett Dam (proposed)
?:ern, Roland 29
Killion, Georee 21, 2k, 38
, Governor Goodwin 59
League of California Municipalities ^5
MoClatchy, C. K. 15
McClatchy, Carlos
McClure, W. F. 17
McCoy, George 55
Marshall, Robert Bradford
Matthews, Roy ^ > ^1
Mpikle, Roy V. H, 6$, 77
Miller, Royal ^1, *5, 69, 7
Mormons 1 ft
Nickerson, Merritt 20, 2^
Nixon, Richard 73-7 1 *
Olson, Governor Colbert L. 21, 37-33
Or land, California
Or land Register 7
Pacific Gas and Electric Company V2-U3
Patterson, Ellis 37
Pierovich Bill 39
Public - private power controversy 15, 23, 38, k$
Ready, Lester ^1, ^5
Riley, Ray
Rollson, Ernie
Rolph, Governor James 30-31
Sacramento Bee 9 ft, I 1 *-
Sta^ord, Harlowe M. lo
Sullivan, Matt 31
Sutter Club 11
Swing, Phil *H, f k> 77-78
U. S. Bureau of the Budget 70
VanEtten, P. H.
Warne, William
Warren, Governor Earl F.
Water and Power Act
Water Project Authority
Whittaker, Clem
Whittier Narrows Dam
Woodson, Warren
83
29
2U, 38, 39-^1,
*5
22-25, 31, 3^-39
29
73
5
Gerald J. Giefcr
Born in St. Paul, Minnesota; undergraduate degree
(1950) in English literature from the College of St.
Thomas, St. Paul; graduate degree (1951) in Library
Science from the University of Minnesota; has vorked
with the libraries of Highlands University, Las Vegas,
Hew Mexico (1951-53); University of Minnesota (1953-55);
Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado (1955-59);
and, since 1959, Water Resources Center Archives,
University of California, Berkeley. Publications in
the Archives series include, among others, Water wells;
an annotated bibliography; Water; a subject heading
list; and Index to periodical literature on aspects of
vater in California.
SACRAMENTO BE 9~-,it ^ I T7/
Sam Leedom Dies At 74; Was Former
Bee City Editor, Water Board Official
Sam R. Leeden, former
city editor of : fhe Bee and
later a top assistant of the
California State Water Re
sources Board, is eead it the
age of 74.
Leedom, city editor from
1927 to 1935, committed sui
cide \i sterday in his home
after suffering from cancer
and the complications of an
auto accident.
He lived in El Granada, a
coastal town south of San
Francisco. The San Mateo
coroner s office reported the
immediate cause of death
was a self-inflicted knife
wound. Leedom left a brief
note for his wife.
He had been liring in El
Granada, a coastal town
south of San Francisco, since
his retirement in 1957 as ad
ministrative assistant for the
water board.
Sam R. Leedom
He is survived by his wife,
Ella, who taught at the Lin
coln Elementary School here
before her retirement
Leedom came to The Bee
from Redding where he was
employed as a newspaper
man. His f irst Bee assign
ment was m the paper s Su
perior California depart
ment but stories he wrote
about the bloody Thanksgiv
ing Day Folsom Prison riot
of 1927 brought him promo
tion to city editor. He served
in that position until when
whe went to the Orient
shortly before the Japanese
took over Manchuria.
He wrote stories about the
invasion, and, later, a book
about the Orient.
Hue trip was followed by
one to the Dutch East ftdies
and another aroootf the
world.
Returning to Sacramento
Leedom for a Una* operated
a publicity buxrnetst in part-,
nerahip with Ralph K Clark
and was a member f the
Capitol staff of the Asso
ciated Press before Joining
the water board.
He took an active interest
in community theater activi
ties and served a term as
president of the old Sacra
mento Community Players.
Leedom was born in Mon
tana, where his father
owned a weekly newspaper
in Billings.
He was a seaman in the
Navy in World War i and a
captain in an Army military
government unit in World
War O.
Before entering newspa
per work in California, he at
tended the University of Cal
ifornia at Berkeley, where
he was a member of Tau
Kappa Epsilon.
Leedom was a member of
Provident Lodge of the Ma
sons here and attained the
32nd degree in the Masonic
order.
Services will be held at 11
a.m. tomorrow under Ma
sonic -auspices in the funeral
home of Dutra and Randle-
man in Half Moon Bay.
