Vision in the Desert

Book excerpt: Set in both the arid lands of Arizona and the political backdrop of Washington, D.C., Vision in the Desert documents the life and career of longtime Arizona senator, Carl Hayden. One of the most powerful figures in the United States Congress, Hayden's public service career, centered on water and its distribution, is inseparable from the history of the West and the development of arid lands. Carl Hayden became acquainted with reclamation and irrigation issues at an early age through his work with his father in Arizona's arid Salt River Valley. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1911, Hayden began a fifty-seven-year-long stint in the U.S. Congress, serving as a Democratic House Representative for fifteen years, and then in the Senate from 1927 until 1969. The issues of the development of the Colorado River occupied the majority of Hayden's congressional work. The authorization of the Central Arizona Project (CAP) in 1968, at the end of the senator's long career, highlights all of Hayden's efforts concerning this lifestream of the Southwest. Combining Hayden's childhood hopes and congressional endeavors, the CAP secured future economic and population growth of the West by making possible the distribution of water to the growing urban areas of Phoenix and Tucson.