Presidential Papers, Doc#1042 To Everett McKinley Dirksen, 30 August 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower
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Doc #1043

Document #1042; August 30, 1954
To Everett McKinley Dirksen
Series: EM, AWF, DDE Diaries Series
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XV - The Presidency: The Middle Way
Part V: Maintaining "a united defense"; April 1954 to August 1954
Chapter 131: The "men in the Kremlin are not to be trusted"

 

Dear Everett: You have given me an exceedingly tough problem for the simple reason that there are so many other groups interested in the project that was the subject of your recent telegram to me.1

I am having made as extensive a study as is possible in the time available, but I assure you that no matter what decision I may have to make, my sympathetic interest will be given to anything that you urgently sponsor. As you know, I feel deeply indebted to you for the fine work you have done in a number of instances when I have called upon you for help in the Senate.2

At the moment, I am awaiting reports from the Army Engineers, the State Department (involving Canada) and the Department of Justice.

While Governor Stratton is of course enthusiastically on your side of the argument, I have some of our good Republican friends from Michigan and Wisconsin furiously demanding that I take the other side.3

With warm personal regards, Sincerely

1 On August 27 Dirksen had written Eisenhower regarding H.R. 3300, a bill to permit the Chicago and Illinois Sanitary District to increase the flow of water from Lake Michigan into the Illinois River and the channels connecting it to the Mississippi. The legislation authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to study the effects of the increased flow and make its recommendations by January 31, 1956. Based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision in April 1930, a flow of 1,500 cubic feet per second had been in effect since 1938, but serious pollution problems in the upper portion of the Illinois waterway had prompted the legislation (Congressional Quarterly Almanac, vol. X, 1954, p. 519). Dirksen had urged Eisenhower's approval of the bill "from the navigation and sanitation standpoint" and from consideration for the "growing water needs in the lower reaches of the State" (Cross reference sheet, Dirksen, Aug. 21, 1954, WHCF/Alpha).

2 See no. 338 on Dirksen's support of Eisenhower's programs.

3 Republican William Grant Stratton (A.B. University of Arizona 1934) had been governor of Illinois since 1952. Representative Gerald R. Ford, Jr., from Michigan and Wisconsin Representatives Glenn R. Davis (LL.B. University of Wisconsin 1940) and Lawrence H. Smith (LL.B. Marquette University 1932) had opposed the bill (Congressional Record, 83d Cong., 2nd sess., 1954, vol. 100, pp. 1151-55, 1156, 1159). For developments see no. 1046.

Bibliographic reference to this document:
Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Everett McKinley Dirksen, 30 August 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1042. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/1042.cfm

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