Fifty Years Ago this week in The Colorado Statesman … U.S. Rep. Frank Evans, a Democrat, labeled some of the engineering and building under way at the Air Force Academy “a debacle,” charging that the architects didn’t have “the vaguest idea of the dramatic changes which take place in temperature in this area.” …

… Speaking of dramatic changes in the area, Evans convened a conference to discuss how to aid drought-stricken farmers and ranchers in Eastern Colorado at Lamar Junior College. In attendance were state and federal officials and representatives of the Colorado wool, cattle and feed associations, along with the Farmers Union, Colorado Farm Bureau, Colorado State Grange and bankers from the area. The plains farmers concluded that the Farmers Home Administration was doing a good job providing support during the tough times, but there wasn’t enough money to do the job. Crop insurance, which had been discontinued in some Eastern Colorado counties, needed to be restored. The program should be subsidized if losses were too high at the federal agency, conference attendees decided. “We should have a 365-day-a-year conservation program,” said Dick Parrish of Walsh. Farmers Home Administration Deputy Administrator Floyd F. Higbee told a Baca County farmer that he understood difficulties the farmer was encountering selling eggs the way he used to. The poultry industry, Higbee said, is completely integrated, with feed businesses owning or controlling almost all poultry and egg production these days. He said he hoped that integration could be halted before it took over the hog and cattle businesses as well. Drought conditions were worse than they had been during the 1930s, Commissioner of Agriculture Paul Swisher said, but damage has been reduced due to strip cropping, listing, chiseling and retention of stubble to reduce blowing. …

… Noting the irony, the Statesman editorial board wondered if it was a coincidence that on the same day Evans held his conference in Lamar to discuss the drought problems “it started to rain. And it rained … and rained .. and rained. That’s what we call getting results!”

… State Sen. Roy Romer had a thing or two to say about the state’s U.S. senator. “The present representation from Colorado in the U.S. Senate is not only inadequate but does not represent the majority view of the people of the state,” he said. “Senator (Gordon) Allott, who so enthusiastically supported Goldwater’s policies, was clearly rejected by the voters in 1964, and it is my prediction he will be rejected again in 1966.” …

… The Washington correspondent for the Pueblo Star Journal took note of a looming battle between Allott and Evans over a proposed “permanent pool” for the John Martin Reservoir, with Evans supporting it with legislation and Allot opposed. Except that Allott “has always said he is for a permanent pool, if he can be persuaded the rights of irrigators below the dam won’t be harmed,” a Bent County official wrote. “The only joker is that it is going to be impossible to convince Allott the irrigators won’t be hurt, even though others who have studied the situation feel the Evans bill would provide more than adequate protection.” Allott, a former attorney for the Amity Canal, the chief opponent of the permanent pool, has “ties of friendship and long acquaintance with these people” and, rumor had it, plans to work on their behalf “to thwart a permanent pool” …

…. Nevada Gov. Grant Sawyer and 35 business leaders from Las Vegas invited Denver business and financial executives to a luncheon at the Brown Palace Hotel to inform them about the benefits in Nevada for Colorado industries planning on expanding into the growing state’s consumer markets. The Nevada Foundation was last in Denver making a similar pitch four years earlier. …

… Air Force Academy officials announced that instructors at the school were instituting plans to keep examinations in locked safes until administering tests to cadets. U.S. Rep. Roy McVicker introduced a bill to bring Civil War pensions up to date in terms of purchasing power….

… Secretary of the Treasury Henry Fowler, a Democrat, made a case to enact a five-stage, $4.8 billion excise tax cuts on telephones, automobiles, jewelry and cosmetics in a guest commentary. “This reduction will spur the continued growth of our economy, which is now in the 51st month of unbroken expansion. It will lower prices. It will raise business profits. It will create new jobs. It will end an unfair burden on many businesses and many workers. It will cut the government’s cost of tax collection and enforcements. It will reduce the burden of regressive taxation on low and moderate income families.” He pointed out that many excise taxes were enacted during the Depression and World War II “for sound reasons,” but argued that “it is now time to re-examine them to make sure they do not hold back our growing peacetime economy. We must move forward.” …

… State Rep. Betty Kirk West, a Pueblo Democrat, was reported home recuperating from “an attack of internal hemorrhaging, which struck the veteran legislator at her home” the previous Friday, the newspaper reported. She was accepting visitors and welcomed “get well” cards at her room at St. Mary Corwin Hospital in Pueblo.

— Ernest@coloradostatesman.com