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Las VegadT Beview Journal-Deoem'ber 15, 1949 Where I Sit By A, E. Cahlan So- — they’re going to ration BATHS (of all things) in'N ew York City. You thought ration­ing w,as all over when the Em­peror of Japan gave up? Well: it was—-for a while. It seems, however, they’ve been wasting water somewhere else - besides Las Vegas and that things are getting a bit rough. New York is about to find out just how im­portant an adequate water sup-' -------- i ply is by going without, a n d ! The situation was discovered everybody in the place will be when printers in Reno and Story of the week: The Washos county recorder’s office, operat­ed by the money of the taxpay­ers of Reno, Sparks and vicinity, recently turned down a ...plan to microfilm all records and to adopt this procedure for all fu­ture recordings. It is charged that the reason for the adverse decision was the 22 jobs which | would have been eliminated.- ! asked to go without baths for several hours nach week. Sparks started checking up -to see whether the county commis­sioners had extended their econ- If that doesn’t produce the an-; omy program to all affairs or ticipated r e s u l t s , additional .clamps will be placed on usage, fqr the nation’s metropolis, like, a. lot of other eastern cities, is running with only a couple of week’s assured supply in reser­voirs. They’re NOT like Las Ve­gas, where there’s still an un­measured but tremendous supply beneath the ground. Must have rainfall filling mountain streams which run into the big res­ervoirs. There always has been plenty before. Not enough now. This GOULD be serious to the point, of being CRITICAL. In a pinch we could ship in a train­load or so each day to tide us over a rough spot (of a few days) — that’s the way Hender­son was supplied for some time —but New York? No rain, no water. And what happens when there isn’t any water? Y o u r guess is quite as good a s ’mine. Probably won’t get that bad, ac­tually, of course, but the situa­tion just ISN’T good, and has a lot of people scared. just to the matter of public print­ing. Seems the board set up a plant of its own to turn out all the forms and other printed mat­ter used by the county. The idea was to conserve the taxpayers’ dollars. The folks in the'printirfg business thought they were be­ing discriminated against and set about to find put. They did. The microfilm story is just one. $ * * # Newspapers all over the state are keeping the public informed ;.as to what goes on in the present Clark County melee which is described in practically all the comment as being largely poli­tical. Grand jury charges against district attorney Bob Jones were aired in full together with full coverage of Jones’ statement. Two full columns of one Reno paper vjere devoted to the de­tailed s t a t e m e n t of Dave Stearns’ attorneys’ motion t o ; quash the indictment’ against him. Will Las Vegas ever be in that spot? Could "be. Probably WILL be if we sit smugly by and ex­pect the artesian supply to be sufficient forever, just because it always has been. And there are those—in high spots in the community — who are actually opposing tapping the Lake Mead supply so we’ll be sure to have enough for any eventuality. It would be the heighth of folly to wait, as New York has done, for the pump to run dry before planning for all .possible emer­gencies, when, the answer is right here at our very dqor. And yet some sincere folks and some Ipiot so sincere, would maintain the status quo, pumping the un­derground supply ever lower imposing rigid restrictions on usage to make it go as far as possible, and retain the present facilities which have been prov­en to be woefully inadequate in peak periods. Action of the Las Vegas city commission in giving Chief of Police Robert Malburg a vote of confidence was featured, while Mayor Cragin’s supporting statement in which he charged certain elements were seeking to undermine the confidence of the people in the police depart-mnt was given full coverage.; The prediction is being freely made in some circles that con­siderable impetus is being given; the drive of northern Nevada groups to extend the citizens’ committee throughout the state; to rid Nevada of the outside in­fluences in several phases of its : economic set-up, and Clark County is expected to come up with the revelations necessary s to get the job done. So far as water is concerned, we take it so much for granted we never worry about going without until there just isn’t any more. Last summer proved that, but DEFINITELY! This adds strength to a pre-1 vious prediction made here a short time ago. The people of this state will vote gambling out- if necessary to get rid of the undesirable elements. Those who regard this statement lightly simply do NOT know Nevada and the temper of those Who have CHOSEN to make it their home because they'like it here. And they’re still considerably in the majority.