XXII

EMMET D. BOYLE, NEVADA'S WAR GOVERNOR, 1915-1918

            During the second decade of the century Nevada was lined up with the Progressive West. It was western votes and influence that made possible many of the most constructive acts of the early Wilson administration, including the Federal Reserve Act of December, 1913, and the act of September, 1914, creating the Federal Trade Commission to supervise the "trusts." Under the vigorous leadership of President Wilson the Progressive sentiment of the country applauded his promise of a "new liberalism" in business and politics. While business activity was beginning to slow down at the end of the cycle of prosperity which had started about 1898, the nation as a whole appreciated the "record of achievement" of the Wilson administration, and in 1914 increased the Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.

Election of 1914

Democratic candidates in Nevada that year were generally successful. Out of a maximum vote of 21,567 the Socialists were able to muster a strength of around 4,000, and where there was no Socialist candidate the Democrats received more help than the Republicans from this source. In the election for the United States Senate, Francis G. Newlands, Democrat, was reelected by the small plurality of forty votes. The vote for this office was : Newlands, 8,078; Samuel Platt, Republican, 8,038; and A. Grant Miller, Socialist, 5,451 (this being a much larger vote than was given to any other candidate on the Socialist ticket). The Republicans chose the representative to Congress, Congressman Roberts furnishing almost the sole upset in the election, winning by a plurality of 884 against the Democratic and Socialist candidates.

Votes for Women

At this election two amendments were made to the Constitution. One eliminated the antiquated provision in the official oath

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regarding participation in a duel. The other amendment ratified by the people November 3, 1914, had been first proposed in the Twenty-fifth Legislature March 18, 1911. It added another sentence to section 1 of article 2, reading : "There shall be no denial of the elective franchise at any election on account of sex." Thus in 1914 Nevada joined the other western states which had already yielded "woman's right" in the matter of voting. The vote on this suffrage amendment was : For, 10,936; against, 7,258. The only counties that did not give a majority in favor of it were: Eureka, Ormsby, Storey and Washoe. Subsequently as a result of the enfranchisement of women in Nevada on November 7, 1916, cast a total vote of 33,187. In the vote on presidential electors the Democratic candidates won by an average plurality of 5,611. The Socialist candidates polled a little over 3,000 votes, and about 350

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BAY STATE MINE, NEWARK, WHITE PINE COUNTY

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In a new law governing elections passed in 1915, the partisan affiliations of candidates for judicial offices were eliminated from the ballot. Of the three candidates for the Supreme bench in 1916, J. A. Sanders was the successful one. Congressman Roberts was reelected for his fourth and last term.

State Debt Limitation

At this election two amendments to the Constitution were ratified, one of them changing the limit of state debt from $300,000 to 1 per cent of the assessed valuation of property in the state. The second amendment extended the legal investments of the State Educational Fund not only to United States or Nevada or other state bonds and county bonds of Nevada, but also "in loans at a rate of interest of not less than 6 per cent per annum, secured by mortgage on agricultural lands in this state of not less than three times the value of the amount loaned, exclusive of perishable improvements, of unexceptional title and free from all encumbrances, said loans to be under such further restrictions and regulations as may provided by law." This amendment was in line with agitation that had been in progress for some time to enable farmers to obtain capital at low rates of interest and on long time loans.

Primary Laws

In his message of 1917 Governor Boyle gave a succinct history of Nevada's experiments with the direct and indirect primary methods of nominating local and state officials :

The Legislature, in 1909, in recognition of a popular demand for the abolition of the convention system for the nomination of party candidates, went to the direct primary and, during the six years following, tried three direct primary laws, none of which proved entirely satisfactory. The last of these laws, enacted in 1913, met with very general criticism on the grounds that: (1) the expense of the taxpayers and the candidate was excessive; (2) that candidates of a party seeking nomination of that party were committed to no set of principles excepting such a platform as they themselves might adopt after their nomination; (3) that the plan lent itself admirably to political machinations designed to permit an improper interference with the selection of the candidates of a particular political party by persons not affiliated with such party; (4) that no provision was made for the bringing out of candidates who might be reluctant to enter the public service without urging, thus leaving the electorate a choice between only such men as, because of political ambition, saw fit to enter the primary contest, and (5) that, in such a free field as the system offered, primary candidates who were not the choice of a majority of the party might still receive the party nomination. Some of the defects complained of are perhaps inherent to any primary law, while others are subject to correction.

The Legislature, in 1915, passed an indirect primary law by which delegates to a convention were selected at a primary

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election, and it was hoped that the plan would put into effect the good, while eliminating the bad, feature of both systems. A single trial of this compromise measure has indicated that it is neither practical nor popular. Serious study of the convention and primary systems of other states and of the defects which resulted in the repeal of our own experimental laws here have been made by a number of public-spirited citizens at a series of conferences initiated and conducted by members of your own body. It is hoped that from these conferences will grow the draft of a law which will eliminate the features not found satisfactory in the earlier Nevada statutes.

The primary act of 1917 was an attempt to meet the objections to earlier laws as reviewed by the governor. The law provided two methods of placing a name on the official ballot at the

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EARLY DAY VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANY WITH HAND HOSE CART, EUREKA

primary, one where the candidate filed his own declaration of candidacy, the other where the candidate accepted a designation of nomination filed by at least ten qualified electors in his behalf. The law also prescribed a schedule of fees to be paid by primary candidates, ranging from a hundred and fifty dollars for a candidate for any of the state offices or Congress, down to ten dollars for a candidate for a township office. The law invested the responsibility of party leadership in the nominees at the primary, since in the case of the state convention it consisted of successful candidates for nomination to the state offices and the Legislature, and also the hold-over state senators, these comprising the state convention to adopt a state platform and elect a state central committee.

Emmet D. Boyle, who was inaugurated governor of Nevada in January, 1915, was a native son of Nevada, a graduate of the State University, and by his distinguished record in public and private life left a name which Nevadans without regard to partisanship love and respect. Governor Boyle was born at Virginia City July

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26, 1879. His father, Edward Dougherty Boyle, was a native of County Donegal, Ireland, and as a boy had worked in the iron and steel mills of Pennsylvania. He went to the Pacific Coast in 1852, and in 1863 went to the Comstock and was a mining superintendent there for a quarter of a century. By practical experience and an unusually eager intellectual curiosity he had educated himself as a mining engineer and was also deeply interested in astronomy and other scientific lines. At the time of his death he was manager of the North Rapidan mine at Como, a position to which his son Emmet D., who had graduated Bachelor of Science from the University of Nevada in 1899, succeeded. Emmet

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STACKING HAY IN CARSON VALLEY

D. Boyle received the degree of mining engineer in 1903. Before his father's death he had followed mining in British Columbia and in Mexico. He gave up his private practice in 1909 to become state engineer, serving two years, and in 1913-14 was a member of the State Tax Commission. Emmet D. Boyle was Nevada's governor throughout the World war period, and in 1918 was re-elected for a second term, and thus remained at the head of the state government during the reconstruction era. He died January 3, 1926, just three years after retiring from office. He was probably the greatest and best qualified of all Nevada governors and sponsored many items of constructive legislation.

Economic Conditions in 1914

Just three months before the election of November, 1914, war had broken out in Europe. A minor business depression in America was suddenly accelerated almost to a panic, resulting in the tightening of credit and the temporary falling off of exports to the warring countries. This general disturbance of commerce still prevailed when Governor Boyle delivered his inaugural message

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Governor Boyle believed that the advertising of Nevada's re-sources and the investigation of reclamation and industrial projects as vested in the Bureau of Industry, Agriculture and Irrigation could properly be performed by the university and experiment station and the state engineer and surveyor general. On this recommendation the bureau was abolished by the 1915 Legislature. Governor Boyle renewed a suggestion that had been made before for the concentration of control of the state's charitable and penal institutions under a single state board, but this and other recommendations for reorganization to the end of securing greater economy, including a proposal for a "short ballot" in elections, were not carried out. His recommendation at this time for a "budget system" for controlling appropriations was not adopted until 1919.

Early War Prosperity

Neither Governor Boyle nor any one else was able to foresee, in the early days of 1915, the tremendous changes shortly to be wrought in the economic life of a nation. The governor himself points out the contrast in his message of January, 1917:

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Mining Boom

The first great demand of the European nations upon American commerce was for war materials. Later there arose slogans, "Ships Will Win the War," and "Food Will Win the War," but at first the need was for the metals and chemicals which went into the destructive agencies. American mines, iron and steel mills, munitions works felt the stimulus of war prosperity somewhat earlier than the farmers and live stock growers. As a result a new mining boom struck Nevada. "The general prosperity of the nation ushered in by the year 1915 has been reflected here," said Governor Boyle in 1917. "The high prices of copper, silver, tungsten, zinc and lead have served to stimulate mining to an

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ROCCO HOMESTAKE MINE, HAMILTON, WHITE PINE COUNTY

unusual degree. Quietly and without sensational production from any single mine or group of mines, the value of our mineral output reached the high figure of forty million dollars in the year just closed (1916), and it is interesting to note that this clean wealth came from nearly a thousand productive properties. Our agricultural and its allied development has been marked and apparently permanent, and the general prosperity in these basic industries has been reflected in the healthy advance of all our enterprises." But here the governor sounded a note of warning. "It were well for us to bear in mind that further readjustments will occur at the close of the European struggle," and abnormal prosperity should not be accompanied with abnormal and extravagant expenditures in the public service.

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the command of the producing companies has been marshaled to meet the demands for our mineral products. . . . Since the demand for mineral products for munitions of war, as well as the demand for minerals used in the machinery necessary to manufacture the same, has exceeded the production, many new enterprises have come into existence in this state. Reduction plants for such minerals as tungsten, molybdenum and antimony and zinc have been either installed or rehabilitated. . . . A new life in the field of prospecting has sprung up and during the past year we have found everywhere men engaged in searching the hills for precious metals—and not without reward, for numerous new mines have been discovered which are now producing and netting handsome returns to the owners. . . . Each year brings forth new and important strikes, both in old and new districts. As an illustration, the Jarbidge district, discovered about the year 1909, and producing small amounts since that time, now bids fair to become one of the greatest mining districts of the state.

It was estimated that more persons were employed in the mines of Nevada at that time than ever before in the history of the state. Reports to the inspector of mines, not including men working in reduction plants and as prospectors or as individuals, showed a total of 5,800 miners, fully half of them being employed in the mines of White Pine, Nye and Esmeralda counties. During this early war period the emphasis in mine production was on such metals as copper rather than gold and silver. A picture of the mining boom in Nevada during 1916 was afforded in a publicity report by the United States Geological Survey :

During the last six months the mining industry in Nevada has experienced one of its greatest revivals. Old mines closed down for years have resumed or being put in shape for production, and the regular producers have increased their output to the fullest capacity. At many points the use of tractor engines, hauling on each trip as much as thirty tons of ore between mine and railroad, have helped to improve conditions, as formerly there were not teams enough for all purposes. The many milling plants of the state are reported to be in full operation, and a number have adopted the flotation process for increased saving. In the Yellow Pine district five dry mills are operated on zinc ores. Only one of the two copper smelters in Nevada was in production.

The production of ore containing lead has been greater than in recent years, principally from Pioche, Goodsprings and Eureka. Ely produces most of the copper, and at the rate of production for the last six months will yield 92,000,000 pounds of the metal in 1916. Copper properties in the vicinity of Luning and Yerington have been active in shipping low grade ores to the Salt Lake smelters at the rate of about 2,000 tons monthly. Deposits of zinc ore have been opened in Elko County, where about 600 tons is being produced and shipped to eastern markets every month. In Clark County, around Goodsprings, about 2,800 tons of oxidized zinc ore was shipped in May and as much during the previous month. At Pioche a small output of zinc sulphides was reported. As the copper

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output has been increased more than 50 per cent, the value of the output at present prices will be double that of the last year.

Labor Statistics

There were no strikes or labor troubles in the mining district during 1916. In the face of rising prices the operators could well afford to make concessions of increased wages to their employees. Among other acts of the Legislature in 1915 had been the creation of the office of commissioner of labor, a member of the Nevada Industrial Commission being designated as ex-officio commissioner, whose duties were to gather statistics and enforce the labor laws of the state. The first report of the commissioner for 1916 shows that the total number of gainfully employed persons in Nevada, in

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OLD LOGAN MINE, RUBY HILL, NEAR EUREKA

all classes of work, banks, railroads, stores, as well as in the mines and in purely industrial operations, was approximately 15,000, including 470 females. By averaging the daily wage statistics for all concerns reporting, the average daily wage for male employees in that year was $3.65. The highest average daily wage in many large industries was in the pay for workers in the mines and ore reduction works, $4.41 (excepting the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company, whose average daily wage was $3.82).

The commissioner also endeavored to secure statistics in 1915 as to the nationality of employees, and while the returns were admittedly unsatisfactory and incomplete, the figures indicate some of the chief polyglot elements in Nevada's industrial population at that time. Out of a total of 11,647 employees, nearly 8,000 were reported as American or from the British Isles. Of other nationalities the largest number was furnished by Italy, 1,157; Greeks, 663; Austria-Hungary, 390; Germany, 275; Japan, 299; China, 124. Most of the Japanese and Chinese were employed by the rail-road companies.

Cooperation of Nation and States

The general drift of public opinion and legislation during the early years of the century had been in the direction of bringing

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nation, state and community into a cooperative unity for the accomplishment of a program of social, political and economic unity, ranging from public health control to the construction of highways and from the safeguarding of children in industry to the extension of culture and education to the most isolated farm and mining camp. The rapid development of this program was obscured by the overwhelming interest in the World war, and it will be proper to review briefly Nevada's participation in the program, partly as a result of its own initiative and partly in compliance with national legislation. Governor Boyle before he left office had become convinced that the state and national government had gone too far in preempting the sphere of individual and local initiative, but his earlier acts and declarations showed his sympathy with some reforms that would have been Utopian twenty years earlier. He believed that Nevada had realized great benefits from the Workmen's Compensation Law and its administration, and he proposed a wider extension of the principle to the general doctrine of social insurance, whereby the state might assume increasing responsibility for the care and protection of those incapacitated for work by different causes.

Vocational Training

Throughout the United States there had been an awakening to the importance of providing as a part of the public school system something that would more definitely give to the young people training in the useful occupations and better prepare them for their life work. This was the beginning of vocational education in its broader meaning. When the Federal Government took a hand, it used agencies already in existence, the agricultural colleges, through which it could promote "extension work." On May 8, 1914, was approved the Smith-Lever Act, providing for cooperation in agricultural extension between the Federal Department of Agriculture and the land-grant colleges. The Legislature in 1915 accepted the provisions of this act and authorized the university to organize and conduct agricultural extension work in conformity with its terms. The same legislature placed this agricultural extension work in one of the eight public service departments of the public service division of the university. In order to get the recurring annual benefits of this Smith-Lever Act, each state had to appropriate dollar for dollar. The agricultural extension work was inaugurated at the university in 1915, and out of it came, early in 1916, the formation of boys and girls clubs for work in home economics, gardening and animal husbandry. Such clubs were instituted in every county of the state, and by the close of 1916, 2,344 children were enrolled in these various organizations.

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The Legislature in 1917 accepted the provisions of this act and appropriated $30,000 as a "vocational educational fund for the preparation of teachers, supervisors, and directors of agricultural subjects and teachers of trade and industrial and home economics subjects."

Teachers' Pensions

A step toward the social insurance idea broached by the governor had been taken by the 1915 Legislature in the adoption of a law providing for teachers' pensions. After the law went into effect nine dollars annually was deducted from the pay of teachers. This was supplemented by a three mills tax and some other sources and was to constitute a "public school teachers' permanent fund." On the basis of thirty years of teaching service, at least fifteen in Nevada, a teacher on being retired would receive a maximum or proportionate part of an annual retirement salary of $500 during life. In 1919 the Legislature repealed the requirement that each teacher pay nine dollars annually into the fund, and also increased the retirement salary to $600. By the end of 1920 there were nine teachers on the retired list, and at that time out of 700 teachers in the state there were forty-eight whose average period of teaching service was approximately thirty-two years.

Rabies Control

An emergency condition brought another agency of the Federal Government to Nevada, resulted in the creation of another state commission and the erection of a control service which has been in operation ever since. A brief account of the origin of the epidemic and the methods to control it at the start is found in the governor's message of 1917:

Before the close of the legislative session in 1915 a petition was filed by certain residents of northern Humboldt County asking for state aid to check the depredations of rabid and predatory animals. Nevada, prior to that time, had been free from evidence of this dread disease and, notwithstanding reference to the impending danger of rabies here, contained in the report of the Director of the State Hygienic Laboratory —who in 1912 called attention to the fact that the disease was prevalent in Oregon and California—the gravity of the situation was not recognized, for within a very few months it became apparent that Nevada was threatened with an outbreak of such proportions as to seriously menace public health, the livestock industry, and our commerce with other commonwealths, which in alarm were threatening rigid quarantines against our livestock exports.

On the invitation of the State Quarantine Officer and those in charge of the Public-Service Division of the University, the United States Biological Survey sent a limited force of hunters into the affected area, and the counties in which the disease appeared provided for additional scalp bounties on coyotes and for the control of other rabies-bearing animals, but these measures appeared inadequate to meet the situation.

Having become convinced that the spread of the disease could be checked only by the concerted action of all of the counties of the state acting in conjunction with the state and the Federal authorities, I called a conference of the represent-

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atives of the county governments, the officials having to do with the administration of the public health and the livestock control departments, the representatives of similar departments in adjoining states, and the representatives of the United States Biological Survey. This conference was held in Winnemucca in January, 1916, and was well attended. From it resulted a general agreement for a uniform county bounty and for financing of a cooperative campaign looking to the extermination of the coyote and the control of dogs and other rabies carriers in the infected areas. In order that general state supervision of the campaign might be intelligently directed, a committee styled "The Nevada Rabies Commission" was appointed and empowered to conduct such negotiations and take such steps as might appear expedient. Following the conference arrangements were made with the Sheep and Livestock Commissions whereby these departments contributed liberally to the cooperative campaign fund, and with the State Board of Examiners looking to the creation of a deficiency to permit the state to participate. . . .

In my opinion the state should proceed in this matter in cooperation with the Federal Government; should make adequate provision for the financing of a war of extermination against the coyote and possibly against the other animal pests which the coyote normally destroys. Rabies, difficult to eradicate when the carriers of the disease are the easily controlled domestic animals, will continue as a scourge here, jeopardizing and destroying both life and property, while the coyote is allowed to exist and propagate.

The Legislature in 1917 appropriated $35,000 annually for the next two years for the purpose of cooperating with the U. S. Biological Survey in this work, and also created a State Rabies Commission. The membership of this commission illustrates the inter-locking character of local, state and national agencies. One member was to be the director of the State Veterinary Control Service, one of the public service departments of the university ; and the others were to be appointed by the State Board of Stock Commissioners and the State Board of Health. In recent years violent opposition to the Rabies Commission has been aroused, under the theory that coyotes and bob cats kept the rabbit pest under control. With the destruction of their natural enemies, the rabbits multi-plied very rapidly and destroyed hay crops far in excess in value of the depredations caused to the live stock industry.

University in 1914-17

The university, with its large annual income from Federal sources and from state taxation, with its public service depart-

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As a further means toward taking the university "out of politics," and securing a measure of stability in the general management, the Legislature in 1917 provided that the three regents to be elected in 1918 should hold office, one for ten years, one for eight, and the third for six years, and beginning in 1922 one regent should be elected each two years, to hold office for ten years. Other improvements and additions to the university were made at this time. Besides the schools of mines already located at Virginia City and Tonopah, the Legislature created two new schools, one the Goldfield School of Mines and the other the Ely School of Mines. The Legislature in 1917 also provided for the construction of the Agricultural Building on the campus, and also for the purchase of a stock farm of 214 acres, which since 1915 had been leased for instruction in animal husbandry.

In 1917 the board of regents called to the presidency. Dr. Walter E. Clark, a native of Ohio, a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, with his doctor's degree from Columbia University, and who for sixteen years had been connected with the College of the City of New York. Doctor Clark had won distinction in the field of economics, and while in New York and since coming to Reno he has written many articles on corporations, trusts, the tariff, income tax, cost of living and other subjects. Doctor Doten writing of the first seven years of this administration said :

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The one really essential feature of the progress made by the university between 1917 and 1924 was the fact that it again clearly conceived its highest purpose and set its sails toward the old star. With this essential purpose in view, it is easy to explain the progress made by the university in the short period in question, the restoration of the old-time harmony, with an increasing friendliness and good fellowship in faculty relations, the coming of new life and a higher spirit into the work of the student body.

The benefits of one university but with many radiating services, were pointed out by the board of regents in their report for 1917-18.

In 1916 a committee appointed by the Commissioner of Education of the United States made a survey of the University of Nevada and submitted its report as Bulletin, 1917, No. 19, Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education. The report and recommendations contained therein were worth the careful consideration of the people of the state. The survey committee especially congratulates the state on not having "separated its higher educational enterprise into several parts, as so many young and sparsely populated states have been led into doing, but has kept all branches consolidated in a single institution, thereby preventing an expensive and irritating rivalry." Thus far the only tendencies shown in the state toward such a separation have been in the establishment of the local mining schools and the county normal-training schools. The local mining schools are serving an excellent purpose and were created in response to real need, but, since high schools are now everywhere greatly widening their courses and providing for evening classes and continuation work, there is no reason why the high schools in the respective towns and cities where the mining schools are located should not take over the work of the mining schools. Agricultural states have worked out the problem of the agricultural high school. Mining is one of the chief industries of Nevada. Its high schools should work out the distinctive type of high-school education and evening classwork fitted for mining towns. The work of the county normal schools, the board thinks, might better be done by the College of Education of the University of Nevada.

Road Building Under Federal Aid

Of all the measures initiated before America went to war for the cooperation between the nation and the states and communities, the one that received the greatest measure of public attention was the extension of federal aid for the building of highways. For a number of years the proposal had been before Congress to place the resources and leadership of the Federal Government behind a comprehensive highway improvement program. Finally by the act of July 11, 1916, Congress provided Federal aid to the states "in the construction of rural post-roads." No money was to be apportioned to any state until the Legislature assented to the provisions of the act and pledged funds to match federal apportionment. The plan drawn up by the state highway authorities was to be submitted for the approval of the Secretary of Agriculture. Thus the Federal Government was dealing with the state govern-

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ment, and consequently any Federal-aid highway system became necessarily a state highway system. Thus there was given a special significance to a highway designated as a state road.

In response to this act some states immediately authorized bond issues for building of state highways. As a result of the amendment adopted in 1916, Nevada was now in a position to increase its state debt to approximately one and a half million dollars. But Governor Boyle was of the opinion that the state highway program, at least in its early stages, should be financed from current taxation. Only where roads built were "permanent in character" would road bonds be justified. "We would all regret to see the tax-payers, ten, fifteen or twenty years hence, taxing themselves to meet bond interest and to redeem obligations incurred by us if there were no tangible assets in the form of existing good roads as the result of these obligations."

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WHEAT FIELD IN LOVELOCK VALLEY

The governor called attention to the "fundamental factors" in the road problem at that time :

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1915-16 produced $24,210.36, and (2) the receipts from the Automobile License Act, which during the same period netted $25,199.86.

The law requires that the money derived from these sources be apportioned to the counties. The records of the Secretary of State indicate that licenses were issued during the year 1916 for 4,672 automobiles, aggregating 124,320 horsepower and 199 motorcycles with an aggregate horse-power of 1,367.

With this slight state assistance the counties have built and maintained our public roads. The exact amount expended during the past two years for this purpose is not available, but county road-and-bridge budget estimates for 1915-16 aggregated $478,263.

Perhaps your first official duty in connection with highway legislation will be to decide on the assent of the state to the acceptance of the Federal Aid Road Act. If your decision be favorable, you will commit the state to an expenditure of certain sums of money annually. A close approximation of the amount apportioned or to be apportioned to this state for each year under the original appropriation follows :

1917-----------$ 64,398.30

1918------------128,796.60

1919------------193,194.90

1920------------257,593.20

1921------------321,991.50

It is obvious, therefore, that if your road-building program includes no more than the construction of cooperative roads under the Federal Act referred to, the present and succeeding Legislatures will be required within the next five years to appropriate for road building and maintenance something in excess of one million dollars.

State Highway Department

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handicap of the feature of the Federal act which limited such work to "post roads," and under a strict interpretation of the law only about 250 miles of roads within the 1,450 miles comprising the Nevada Highway System could receive Federal aid. Another difficulty was due to the requirement that titles to rights-of-way should be vested in the state. The railroad companies in particular were averse to surrendering such titles to lands owned by them. Consequently, until after the war, the chief road work done in Nevada was the utilization of the equipment and machinery acquired by the Department of Highways in maintenance and repair on certain sections of the four designated state routes. During the later months of 1918 about $16,000 was expended on this maintenance and repair work.

Military Preparations in 1916

With over 5,000 workers in the mines, and with perhaps as many more in occupations allied with the mining industry, in the railroad service and in other skilled trades, organized labor was a powerful influence in Nevada. Various events east and west had served to intensify the conviction of union labor, that the chief object of a state militia was to use it to break up strikes. After Governor Sparks had officially disbanded the Nevada National Guard in 1906, and there had been substituted the state police to supplement the authority of county and local officials, Nevada for twenty years retained the distinction of being the only state in the union without a national guard. Thus, after the Mexicans had raided across the border in 1916 and the President had called upon the governors of the states for certain portions of the National Guard for service on the border, Nevada was unable to make any response. However, Governor Boyle telegraphed the Secretary of War that Nevada could promptly provide 600 volunteers. This, offer was declined, and all attempts to recruit men for a national guard proved negligible, though there were many offers to serve as volunteers. In August, 1916, recruiting was abandoned, and the seventy-six men who had enlisted were discharged. That the apathy toward the National Guard was not due to lack of national patriotism is shown in Governor Boyle's careful analysis:

Briefly summarizing, the most diligent efforts of the state failed to secure, before the order to discontinue recruiting was received, an adequate and satisfactory militia organization to meet the Federal requirements, although the general patriotism of our people and the willingness of our young men to serve the country in any crisis which might arise was demonstrated by the very large number of enlistments for volunteer service. Our experience in the effort to organize -even this comparatively small detachment made it plain that a deep-seated objection to enlistment in the militia exists and that this objection in no wise indicates a lack of national patriotism, but arises solely from the reluctance of our citizens to affiliate with any organization which may be called out for service in industrial and other internal disputes.

National defense is recognized as a high patriotic duty, but the preservation of law and order under the ordinary exercise of police powers by other than paid police departments is held in discredit both by civil and military students of the system.

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The state maintains a constabulary, an arm of the government adequately equipped and prepared to preserve order in the rare cases where local officers neglect or find themselves unable to do so. The requirement that a citizen soldiery have this unpleasant and oftentimes unnatural duty forced upon them cannot but result in the deprivation of a considerable proportion of our young men of healthful and serviceable training for such emergencies as may arise in the affairs of any nation, however committed that nation may be to the principle of peace.

The efforts at recruiting in Nevada had been prompted not only by the Mexican border difficulties, but also by the terms of the National Defense Act passed by Congress June 3, 1916. This act was a step toward military preparedness, justified, if not by the possible intervention in the World war, certainly by the military activities on the Mexican border. By this act, Nevada, in order to receive Federal recognition, was obligated to have a national guard of 600 men by July 1, 1917. The act prescribed the composition of the militia as composing all able bodied males between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, divided into three classes, the National Guard, the Naval Militia and the Unorganized Militia. In the classification of unorganized militia Nevada's strength at that time consisted of 13,200. Aside from the military training given at the university, the only active military organizations in the state were the "Government Civilian Rifle Clubs," sponsored by the War Department. There were nine of these clubs in the state, including one at the university.

Nevada in the World War

The events that brought America's intervention in the World war moved rapidly during the early months of 1917, but the Twenty-eighth Legislature had adjourned March 15, three weeks before the formal declaration of war. A resolution adopted by the Legislature in the early days of March, about a month after the dismissal of the German ambassador, pledged the state and its people to the maintenance of the honor of the nation and the support of the President and the National Government during the crisis. In the closing days of the session a provisional appropriation of $25,000 was approved to be expended under the direction of the governor "for the sole purpose of meeting any military demands which may be made upon the State of Nevada by the President or the Government of the United States."

Council of Defense

To supplement the National Defense Act, Congress had authorized in August, 1916, the creation of a Council of National Defense, an ex-officio body working through an advisory committee of civilian experts representing all the essential "services of supply" for a general mobilization on a war basis. After the war actually began the Council of National Defense became more and more an administrative body, and broadened its activities through the organization of state councils of defense, and from that to county councils, so that nearly the whole country was covered by the network of its activities. The military emergency appropriation made by the Legislature was largely expended for the support of the

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Nevada State Council, which, in the absence of a special legislative session, had no formal grant of legal powers.

In the World war little was left to the initiative of individual states or individual citizens. Practically all lines of war activity originated in or were supervised from national bodies. A nation-wide organization was effected to finance the war, to secure the proper regimentation of labor, to bring into line the food and fuel productive agencies, the conservation of material, the speeding up of production. As never before in the history of the nation the whole country and practically every community in it moved step by step according to a pre-arranged program.

Call to the Colors

The raising of the army was likewise according to pre-arrangement. The selective service law, approved May 18, 1917, made every mature citizen "liable for military duty." June 5th was the general registration day in every state of the union. Some of the most important local work done was performed by the various draft boards. At the state headquarters for the administration of the act were Governor Boyle, Adjutant General Maurice J. Sullivan, Capt. W. J. McCabe and First Lieutenant George D. McKenzie, of the Medical Reserve Corps. The district boards for the state consisted of S. S. Downer, chairman, Robert F. Cole, secretary, J. H. Cazier, Dr. A. Huffaker and J. K. Turner. Besides there were local boards for each of the counties, legal advisory boards for each county, and district medical advisory boards, and a government appeal agent in each county.

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The university, with its technically trained men and with its various public service departments, was admirably equipped for special leadership in patriotic service. Beginning in October, 1917, the university maintained a training unit of the Reserve Officers Training Corps. Eight members of the administrative and instruction staff of the university were granted leave of absence for certain war duty. The agricultural college and experiment station immediately after the declaration of war cooperated with the farmers and stock men in speeding up crop production for 1917. The university had two representatives on the State Council of Defense. Early in 1918 eighty high school boys came to the university to take special training in practical farming methods. During the summer of 1918 over a hundred new recruits were quartered at the university receiving special military training. Describing

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WESTERN AVENUE, LOVELOCK

some of the military activities of the university during 1918, President Clark said:

Scores of the university's students and staff are now in khaki. Seventy-five men on the active roll of our university at the close of the semester in May, 1918, compared with 190 men just before the war was declared in April, 1917—this is one fact. Two hundred and seventy-nine stars on our university service flag at this date, August 1, 1918—this is a supplemental fact. Splendid as is the general university response to the call to the colors, it is doubtful if any other college or university in the land has sent into the service so high a percentage of its graduates and under-graduates. Thirteen members of the faculty have also taken leave of absence for the duration of the war and are now in government service. The university then has present record of 292 in all, students, alumni and faculty members, who have entered war service. There are doubtless a number of other alumni who are now in the service, but of whom the university has no service record as yet.

A statistical summary issued by the War Department in 1919 credits Nevada with 5,103 men who served with the armed forces

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of the nation during the war. The provost marshal general's final report shows a total registration at all the registration dates of 30,808. The total number called to the colors under the selective service law in Nevada was 3,242 ; the total number inducted was 3,384 ; and the total number accepted was 3,211. Most of the Nevadans called to the colors were sent to the Northwestern Training Camp at American Lake, Washington, Camp Lewis, where they were inducted into the Ninety-first Division. The Ninety-first Division reached France in July, 1918, and after only a few weeks of seasoning went into line in September, and a day or two later moved up to front line duty.

In the matter of "volunteers," Adjutant General Sullivan declared in his report at the end of 1918 that "Nevada's patriotism, as reflected by volunteer enlistments for the regular army, was the highest of any state in the Union. Nevada went 'over the top' 900 per cent in the quota of enlistments called for, her volunteers from April 1, 1917, to February 26, 1918, reaching a total of 1,447 as against a required quota of 162. Hundreds of others enlisted later. . . Nevada also gained the distinction of being the first state in the Union to fill her quota of volunteer recruits for the regular army.

"Nevada's record in volunteers is in keeping with her performance in every other call upon her patriotism and resources in the recent world crisis, as it was her proud distinction to be the first state to over-subscribe its quota on the first Liberty Loan, narrowly missing making the same record on the second loan, and in Red Cross and other contributions and activities pertaining to the war, Nevada loyally and zealously bore her banner of the 'battle born state' at the very head of the procession of patriotic commonwealths."

Nevada's Record

It was this statistical record as well as state pride that caused Governor Boyle to say in the weeks immediately following the armistice :

It is confidently believed that the record will prove Nevada to have given a higher percentage of her population to the military and naval service of the nation than was given by any other state. On the record we stand on the very forefront in our contribution of money and material. In no state were these contributions more spontaneously or more wholeheartedly made.

To the proud record of the thousands of men in the uniform of their country, who went out of Nevada while the emergency existed, should be added the equally proud record of the tens of thousands of men and women who stayed at home conducting the innumerable activities incident to the war—an army of volunteers in hard and exacting service.

In another part of his message the governor seeks to interpret the deeper significance of the war activities for Nevada :

The war emergency called for many and unfamiliar governmental agencies. There were of necessity arbitrary and unfamiliar restrictions, regulations and control of persons, industry and commerce. Our social life has been touched

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and altered by the operation of external and internal forces, not the least of which were the new spirit of cooperation and the generous play of the spirit of self-sacrifice. Our business life has undergone an equal change. Altogether unusual usurpation by government of power over transportation and over industry has occurred. Thousands of our most active men went with the colors, and behind the army overseas and in the cantonments was the great supporting army of civilians at home, in the munition factories, in the mines of iron and copper and lead which produced the flood of raw materials that went into the machinery of modern war ; in the mines of precious metals which enabled the nation to conduct its credit operations ; in the forests and on the farms. Perhaps

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KINGSTON CANYON, RICH MINING DISTRICT NEAR AUSTIN

nine million men and women have been employed directly in the military establishment and in the civil operations which serve to equip and maintain it. Now the army is homeward bound and the industrial structure created to meet the demands of the war is discontinued. The country faces the task of absorbing this great host into a state of peace in which nothing is, or ever will be, just as it was before.

The report of the adjutant general of December 31, 1920, contains the names and records of 197 "Gold Star" Nevadans who gave the supreme sacrifice. A number of them were in the Ninety-first Division, but Nevada men were represented in other divisions that were in the trenches and in all branches of the service, navy as well as army. At the time of the adjutant general's report seven Nevadans had been awarded the distinguished service cross, in two cases after death. These awards were:

Vernon J. Crossen, sergeant, Company E, Fifth Regiment, United States Marine Corps. For extraordinary heroism in action near Landres-et-St. George, France, November 1-4, 1918.

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Mike Curti (Army Serial No. 3142771), private, Company F, One Hundred Twenty-seventh Infantry. For extraordinary heroism in action near Gesnes, France, October 4, 1918.

William H. Garrison, private Signal Corps Platoon, One Hundred First Infantry. For extraordinary heroism in action near Chateau-Thierry, France, July 20-23, 1918.

Lowe A. McClure, lieutenant colonel, Sixty-first Infantry. For extraordinary heroism in action in the Bois de la Pultiere, France, October 14, 1918, and during the Meuse offensive November 5, 1918.

Roy M. Smith, major, Fourth Infantry. For extraordinary heroism in action near Les Franquete Farm, France, July 23, 1918.

Joe Nichols Viera, private, Seventy-eighth Company, Sixth Regiment, United States Marine Corps. For extraordinary heroism in action near Blanc Mont, France, October 3, 1918.

Thomas T. Reilly, captain, One Hundred Sixty-fifth Infantry. Wounded and ordered to the rear, he nevertheless remained with his men in an exposed and dangerous position, which it was necessary to hold, near Villers-sur-Fere, France, on July 27 and August 1, 1918.