XXIV

JAMES G. SCRUGHAM, GOVERNOR 1923-1926

            While Nevada in 1920 supported the Harding and Coolidge ticket, sent Republicans to the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, in the election of November 7, 1922, the state entrusted all its offices to Democrats. The highest total vote in this election was 28,871. Key Pittman won his seat in the United States Senate over Charles S. Chandler by a majority of 7,531. Charles L. Richards[1] was elected to Congress, his opponent being A. Grant Miller. For the first time in a number of years there was no Socialist or Independent candidate for any of the offices. The nominees of the two parties for governor were : James G. Scrugham, Democrat, and John H. Miller, Republican. The vote was : Scrugham, 15,437; Miller, 13,215. Other state officials chosen at this election were : Maurice J. Sullivan, Lieutenant-Governor ; W. G. Greathouse, Secretary of State ; Ed. Malley, State Treasurer ; George A. Cole, State Controller; Charles L. Deady, Surveyor-General ; M. A. Diskin, Attorney-General ; Joseph Farnsworth, Superintendent of State Printing; William Kennett, Clerk of Supreme Court; Andy J. Stinson (Republican), Inspector of Mines; J. A. Sanders, Justice of Supreme Court; W. J. Hunting, Superintendent of Public Instruction; Frank Williams, University Regent.

Election of 1924

The absence of a "protest" vote in 1922 did not indicate that the Socialists and other insurgents had amalgamated with the two major parties. This independent vote appeared strongly in the national election of 1924, when nearly 10,000 votes were polled for the Farmer-Labor ticket headed by Robert M. LaFollette and Burton K. Wheeler. The Republican candidates for president and vice president that year were Calvin Coolidge and Charles G. Dawes; the Democratic, John W. Davis and Charles W. Bryan. The vote of Nevada was distributed as follows: Republican, 11,243; Independent, 9,769 ; Democratic, 5,909. Samuel S. Arentz, Republican, was elected to Congress by a majority of 227 over Charles L. Richards. Edward A. Ducker was chosen to the Supreme Court, and Walter E. Pratt as university regent. The highest total vote of the state in this election was 25,987.

James Graves Scrugham had been a resident of Nevada for twenty years before he entered upon the office of governor. He had joined the College of Engineering at the university in 1903 at a time when the work of that department was in the embryo stage of its development. From that time until 1917, he was active in the promotion of numerous engineering enterprises in Nevada

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and the engineering school of the university grew greatly in attendance and influence. He was dean of the College of Engineering from 1914 to 1917, when he was granted a leave of absence to become state engineer. During the war period he rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. After the war he resumed his duties as state engineer and was also a member of the Nevada Public Service Commission during the second Boyle administration. He was Nevada's representative in signing the Colorado River compact in 1922. The advancement of this project through its successive stages has been the public service from which he has derived his greatest satisfaction.

Like his predecessor Governor Scrugham brought to his office the training and experience of an engineer, and he was naturally impressed with the need of elimination of useless functions and of administrative economy, though not at the expense of crippling or impairing any of the vital services which had been built up during the previous quarter of a century. "Schools, roads and public service equal to that obtained elsewhere, are not luxuries in Nevada any more than they are luxuries elsewhere," he declared. "They are essentials in any program which has for its purpose the upbuilding of a permanent and substantial commonwealth. In my opinion there is no necessity for discouraging either the expansion of our educational facilities, the highway and building program or the irrigation and power development plans." Some portions of his first message have been previously quoted to complete the record of the mining industry, the highway situation and the Colorado River project during the closing years of the Boyle administration.

Colorado River Project

The Colorado River project during these four years rested largely in the conference and negotiation stage. "The plans for construction of the proposed great impounding work on the Colorado River near Las Vegas, Nevada, received a setback through the failure of the State of Arizona to ratify the pact entered into by representatives of the seven interested states and the Federal Government. The difficulties have been further augmented by violent controversies engendered among various factions in Southern California, some of whom labor under the illusion that the water and power potentialities of this great river-system are special perquisites of certain California districts and municipalities, regardless of the rights of other states through which the stream flows."[2] Conferences between the governors of Nevada and Arizona revealed that both states desired the earliest possible development of the Colorado River. "Their mutual interest is based on their ownership of not only the stream bed below high-water mark, but also their jurisdiction over the waters flowing within their respective boundaries, subject, however, to the navigation rights of the Federal Government."

While seven states were embraced in the water shed of the Colorado River and its tributaries, it was recognized that the construction of development works in the lower basin would affect primarily the three states of Nevada, Arizona and California.

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When it came to the proposed site[3] for a power project, it was seen that the parties most directly interested were Nevada and Arizona and the Federal Government. In order that the refusal of Arizona to ratify the seven-state compact might not completely paralyze the plan, the Nevada Legislature by act of March 18, 1925, waived the provision of the compact of 1922 requiring the acceptance by all the states and permitting the compact to be valid when six of the states should ratify and Congress should give its consent and approval. But the six state compact could not be ratified, and with Nevada, Arizona and California each insisting upon its share in the impounded waters and the electrical energy developed, and

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POULTRY RAISING—A CONSPICUOUS INDUSTRY

with the Federal Government as the ultimate source of authority and funds for the initiation of the project, the final solution had to wait upon continued negotiations.

Farming and Stock Raising

War conditions stimulated not only metal mining in Nevada but farming and stock raising. The cry for increased crop production brought into use all the lands subject to irrigation and large quantities of sub-marginal lands as well. The live stock men increased their flocks and herds. Then came the sudden deflation

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in 1919-20, precipitating a prolonged depression, in which there have been variations of lights and shadows, but from which there has been no real resurgence. Describing some of these variations the governor said in 1925:

The stock raising and ranching industry has had a severe struggle against adverse economic conditions over which the operators had no control. The difficulties of meeting increased production costs have been greatly aggravated by the prevailing low prices for the products. The sheep raisers alone have been generally fortunate in having a relatively good market for their lambs and wool, the income from which has been a large factor in contributing to the material prosperity of the state while other lines of business have been depressed.

The cattle business is unfortunately in the throes of adversity and is facing a difficult situation. Through the forced liquidation of many large outfits, the breeding stock of the state has been materially depleted, with corresponding losses in anticipated revenues. Another factor tending to retard the early recovery of the industry is the lack of a stabilized public-range policy, which in turn affects credit facilities and increases the cost of necessary loans.

At that time the United States Forest Service was proposing a policy to increase the grazing fees upon the national forests in line with their estimated "commercial" value. The governor's comments upon this proposed policy bring out some of the fundamental conditions affecting the live stock industry in a state the greater part of whose area is "public domain."

The prosperity and preservation of the live stock industry in Nevada is primarily based on the free use of the public domain as a spring, summer and fall grazing ground, using the limited supply of grain and hay produced on the ranches as winter feed. Owing to our geographical and transportation handicaps, this use of public lands is essential to permit our stock men to compete with the more fortunately situated stock raisers in the Middle West and the South. The best of the summer ranges all lie within the national forests in the jurisdiction of the United States Forest Service.

In our study of the development of the Nevada live stock industry, we find that it was not only the water for irrigation which gave existing values to the farm lands, but also the use and availability of the public ranges which furnished a substantial part of the year's feeding ground. Being part and parcel of our existing land values, the public range values have been utilized in full and are reflected on our tax rolls and in our bankers' securities. In "commercializing" this range resource, the policy of the Federal Government cannot mean other than to leave the economic and business structure of the ranching industry without these values.

Public Lands

Of Nevada's vast area of over 70,000,000 acres, about 52,000,000 acres, according to the report of the surveyor-general, remained unappropriated and unreserved on July 1, 1924. Of the remaining 18,000,000 acres, about 10,500,000 acres had been en-

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tered and drawn through the land offices, about 4,800,000 acres had been patented to the Central Pacific Railway, and approximately 2,700,000 acres had comprised the various grants to the state. But of the 10,500,000 acres, entered and withdrawn in the land offices, only about 1,700,000 acres represented entries under the various homestead acts, desert land laws, Indian allotments, etc. A much greater part of this area was represented in the more than 5,000,000 acres reserved in the national forests and in the 3,500,000 acres contained in stock driveway withdrawals. These figures indicate that only a beginning had been made in utilizing Nevada's land resources for agricultural and ranching purposes. Though the Carey Act had been passed in 1894, and many areas over the state had been segregated for development under the act, it was not until March 20, 1923, that the state issued the first patents for Carey-Act lands, these patents covering a total of 474 acres.

Irrigation Developments

Through all the years since the creation of the office, the state engineer had been laboring with the complex problems involved in the proper distribution of the waters of the various streams for irrigation purposes and the adjustment of water rights among the claimants. . . . The determinations made by the state engineer's office have generally been accepted as fair and correct by the parties of interests, except in comparatively few instances.

The successive annual reports from the state engineer's office revealed the wide extent of the "beneficial use" to which the waters in all the streams were put in the growing of alfalfa, grains and fruits. Compared with the aggregate extent and value of these irrigation facilities, the result of private initiative and the collective enterprise of communities and districts acting under the Nevada irrigation laws, the only Federal irrigation project in Nevada was relatively small, supplying opportunity for about 600 farm units. As noted elsewhere the completion of the Truckee Canal, diverting water from the Truckee to the Carson River, had permitted the opening of this Truckee-Carson project to entry in 1907. Since it was one of the first projects undertaken under the reclamation act of 1902, its name was subsequently changed to the Newlands project, to honor Francis G. Newlands, author of the reclamation law. By the completion of the Lahontan Dam in 1915, the flood waters of the Carson River were also impounded, thus increasing the areas that could be brought under cultivation. The total cost of this project to June 30, 1930, was nearly $8,000,000, and by 1929 the irrigable acreage in the project was 87,500, and the actual "cropped acreage" was 51,380. The fullest extent of the productive use of these lands came during the years 1916-20, as a result of high prices, but after 1921 a part of the less favorable lands was abandoned. "In this connection it is well to remember that during this period (1920-29) agricultural development has been at a standstill in the United States as a whole, and that many irrigation projects are in financial distress. That the Newlands irrigation project has been able to show some progress during this long period of agricultural depression indicates that it is economically on a sound basis."[4]

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Banks

During the period of adversity to the live stock interests, a number of cattle loan associations secured financial assistance through the War Finance Corporation. In this connection the governor called attention to the remarkable record of Nevada's banks during the period of deflation :

Our Nevada banks have made a record of good management unsurpassed by any state in the Union. This is the only state in the West, and one of the few in the United States, where no depositor has lost a single cent through bank failure within the past eight years. This is all the more remarkable when we realize that an adjoining state whose industries are identical with those of Nevada, had the second highest percentage of bank failures in the country. The banks in the state show an increase in deposits from the 31st of December, 1921, to the 29th of December, 1922, of $1,017,208.23.

Recreation Grounds and Game Refuges

Governor Scrugham was the first governor to propose specifically the setting apart of some of the state's area for recreation grounds. In his message of 1923 he said : "It appears entirely practicable to segregate areas within the forest reserves as state recreation grounds or game refuges." By act of the Legislature in 1923 the governor was permitted to designate and set aside by a proclamation not to exceed twenty-five areas to be known as state recreation grounds and game refuges, these to be under the administration of the State Game and Fish Commission. Under this authority fifteen such recreation grounds were designated. These were selected in part for their availability as game refuges, also for their scenic beauties, while the Valley of Fire reserve in Clark County is a place of special interest to students of prehistoric races, including within it the remains of Pueblo Grande, once the home of some of the aboriginal races. Commenting on this subject in his message of 1925, the governor said :

Among the more successful developments of this character which I have initiated or opened on behalf of the state during the past biennium are the prehistoric cities in Clark and Southern Nye counties, the Lehman Cave and certain lakes, glaciers and ancient cave dwellings in White Pine County, the Chloride Cliff near Beatty, and the road through the Valley of Fire in Southern Nevada. Pyramid, Walker and Carson lakes and the Ruby Mountains should later receive special attention.

Mining

The review of the mining industry presented in the governor's message for 1925 would apply approximately to the conditions throughout the four years of his administration. Copper production in the state continued to increase through 1925 and 1926, while the production of gold, silver and zinc declined.

While metal production in Nevada substantially increased in 1923 and 1924 over the two preceding years, it is still only about half that of the normal output for each of several years

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prior to 1919. In 1917 total gross metal production was something more than $54,000,000. In 1919 a sudden decline of more than 50 per cent occurred, and in 1921 a further decline of 50 per cent from the 1919 totals took place. The gross value of gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc mined in that year amounted to $12,137,536. In the following year there was an increase in production of approximately $3,000,000. In 1923 gross production rose to about $25,000,000. For 1924 the total value of the State's metal production is officially given as $23,800,000. The Bureau of the Mint estimates our silver production to have been 9,523,846 ounces in 1924 as compared with 10,614,564 ounces in 1923.

Nevada continues to retain its place among the States as the third largest producer of silver, and first in the direct mining of that metal. This is indeed remarkable when it is taken into consideration that the guaranteed governmental price of $1 per ounce ceased in June, 1923, with the expiration of the Pittman Silver Purchase Act. Silver in that month declined from $1 to 63 cents and has sold for not more than a few points above that price since. Silver producers throughout the United States have endeavored to stabilize the market to the end that the value of their product might be increased, but without great success. The present price of the metal, which apparently will endure for some time to come, precludes the production of silver except mines having large deposits of silver-bearing ore of profitable grade, and with modern and efficient reduction facilities.

The condition of gold mining in Nevada and elsewhere is much the same as previously reported. Operating costs have not materially declined in recent years. Inasmuch as the price of gold remains fixed, the mining of that metal is attractive only under extremely favorable conditions. Nevada now produces less than half the amount of gold brought forth in pre-war years. This is about the same ratio that exists throughout the world.

In the base metals a substantial increase in production over 1921 and 1922 has occurred in the past two years. Nevada produced 67,000,000 pounds of copper in 1923 as against 23,000,000 pounds in 1922. Our lead production was 19,400,000 pounds in 1924 and 18,000,000 pounds in 1923. The zinc output for the year 1924 was 11,500,000 pounds which shows a decrease from the production of 14,000,000 pounds in 1923. The present selling price of lead and zinc is much higher than in 1921 and 1922, and even the price of copper has risen although not in the same proportion.

As regards the several mining districts of the State, but two have upheld former records of production and continue to give promise of increased output in the near future.

Tonopah is a notable example of intensive development based on many years' study of geological conditions. While several mines in that district have greatly curtailed production, others have increased their output or brought development to a point where interest in the district has been greatly stimulated. At the present time a number of important operations are under way and it seems likely that Tonopah will maintain a substantial record of silver and gold produc-

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tion for many years to come. The Ely district remains a large producer of copper, though production at this time is approximately half that of 1917. Operations in the Comstock have not proved as satisfactory as was anticipated. Candelaria closed its mill and entirely suspended in 1923, though recently the mine has been reorganized and operations resumed. Suspension or curtailment of mining activities in other parts of the state was general.

While, as has been stated, a healthy revival of interest in mining is apparent, still there can be no great improvement in production until new and substantial ore bodies are found, or until operating costs are sufficiently reduced to warrant exploitation of known low-grade deposits. Development of new ore bodies is almost entirely dependent on outside capital, and attraction of such capital is largely dependent on reduction of federal taxes. It does not seem likely that costs will be reduced nor is it at all probable that prices of metals will go much beyond their present figures. Gold, of course,

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FIRST ORE TRAIN FROM ROCHESTER ON THE SILVER BELT RY., ROCHESTER TO OREANA, PERSHING COUNTY

will remain at its present value and, unless new mines of sufficiently high-grade ore are found, production will in all likelihood decrease from year to year.

The tungsten deposits of Nevada are of great value and extent but have been comparatively little worked during the past two years on account of foreign competition. There are indications of a rapidly increasing demand which should markedly stimulate tungsten production in the State during the next two years.

The production of nonmetals such as gypsum, borax, lime, filter clay, etc., has shown a substantial increase during the past two years. Notable plant facilities for plaster production have been installed by the Pacific Portland Cement Company near Gerlach, the Standard Gypsum Company near Ludwig, and by the Blue Diamond and United States Gypsum Companies near Arden, Nevada. The Union Pacific Railroad

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is building an 8 1/2-mile branch line in Clark County to open large additional deposits of high-grade gypsum found in the district. The West End Chemical Company is making a steady production of borax from their deposits near the Colorado River. In southern Nye County considerable quantities of clay are being mined for use in filtering oils. Another promising development is that of the Catlin Shale Oil plant near Elko which is producing high-grade paraffine, lubricating and fuel oils, and also gasoline. . . . .    

It is worthy of passing note that, according to trade journals, the largest flawless opal in the world was recently mined in Nevada. It weighed 2,566 carats and is valued at $50,000.

Progress of State Highway System

At the suggestion of the governor the Legislature in 1923 imposed an excise tax of two cents per gallon on gasoline used for motor vehicle fuel. The plan of taxing gasoline had first been tried in the states of Oregon and Colorado in 1919, at a rate of one cent a gallon, and nineteen states had adopted a similar form of taxation before 1923. By 1923 thirty-five states were using that method of securing funds for the construction or maintenance of the high-ways. The receipts in Nevada during the first full year under the law, 1924, was approximately $166,000. This approximated the amount received from the fees for automobile licenses. From these two sources about $350,000 annually came into the road funds of the state and counties, supplementing the proceeds of the direct taxation by state and counties. By June 30, 1924, the counties had issued a total of $1,148,000 in highway bonds for road building. The first counties to issue highway bonds were Washoe and Mineral in 1919. In addition there was the $800,000 in bonds issued under the act of 1919, but of these issues $250,000 had been redeemed before 1924. As a historical record of the progress of highway development during the Scrugham administration the following summary is found in the governor's message of 1925:

To November 30, 1924, approximately 769 miles of improved state highway had been completed and opened to traffic. This mileage is classified as follows: Gravel surface highway, 510 1/4 miles ; cement concrete surface highway, 45 miles ; asphalt macadam surface highway, 24 miles ; asphaltic concrete highway, 1 3/4 miles; graded highway, not now requiring further surfacing, 178 miles; oil sand surface highway, 10 miles. In addition many large concrete, steel and timber bridges have been completed, as well as six concrete over and underpass structures and one timber overpass on railroads, thus eliminating a number of dangerous grade crossings. Uncompleted contracts under way aggregate 109 miles of gravel surface highway ; 36 miles of graded highway, and one-third mile of asphaltic concrete pavement.

The mileage of constructed highway as above set forth represents the partial construction of practically all of the various state highway routes to the following extent:

            On Route No. 1, which is the northern highway across the State and generally referred to as the Victory Highway, 190 miles have been completed and 50 miles are under construc-

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tion, leaving a remainder yet to be constructed of approximately 192 miles.

On Route 2, which is through the central portion of the State, and generally known as the Lincoln Highway, the Department has completed 202 miles, and now has under construction, and largely nearing a state of completion, 37 miles of this important route. This leaves a balance yet to be completed of approximately 156 miles.

On the routes linking the northern, central and southern portions of the State together, the following work has been done : One hundred and nine miles have been completed on Route 3 extending from Reno to Goldfield, with an additional 10 miles under contract. Fifty miles have been completed on Route 5 from Goldfield to Las Vegas, with 14 miles under construction. Route 6, the Arrowhead Trail, has 37 miles completed and 34 miles under construction, this route being now almost entirely completed from Las Vegas to the Arizona line on the east. Route 7, from Ely to Las Vegas, via Pioche and Caliente, has 48 miles completed. Route 8 has 24 miles complete from Winnemucca to Paradise Hill. Nine miles have been finished on Route 8-A from Battle Mountain to Jenkins Ranch. Route 9 from Reno to the California line has been completed to a length of 16 miles. About three miles have been finished as a county-state cooperative project on Route 10 from Mina through Montgomery Pass. Approximately 81 miles of Route 4, Tonopah to Ely, have been completed as a first-class gravel highway.

According to a map of the highway system at the close of 1926 it was possible to drive over a completed road on No. 1 from Wendover on the eastern border to Lovelock and on No. 2 from McGill to Reno and from Mesquite on No. 6 to Las Vegas, and thence to Beatty. Considerable sections of north and south highways had also been completed. Of the total completed mileage, the surfacing on nearly a thousand miles consisted of gravel, shale or crushed rock, with twenty-four miles of asphalt macadam and forty-seven miles of concrete.

To commemorate the completion of the main transcontinental highways through Nevada a "Nevada Transcontinental Exposition" was held at Reno during 1926. In order to provide a permanent symbol of this event the Legislature in 1925 authorized the erection at Reno of a state building, to be completed before the opening of the exposition. While the building was to be the permanent headquarters of a highway routing bureau, its primary object was to provide suitable quarters for an exhibit of state and county resources and relics collected by the Nevada State Historical Society.

State Improvements and Social Welfare

The building of highways was the largest and most costly enterprise undertaken by Nevada during the years after the war, but the expenditures for constructive undertakings did not halt there. To quote a portion of the state controller's report of January, 1926: "It is interesting to compare our financial conditions and experiences with those of ten years ago. In 1915 our surplus of cash property and investments was $4,000,000. This has

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increased to over $7,000,000—a gain of 75 per cent. Our bonded indebtedness has risen from $680,000 to $1,738,000; but from it we have $10,000,000 in new highways, and $1,000,000 of new state buildings. We have a new prison,[5] a new asylum, a number of new university buildings, a memorial building at Carson, an improved capitol, and a new state building in process of construction at Reno. Increased value of public buildings alone more than account for the increase of bonds. Incidentally, we have redeemed $655,500 of bonds during the ten-year period ; and have raised our educational trust fund investment from $2,467,000 to $3,082,000."

During these years Nevada was generously extending its efforts in the field of social welfare. In 1923 the Legislature had enacted an old-age pension law. For several years there had been a child-welfare division under the State Board of Health. In some cases the state had led and in other cases the state had followed the leadership of the Federal Government in this program of social legislation. On the general theme of this relationship between the state and Federal Government, Governor Scrugham said :

Nearly every legislative session in recent times has seen the introduction of acts designed to place the state in a financial and administrative partnership with the Federal Government along lines concerned with the public health and the public welfare. Through congressional appropriations lump sums are generally given to the states, and in addition further sums which are required to be matched by state appropriations.

Cooperative agricultural extension work, vocational education, industrial rehabilitation, maternity and infant hygiene and highway construction have been the subjects of such enterprises in which Nevada has joined in the past. In comparison to the federal taxation paid in Nevada and in consideration of the initial outright gifts made, Nevada has profited financially by most of these movements, but the state's share of taxation for its own appropriations often bears heavily upon our small population. The advancement of the public welfare differs in much extent with the differing enterprises and the entire subject is one worthy of careful consideration by this legislative session.

I believe the practice spoken of has resulted in a disproportionate control by the Federal Government of matters that should be of purely domestic concern.

Law Enforcement

A resolution passed by the 1925 Legislature declared that constitutional prohibition had generally failed to abolish the abuses of the liquor traffic and made application for the calling of a convention to amend the eighteenth amendment. The views of the governor were that law must have the backing of public sentiment.

Although the phrase "law enforcement" formerly outlined a picture of the triumph of orderly government over a very

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small group of malefactors, such as petty thieves, burglars and murderers, times have so changed in the United States that it also includes the efforts of peace officers to combat practices recently made illegal, such as public gambling and the liquor traffic. Since the legality or illegality of any practice affecting the common good is a matter of public policy upon which there can hardly be unanimity of sentiment, the interdiction of certain practices at one time legal and now made illegal involves not only this state but the entire country in an exceedingly difficult phase of law enforcement. The people cannot expect to be of two minds concerning a law and yet find their officials of only one mind on the same subject. Public sentiment is the greatest law in existence and the responsibility of the public is as great as the responsibility of its servants and agents.

We rely on the Federal and local governments for the enforcement of the law. With the help of an enlightened sentiment this may prove sufficient. If these agencies fail I am confident that the state will undertake its duty to supplement their efforts.

Railroads and Motor Trucks

Through the Public Service Commission the people of Nevada had been relieved of many of the long-standing inequities in rates and services of the railroad companies. In spite of the fact that sharp increases in freight and passenger rates had been made following the war, the Nevada Commission by cases brought before the Interstate Commerce Commission and by conferences and negotiations had secured adjustments and reductions during the period 1922-25 effecting savings to the public of approximately $1,350,000. An important addition to Nevada's railroad mileage was made in 1926, with the completion of the extension of the Twin Falls branch of the Oregon Short Line from Rogerson, Idaho, to Wells, Nevada. The line was put in operation on February 15, 1926, affording a new short line route between Eastern Nevada and Southern Idaho points. It was of particular advantage to the new mining development at Contact in Northern Elko County.

The Legislature in 1919 and 1921 had placed upon the Public Service Commission the burden of regulating and licensing auto common carriers. In 1923 this duty was taken from the Public Service Commission and conferred upon the boards of county commissioners, but the Legislature of 1925 restored the jurisdiction to the State Commission. Competition between railroads and motor truck carriers is an acute current phase of the general transportation problem. The following quotation from the Nevada commission's report for 1925-26 will be of interest in this connection :

There is a growing public demand for the auto-truck and bus service, many shippers and travelers recognizing these facilities as an improvement in the art of rendering transportation. . . . The regulation by state tribunals thus far has gone to the proposition of protecting the short-line railroads and the electric interurban lines from competition of the truck and bus in so far as possible, and also the established truck and bus lines from competitors. This has been

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especially true in this state. . . . The railroads are beginning to experiment with auto-bus and truck facilities as a subsidiary in some cases, and in others a supplement to the transportation service they render. It seems fair to assume that this may work out to the economic advantage of the shipping and traveling public and with profit to the railroad companies.

A modification of one of the oldest complaints of the shippers in the intermountain country was secured in the decision of the Interstate Commerce Commission early in 1926 denying trans-continental railroads authority to put in long and short haul rates

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against Nevada and other intermountain states. "In other words, for authority to charge lower rates for the long haul to San Francisco and other Pacific Coast terminal cities, while charging higher rates for the shorter hauls to Nevada and other intermountain states. . . . It therefore results that Nevada and other inter-mountain states have the benefit of the long haul rate to San Francisco and other Pacific Coast terminals for the short haul service rendered from eastern industrial centers. In other words, the rates are blanketed."

University and Public Schools

State universities, declared the report of the regents for 1925-26, "are as essential to the nation as its commerce or industry, and can no more be dispensed with than can be the money which measures the values and is the basis for exchanges." The report went on to say that : "Due to generous gifts, and the accumulated funds from the two-mill tax levy for construction purposes, more building has been done on the campus during the past two years than in any other two-year period since the university was

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founded." In 1925 Clarence H. Mackay began a new series of gifts, including $18,000 annually as additional income for the School of Mines, and in 1926 a gift of $100,000 for enlarging and further equipping the School of Mines. This was followed by a fund to enlarge the Mackay Stadium and refurnish the Mackay training quarters. W. A. Clark, Jr., had also declared his intention of building a memorial to Mrs. Clark, a native daughter of Nevada. This took form in the Clark Memorial Library, opened in 1927, the most notable building addition on the campus since the School of Mines in 1908.

In the western public land states in the early years the hope had been frequently expressed that the income from the state school funds would be sufficient to pay all the costs of school maintenance without resort to local taxation. But local pride and increased appreciation of the work begun in public schools during the decades of 1910-30, caused that hope to be practically forgotten and instead the burdens of local taxation for the support of schools were increasing faster than the revenues from the state school fund. In the ten-year period, 1914-23, "the counties and school districts increased their part of the total cost for support and maintenance from $337,890 to $1,330,776, while during this same ten-year period the state increased its share from $213,224 to $402,128; or the state contributed an increase of $188,708, as compared with an increase of $992,886 by the counties and districts. Thus the increase in ten years by these local units for general support and maintenance is more than five times the increase by the state for this purpose."[6]