XVI

ROSWELL K. COLCORD, GOVERNOR 1891-94

The elections of 1890 had scarcely been canvassed when the forces of widespread discontent and dissatisfaction with existing economic and political conditions forced a new alignment in American politics. The labor movement in the industrial states, the farmers' alliances of the Middle West and South, the western miners, raising the cry of "bimetallism," were all represented in the conventions and conferences which brought about at Cincinnati in May, 1891, the formation of a third political party, "the People's party," better known as the "Populists." The Populist platform contained a long list of grievances—political corruption, the domination of finance and corporations, injustice to the working classes, and above all the demonetization of silver, which, it was declared, had bankrupted enterprise and enslaved industry. Many writers familiar with conditions in the Middle West and far West have described the crystallization of ideas and ideals represented in the formulation of grievances and the demand for reforms as equivalent to a "political and social revolution." The revolutionary movement ran its course without effecting all its reforms, but at least some of the issues brought to the attention of the public with so much fervor in the era of populism have been worked into the frame work of political and economic tradition and law—the income tax, postal savings bank, Australian ballot, the eight-hour work day, initiative and referendum, popular election of United States senators, woman's suffrage, and regulation by the government, if not government ownership, of public utilities.

Election of 1892

When the time came for the national election of 1892, Nevada voters had definitely aligned themselves with respect to the dominant issues and their particular interests. It gave its three electoral votes to the Populist party headed by Gen. James B. Weaver of Iowa. It was one of the six northern and western states which

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Roswell Keyes Colcord, the seventh man to hold the office of governor of Nevada, was born at Searsport, Maine, April 25, 1839, and like many of his contemporaries who affiliated themselves with the "silver party" had a thoroughly Republican background. As a youth he learned mechanical engineering and the ship carpenter's trade. In 1856 he went to California, followed mining, and in 1863 arrived in Nevada. Here he was engaged in building bridges and mills as an engineer and contractor. At one time he was superintendent of the Imperial Mine at Gold Hill and was financially interested in a number of prominent mining properties over the state. After his term as governor he was appointed superintendent of the United States Mint at Carson City by President McKinley, October 14, 1898, and he filled that position for a number of years.

State Board of Equalization

In his inaugural message Governor Colcord urged, as his predecessors had repeatedly done, the creation of a state board of equalization. This time the Legislature responded with the act of March

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17, 1891, creating a state board of assessors and equalization to consist of the governor, state controller, secretary of state, attorney general and state treasurer. The act conferred upon the board the duty of assessing the railroads throughout the state and also of equalizing the valuation of the taxable property of the different counties "so as to make the assessment conform to the actual cash value of the property assessed." The governor had expressed the belief that if all the property of the state could be assessed at 70 per cent of its actual cash value it would be possible to lower the tax rate for state purposes from ninety to fifty-five cents on the hundred dollars. On the assumption that some such results would follow, the Legislature in another act decreased the tax rate for the following biennium to seventy-five cents on the hundred dollars.

As a result of the new law the total valuation of property (not including the net proceeds of mines) was increased from about $24,660,000 in 1890 to $29,800,000 in 1891, and to over $31,000,000 in 1892. Since the net proceeds of mines was steadily declining, the net increase in the total assessment from 1890 to 1892 was less than $6,000,000. With the lower tax rate in effect, the receipts into the state treasury from real and personal property increased from about $202,000 in 1890 to $218,000 in 1892. The total revenues for the state from all sources increased from about $318,000 in 1890 to $385,000 in 1892.

Apparently the board tried in good faith to make valuations correspond more nearly to actual values and to secure greater uniformity. It appears probable, too, that it was measurably successful. It is not improbable that the board made some mistakes—particularly in the horizontal raise by counties, since some of the property had been assessed high enough originally. From the standpoint of administrative organization the chief defect of this plan was that a very important responsibility was placed in the hands of five men whose time was mainly demanded by other duties and who were given no adequate means for ascertaining the facts necessary to a correct judgment. They were obliged to act on partial information and on certain assumptions which may not have been correct. Partly as a result of its mistakes, but perhaps more largely because of its efforts in the direction of efficiency which had aroused the opposition of certain large taxpayers, the board was abolished after an existence of two years. Needless to say, valuations fell immediately to the lower figures previously prevailing.

After getting rid of the state board of equalization the Legislature at once restored the old rate of taxation to ninety cents on the hundred dollars. In his concluding message Governor Colcord expressed disappointment over the action of the previous Legislature and declared himself an advocate of state supervision of the

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equalization of property valuation, and predicted that it was only a question of time when Nevada would follow the example of nearly every other state by having either a state board of equalization or a state assessor. He disputed the assertion that the state board had favored wealthy corporations by presenting an exhibit of the figures showing the state board's assessment of railroad properties as compared with the county boards in 1893. The assessed valuation per mile by the county boards was in every case much lower than that of the state board, in the case of the Central Pacific the difference being about $2,640 per mile. But it was not until the following decade that another effort was made to centralize authority in the matter of assessment.

Australian Ballot

In one part of his inaugural address Governor Colcord spoke of the "universal demand for a change in our election laws which will insure to the people an absolutely pure ballot." The entire nation had been aroused over the scandals attending the election of 1888, when particularly in some industrial cities, voters were regimented, marked ballots placed in their hands, and they were marched to the polls and under the vigilant eyes of partisan leaders deposited the ballots with utter indifference as to their individual convictions or opinions. In fact, in almost every state of the Union up to 1890, a voter got his ballot at some place distant from the polls, marked it or had it marked for him, and was under the surveillance of partisan watchers until he placed it in the ballot box. This was a condition of long standing, of course, and merely reached a crisis as a result of the extraordinary abuses of 1888.

Out of it arose a demand for a secret ballot and means of curbing the corruption attending elections. The chief panacea proposed was, as Governor Colcord said, the Australian ballot system, which "has proved the most effective so far as tried in other states, and I trust this Legislature will not fail to adopt this or some other equally good method. . . . If you can so frame a law, practical in its operations, as to absolutely prevent bribery and intimidation, you will have accomplished more than has yet been done by any legislative body."

Many years before a method providing secrecy for the voter in preparing his ballot had been devised in Australia. From England it spread to the United States, Massachusetts passing a law insuring the secret ballot in 1888. Sixteen other states adopted it by 1890, and Nevada was one of the eighteen to enact similar provisions in 1891. The essence of the Australian system was placing the "official ballot" in the hands of properly constituted election officials and the ballot left their control only for the few minutes it was in the hands of the individual voter marking and preparing it behind a screen and beyond the influence or intimidation of any partisan workers. The Nevada law of March 13, 1891, prescribed in detail all the successive steps in the preparation of the official ballot, the duties of the election officials and the other arrangements permitting the voter to come in, take a ballot, mark it in secret, and deposit it as an untrammeled expression of his political judgment.

Nevada at Chicago and San Francisco Fairs

In his message of 1893 Governor Colcord expressed much concern that Nevada might be the only state unrepresented at the

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World's Columbian Exposition of that year. The preceding Legislature had failed to make any appropriation for such representation. But the sixteenth session appropriated $10,000 for that purpose and empowered the governor to appoint a board of three to be known as the World's Fair Managers of Nevada. In the meantime the President had appointed George Russell, of Elko, and J. W. Haines, of Genoa, to represent Nevada on the national commission. The governor appointed J. A. Yerington as the state representative, these three to comprise the state board. The commission had very little time in which to act, and Nevada was one of the four states of the Union that did not have a state building on the Fair grounds. Nevertheless, a highly creditable list of exhibits was prepared, representing not only the conspicuous mineral resources of the state, but also its fruits, grains, potatoes, dairy products, and one that aroused especial interest was the exhibit in the ethnological building, representing the footprints and fossils from the quarry at the Nevada State Prison, this receiving one of the many awards made to Nevada exhibitors. The exhibits served to focus attention upon the potential resources of the far West. As one of the press comments stated : "Nevada represents one extreme of existing conditions in the arid regions. Here is a state of vast extent, filled with all the raw materials of wealth, with millions of acres of fertile lands and ample water resources for their reclamation. Some people are so obtuse as to imagine that there is no future for such a state. The exhibit at the World's Fair proves how far wrong this opinion is. Nevada has been very backward in its development, but capital and population will inevitably find on outlet there at some period in the future."

A large part of the Chicago exhibit was sent west to the Mid-Winter International Exposition at San Francisco, where a Nevada Building was erected for the housing of the hundreds of exhibits. Here awards were made to Nevada's mineral ores and building stone, salts, prehistoric display, public school display and various agricultural products.

For the exhibition of Nevada products at the Mid-Winter Fair no fund could be made available by legislative action. Consequently groups of citizens, individuals, counties, corporations, banks, subscribed and contributed the money necessary. The Legislature in 1895 refunded the subscriptions and donations to the amount of over $14,000.

Repeal of Silver Purchase Act

The significance of Nevada's showing at these two fairs was measured not so much in the exhibits themselves and the awards and honors given them, but in the spirit which caused the people of a state struggling through the most difficult period of its history to show to the world that it possessed not only incalculable material resources but also the will and determination to turn them to account. In the light of this spirit, one must review the conditions and events of the Colcord administration, which fell on troubled times, not only for Nevada but for the nation at large.

The whole country was going through a business depression, ` usually spoken of as the panic of 1893. Financial circles of the world had been shaken by the Baring Brothers' failure in London in 1890. The crop failures in America had acted as a check to speculation and to continued development in the West. A tremen-

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dous wave of industrial unrest spread over the country, culminating in the Homestead strike of 1892 and the Pullman strike of 1894, with an accompanying sympathetic strike that practically paralyzed railroad transportation. The financial panic struck the country almost coincident with the inauguration of President Cleveland in 1893. The chief issue talked about in the campaign of the previous year had been tariff reform, but the tariff had to be deferred and the President called Congress into special session for the purpose of repealing the Sherman Silver Purchase act of 1890. The Democrats were in control of both Houses, and many of them had been elected in the South and West on platforms advocating the free coinage of silver. A furious battle ensued in Congress during the summer of 1893. The President placed his demand for a "sound and stable currency" above partisanship, and won over a sufficient number of Republicans and Democrats so that after weeks of acrimonious debate the silver purchase act was repealed by the House in August and by the Senate on October 30. In the meantime over 150 banks in the United States had failed, and more than 400 mortgage and investment companies had gone into receiver-ship. But the sound money advocates had triumphed, and a large part of the country felt that the government had clearly yielded to the domination of Wall Street.

The Sherman Purchase Act of 1890 had been only a source of temporary satisfaction to the silver states of the West. But the act had contained a declaration that it was to be "the established policy of the United States to maintain the two metals on a parity with each other upon the present legal ratio or such ratio as may be provided by law." The repeal of the act therefore was a violation of the implied promise contained in this statement and put the larger hope for unlimited free coinage as a remote realization. While the silver market had been declining for several years, the average price per ounce fell from $.782 in 1893 to $.640 in 1894. This taken in connection with the action of Germany and other foreign nations in deciding for the gold standard, wounded the silver interests to the quick, producing a quality of despair that only men living in the West in the '90s can understand.

Shift to Gold Mining

In 1888 the state was able to levy taxes on more than $2,000,000, representing the net proceeds of mines. In 1890 the assessment roll had valuations of only about $686,000, representing mining proceeds, and in 1893 this figure dropped to about $157,000. For the fiscal year 1893-94 the total yield of the state tax on mining proceeds was only about $1,600. As a result of general economic conditions and the attitude of the governments of the world toward the white metal, silver was becoming more and more a "by-product" of mining. Something of the old contempt of the "sulphurets of silver" which had been entertained by the workers around Gold Hill in 1859 was returning to Nevada miners. Production at the Comstock had long been on a basis of approximately 40 per cent gold and 60 per cent silver. There was profit in working the ore for the gold content alone. From 1859 to September, 1892, the total production of gold and silver at the Comstock Lode had represented an aggregate value of over $350,000,000, of which about $145,000,000 was in gold. Even in the year 1891 the Comstock produced more than a million dollars in gold and about

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Metallurgical science contributed a revolutionary improvement to the old methods of the reduction of gold ores in the "cyanide process." The cyanide process made its appearance in Nevada just as the silver miners were in the depths of despair over the course of hostile legislation.

In his review of the mining industry for the years 1891-92, Surveyor General Jones endeavored to find some cheerful and encouraging signs amid an otherwise depressing picture. In this picture he emphasizes gold and other mineral production rather than silver. In Elko County, where many "once prosperous camps have existed and would now be in a prosperous condition if silver was restored to its old position," the only camp where work to any extent was being prosecuted was Tuscarora. "The cyanide process lately introduced at the Union Mill, Tuscarora, to be applied to tailings, has given such good results that it will be introduced by other parties on a large scale." Important gold discoveries had been recently made in Lincoln County in the Ferguson district. New interest was being taken in the almost abandoned camps around Pioche, partly as a result of the extension of the grading of the railroad from Milford, Utah. A Salt Lake paper was quoted, stating that "the trial run on the tailings from the Raymond and Ely and Mountain Meadow at the reduction works at Bullionville by cyanide process was a grand success." It was estimated that by this process thousands of tons of tailings in this and some of the other camps could be worked at a profit. Other promising gold prospects were in the Montgomery district in the Pah Rump Valley in the southern part of Nye County, also in White Pine County around Ely, where some tests with the cyanide process had caused a new interest of capital in the profitable working of great heaps of tailings around mines that had been shut down for several years.

The chief significance of these developments lay in their promise for the future. In his concluding report as surveyor general at the close of 1894, J. E. Jones, then about to assume the office of governor, devoted a very brief paragraph to the subject of mining. "Mining for the precious metals still continues, with few exceptions, in a languishing condition. The only discoveries and developments recently made are situated in Ferguson district, Lincoln County; Kennedy district, Humboldt County; and Silver Star district, Esmeralda County. The production of the mines in these districts is gold, and each promises to become a large ore producer and permanent in character."

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Status of Irrigation

There was neither a definite policy nor the money for Nevada, or other western states and territories at the time, to undertake a comprehensive scheme of agricultural development based upon irrigation. But progress was made in the agitation and discussion in the various irrigation congresses held at Salt Lake, Los Angeles, and in 1894 at Denver. The Los Angeles congress in 1893 had called for the formation of state and territorial commissions to study the subject and present the views of each state and territory regarding a general policy and the necessary legislation, state and national, to carry it out. The report of the Nevada Commission, of which J. E. Jones was chairman, was presented to the Denver congress in September, 1894. This report reviews the record of Nevada's legislation affecting irrigation as follows :

Nevada made no provisions in her constitution relating to irrigation or water rights. The public use of water, its ownership by the people, and the right of appropriation are recognized and respected, but no legislation remains upon the statute books that is of such a character as can be said to constitute a definite system.

From 1887 to the last Legislature several acts were passed and subsequently repealed, and several memorials to Congress relative to irrigation and to a hydrographic and topographic survey of the state were also passed, and also relative to the storage of surplus water of the Humboldt River, all of which acts and memorials have proven barren of any practical results to the state, with the exception of one act, passed February 6, 1889, relative to "encouraging the sinking of artesian wells and the assistance by other means of irrigation for the arid lands situated within the state of Nevada." Under this act several artesian wells have been sunk in different parts of the state, demonstrating their utility for irrigation purposes.

The commission, in its investigations, has been unable to find any law upon the statute books of any state or territory that can be recommended in toto as being adapted to meet the wants of the people of this state, nor does it see any hope for financial aid from the general government in the undertaking of this great work of reclaiming the arid lands of the West; but we are alive to the fact that some system of irrigation must be a precedent to the establishment of homes in the arid regions, and that land without water in valueless. We believe it to be the duty of either Congress or the state, through their legislatures, to adopt some practical measures whereby the water question in the several states and territories may be so harmonized that they can act as a unit in that direction.

While Colorado, Wyoming and California were more progressive in the matter of formulating policies and laws for irrigation systems, Nevada's showing in actual results compared favorably with that of neighboring states and territories. According to the reports of the Census Bureau based on the census of 1890, Nevada's total irrigated acreage in crop was approximately 225,000, as compared with 217,000 acres in Idaho, 350,000 in Montana, 230,-

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000 in Wyoming, 263,000 in Utah, and 65,000 in Arizona. The average size of irrigated crop areas in Nevada was greater than in any of the other states, 192 acres, as compared with twenty-seven acres in Utah, 119 acres in Wyoming, and fifty acres in Idaho. The total number of irrigators in Nevada was 1,167, while the number deriving the benefits of irrigation in Utah was nearly 10,000.

The outstanding difficulty in Nevada was to bring all these individual irrigators into a general accord as to some comprehensive policy. On this subject the Census Bulletin said:

That the various owners of the waters do not at once cooperate in some of these plans is not to be laid wholly to individual stupidity or to lack of public spirit, but rather to the fact that to each irrigator this matter is of almost vital importance. The value of each man's property appears to be at stake, and that which he has acquired by long years of toil and hardships is not to be given up at once on any plea of the good of the community, especially if to him the benefits seem doubtful and uncertain. The farmers have a natural fear of being in some way imposed upon in making any rapid changes, and are harassed by the dread of falling into the grasp of monopolies, and perhaps endure present evils rather than encounter those which are unknown. . . .

One immediate cause tending to prevent agricultural growth in this state is the lack of large local markets and the consequent great cost of transportation, so that it becomes unprofitable to ship grain from certain parts of the state. Areas which have in past times been planted to cereals are in many counties being converted into hay fields or grazing lands. The development of great irrigation enterprises is hampered by these facts, and also largely by the condition of the ownership of the unimproved land. Great areas are held by corporations or by individuals for speculative purposes, and no one owner is able to construct a large storage and distributing system unaided on account of lack of capital or legislative support. In other cases poor men own areas larger than they can utilize, and lying in such position as to block the development of irrigation unless the land is taken by what amounts to confiscation.

Just before the panic year of 1893 several proposals were being energetically discussed for the construction of canals in the western part of the state. One was the "High Line Canal" to carry water from its mountain sources to Reno and intervening territory. Another was the Wadsworth Ditch to irrigate the lands on the Pyramid Lake Indian reservation, and another proposition was to bring the water from mountain areas draining into Mono Lake in California across the state line into Esmeralda County.

One method devised of arousing interest in general industrial and agricultural development and attracting population and capital to the state was the law passed by the Legislature in 1887 creating a state immigration bureau. However, no money was placed at the disposal of the bureau, but during 1893-94 the bureau through the cooperation of various public spirited citizens was able to render some valuable publicity, including a pamphlet on the resources of Nevada, of which 12,000 copies were printed, a

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large part of them being distributed at the Mid-winter Fair in San Francisco.

Carey Act

In 1894 Congress offered a partial palliative to the West, prostrate as a result of the demonetization of silver, by taking some favorable action with regard to the petitions that had been coming in from the western states and territories to dispose of the arid or semi-arid lands in such a way that their development or disposal could be freed from the restriction of the land laws. When Congress was finally induced to act it produced a measure which was a compromise between the various demands. The law "provided neither for cession outright to the state, nor for direct action by the United States. There was comparatively little debate in either House of Congress accompanying the passage of the bill, but the respective committees on public lands apparently gave the measure much care and thought. This measure which passed in

[picture]

THE OLD TRACTOR USED IN HAULING LUMBER FROM THE CHARLESTON PARK AREA TO THE MINING CAMPS IN SOUTHERN NEVADA IN THE EARLY DAYS

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National Guard and Railroad Strike

In states far removed from any possibility of Indian uprising authorities were taking steps to discipline and reorganize the state militia for the purpose of preserving order in an era characterized by numerous strikes and widespread industrial warfare. As a result of Governor Colcord's recommendation in 1891, the first encampment of the Nevada Militia was held in August, 1892, at Carson City, about 60 per cent of the men enrolled answering the call.

Strikes and labor riots following the panic of 1893 brought about conditions approaching civil war in scores of industrial centers over the nation, and in every state the militia had to be in readiness for duty. Declarations of martial law were familiar phenomena of that disturbed era. On at least two occasions the significance of this unrest was brought to the attention of the people of Nevada. The widespread demands for industrial relief were given a spectacular focus when Jacob Coxey in April, 1894, started to mobilize his "industrial army" ordering them to march from all sections of the country upon Washington. A portion of that army starting from the Pacific Coast went through Nevada, not marching, but here as elsewhere, so far as they were not forcibly hindered, making their progress on the "rods" or "bumpers" of freight and passenger trains and other established modes of locomotion. Later in the year came the strike of the workers of the Pullman Company, resulting in a general boycott of Pullman cars on all lines of railway, the strike extending eventually to a general paralysis of passenger service in many sections of the country. When the governor of Illinois refused to call out Federal troops to support the injunctions issued by the Federal court, President Cleveland intervened on his own account and sent Federal troops to prevent the interference with the regular transportation of the United States mails. The sentiment of the country in general sustained the President in this action. Governor Colcord himself was ready to call out the State Militia to assist the United States troops if required. In reply to a petition requesting him to demand of the President the immediate withdrawal of the Federal troops from Nevada, he declared such a petition traitorous, and furthermore he stated that the President's action in calling out the troops to protect life and property, enforce the

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laws and preserve order was the most commendable of any act of his administration. However, this view was not entirely shared by Adjutant General Poujade, who in his report for 1894 had the following to say about the strike :

While it is said that violence must accompany great strikes, this one had been, so far as Nevada was concerned, peaceable. There is no record of so much as a black eye or a bloody nose having been given nor of any arrest, or attempt at arrest, of any person for any crime in connection with the strike until after armed troops of the United States had, on an unlawful order, invested a portion of this state. While it was true that no trains were running on the Trunk Line of railway in Nevada, that was simply because there were not in Nevada sufficient men desirous of working for the company that owned that line. The merits of the case between strikers and railway companies were not closely investigated by our people. They look upon the matter as a family quarrel and were perfectly willing onlookers, but refusing to participate. But when a demonstration of armed force was made in favor of one side (the railway company) the sympathies of those previously neutral all went against that side, just as they would have gone against the other side (the strikers) had some man been murdered, for instance, for attempting to earn bread for his children. . . . The situation was abnormal. A handful of United States troops acting under unlawful orders, and therefore by their very presence irritating a hitherto free people almost beyond endurance, was likely at any moment to be destroyed. . . . The lawless element here was ready to profit by this, if any immediate exciting cause had served as an excuse. Had blood been shed in Reno, the state government would have been called upon to restore order. This, with rails torn up and wires cut, as they doubtless would have been, must have presented a very difficult problem. But the people of Nevada would have solved it in a regular and orderly way through their appointed servants.

Governor Colcord saw in the experience a justification for his arguments in favor of a well regulated militia. Though Nevada had been especially fortunate in having passed through the great railroad strike "without a call for the militia, the destruction of property worth mentioning, or the expenditure of a dollar," he believed the state might not be so fortunate next time.

State Board of Health

During this administration an invisible enemy appeared on the state's horizon, a threatened invasion of Asiatic cholera, which caused the Legislature by act of March 6, 1893, to establish a state board of health. Only a thousand dollars was appropriated for the work of the board, and the board consisting of Doctors S. L. Lee, of Carson City, J. J. Henderson, of Elko, and J. A. Lewis, of Reno, in their report at the end of two years said that they had deemed it the part of wisdom to await the appearance of an epidemic or contagion before calling a meeting that would seriously deplete the small fund at their disposal. While the report of the board is somewhat deprecatory of the value of their service, undoubtedly a forward step had been taken in this recognition of

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public health as an essential in the state's welfare. As the governor said : "The board was designed to secure greater order and unity in all efforts in the interest of the public health of the state. Heretofore such matters were performed by various persons and only attended to as occasion demanded or convenience permitted."

Under the general policy of using the authority of the state to protect not only the property but the health and well being of the people, Governor Colcord proposed the creation of a state board of dental examiners and a state commission of pharmacy. Nevada and Idaho, according to information he had, were at that time "the only states in the Union which had not on their statute books a law regulating the practice of dentistry. A state dental association has been duly organized, and it is the intention of its members to present to you an act to insure the better education of practitioners of dental surgery and to regulate the practice of dentistry in the state. The medical profession have secured wise precautionary measures for their protection, and it is but proper that the dentists should be equally as well guarded from the inroads of quack practitioners." The act of March 16, 1895, carried out this recommendation, requiring the governor to appoint a board of dental examiners from candidates furnished by the Nevada State Dental Society. An act safeguarding the practice of medicine and surgery had been on the statute books since 1875, this act requiring every physician and surgeon to register his credentials with the county recorder of the county in which he resided.

Woman Suffrage

Educational Fund

Governor Colcord in his concluding message supported the recommendation of the superintendent of public instruction, Orvis Ring, for the enactment of a free text book law. "No schools," he said, "are absolutely free until their advantages are positively free—till the children of the poorest family in the state are placed on an equal footing with their more wealthy neighbors in this regard." He spoke of the gratifying results which the state of

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Delaware had experienced in a three year trial of providing free text books.

Nevada like other public land states found itself by 1894, at a time when nearly all other public funds were seriously impoverished, possessed of a magnificent endowment for public education. The total of the state educational fund at the close of 1894 was in excess of $1,306,000. Thus while the number of schools and the enrollment of scholars were increasing very slowly if at all, the income to be apportioned for the support of common schools had doubled in the period of ten years. In 1890 about $60,000 was distributed from the state school moneys to the several counties of the state for the benefit of about 10,000 children between the ages of six and eighteen. By 1894 this apportionment, distributed for the benefit of 9,420 pupils, aggregated nearly $110,000. The reports of the superintendent of public instruction complain of the inadequacy of school libraries, and the day of public libraries in towns and cities had scarcely dawned in 1894 in Nevada as well as most of the other states of the Union. One institution, however, had been steadily growing from the inception of the state. This was the state library. To quote Governor Colcord's final message : "The library has become one of the most beneficial branches of our public service, and one of great value and importance, containing as it does over 30,000 volumes, about 2,000 of which are miscellaneous. The law department is of rare value to the legal fraternity, many lawyers coming from all parts of the state and frequently from as far as San Francisco to consult its references, so complete is this section in every detail."

University

From the first the university and the agricultural experiment station had been cooperating in a practical way with the industrial needs of the state. Prof. W. M. Miller, one of the original members of the faculty after the university was moved to Reno, had voluntarily given considerable time to the investigation of epidemic diseases among the live stock. In 1891 the Legislature had author-

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Good Roads

Governor Colcord was also the first governor to pay special attention to the subject of "good roads." He looked ahead many years to the time when the Federal government would enlist its services in such improvements.

Constitutional Amendment

During the Colcord administration another attempt was made to revise the constitution by method of individual amendments. At the general election of 1894 an advisory vote was taken of the people on the proposition of the direct popular election of United States senators, and the people of Nevada favored that proposal by a vote of 7,208 and 443 against. At the same time twenty-five amendment proposals were submitted, and every one of them was rejected. Less than half the voters casting ballots at this election took the trouble to express their opinion on any of the amendment proposals and in practically every case the majority for rejection was approximately 3,000. Most of these amendment proposals were matters of detail effecting reduction of number of state officials, consolidation of their duties, qualifications for voters. Only one of them requires particular mention. By a previous amendment it was made possible for the state to invest its

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Good fortune does not consist entirely of economic abundance. The extremes of misery and happiness are found in hard times as well as in prosperity. Therefore, Governor Colcord's summary when he retired from office fairly expressed the conditions in Nevada : "Notwithstanding the depression of business through-out the country our people are enjoying a fair degree of prosperity and excellent health. The crops in the agricultural districts have been good, absolute destitution and suffering have been unknown, and, while adapting ourselves to present conditions, we are awaiting with abiding hope and unbounded faith the adjustment of that all-important matter to us, the silver question."