XX

SPARKS-DICKERSON ADMINISTRATION, 1907-1910

In the "Roosevelt landslide" election of November 8, 1904, Nevada returned to the Republican fold. The Roosevelt and Fairbanks electors received an average plurality over the Parker and Davis electors of 2,857, and an average majority over all opponents of 1,605. In this year for the first time in Nevada the Socialist party had candidates for presidential electors. Out of a total vote of 12,050, 925 were cast for the Socialist ticket. The highest percentage of the Socialist vote in any county was in Esmeralda. Altogether there were four national tickets voted on, Republican, Democrat and Silver, "Stalwart Silver," and Socialist. The highest vote given to any candidate on each of these tickets was : Republican, 6,864; Democrat and Silver, 3,982; Stalwart Silver, 344; Socialist, 925. In the race for Congress, Van Duzer was returned by the small plurality of 224. The vote was : Van Duzer, Democrat and Silver, 5,525; J. A. Yerington, Republican, 5,301; Reinhold Sadler, Stalwart Silver, 572. The Republicans elected F. H. Norcross, Republican, justice of the Supreme Court, over H. F. Bartine, Democrat and Silver. Republicans were also elected regents of the university.

Initiative and Referendum

The political characteristic of the West during the early years of the century was a willingness to experiment, to adopt the various "panaceas" which were being urged as a cure for the ills of government and economic life. A number of these reforms had been important planks in the platforms of the farmers alliances and People's party, and those that were adopted are often spoken of as direct fruits of the Populist movement. Among those purely political the most important were aimed toward giving the people the more direct and immediate control of their elected officials and legislatures. The demand for popular election of United States senators was one phase of this struggle. The agitation for direct primaries had been in progress since 1897, starting out from Wisconsin. For many years the Swiss system of "initiative and referendum" had been a subject of academic discussion and was early incorporated into the reforms proposed by the People's party.

Nebraska was the first state to pass an initiative and referendum law (in 1897), but the principle was not incorporated in the constitution of that state until a number of years later. The Nevada Legislature in 1901 adopted a "referendum" proposal, by which 10 per cent of the voters could demand that any law or resolution passed by the Legislature should be submitted for approval or disapproval at the next ensuing state election, where a majority of the votes cast would be the supreme test of the validity of such law. This proposal was again adopted by the succeeding Legislature, and the amendment was submitted to the people in 1904.

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SEARCHLIGHT MINING CAMP IN THE EARLY DAYS

by the Legislature and governor it becomes a law without further reference to the people. If rejected by the Legislature, it must be submitted to popular referendum, and ratification by a majority of voters gives it full validity.

Recall

            In 1912 Nevada voters ratified an added section to article 2, incorporating the reform considered at the time much more radical than the initiative and referendum, and one that had aroused virulent opposition from conservative opinion. By this amendment "every public officer in the State of Nevada is subject, as herein provided, to recall from office by the qualified electors of the state, or of the county, district, or municipality, from which he was elected." The Legislature in 1913 translated this provision of the constitution into statute law.

Election of 1906

            Nevada's increasing population during this period is reflected in the voting statistics. In 1902 the total vote for governor was

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11,318. In 1906 the same vote was 14,837. In 1902 Nye County cast 891 votes for governor; and in 1906 the vote of that county for the same office totalled 2,476. In 1902 Esmeralda County's vote was less than 500, and in 1906 was approximately 2,200. During the same time Lincoln County's vote increased from about 640 to 1,400. These three counties, comprising the southern part of the state and which in 1900 had a total population of about one-seventh of the total population of the state, now in 1906 cast approximately two-fifths of the total vote of the state. Nye and Esmeralda counties supplied fully half of the Socialist vote.

Election of 1908

In 1908 free silver had disappeared among national issues. The Republican National Convention at Chicago that year nominated for President William H. Taft on a typical Roosevelt platform. The Democrats in national convention at Denver nominated William J. Bryan, making him for the third time the standard

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bearer of the party. Though the convention accepted a Bryan-made platform, it contained no reference to free silver, but emphasized the list of liberal proposals—reduction of tariff, criminal prosecution of trusts, regulation of railroads, publicity for campaign contributions, income tax, guarantee of bank deposits, etc. Both of the great parties had "stolen much of the thunder" of the earlier Populist program.

Despite the absence of the Silver plank, the Democratic candidates for presidential electors in Nevada received an average plurality of 455. The highest elector on the Democratic ticket received 11,212 votes; on the Republican ticket, 10,775. The highest vote given for the Socialist ticket was 2,103; and for the Independence League ticket, 436. The total vote in Nevada that year was 24,442. Thus nearly 10,000 more voters came out to the polls in Nevada in 1908 than in 1906.

New Political Leaders

The Legislature elected in 1904 chose as United States Senator for the term beginning March 4, 1905, George Stuart Nixon, a Republican, who had come to Nevada as telegraph operator on a small station on the old Carson and Colorado Railroad, and whose

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rise to fortune had been accelerated in the Tonopah-Goldfield mining excitement. Senator Nixon was born in Placer County, California, April 2, 1860. He learned telegraphy in an office at New-castle and he was soon transferred in a position as operator to Nevada. He resigned to spend two years in the Washoe County Bank at Reno and in 1886 opened the First National Bank of Winnemucca, becoming its cashier and later its president. "Shortly after the great Tonopah mining excitement, at the solicitation of George Wingfield, he went to Tonopah and while there associated himself with others in the establishment of a bank. He also invested in mining properties, which in a short space of time put him in the millionaire class. Subsequently he and Mr. Wingfield secured control of the Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company, of

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SPARKS HIGH SCHOOL

In 1892, like many others, he drifted from the political moorings of a lifetime and identified himself with those who, under various political names, were struggling to relieve the energies of the country from the evil effects of the contracting gold volume. Though I belonged to a different party we drifted politically together during this period, and regardless of party we identified ourselves with the bimetallic movement,

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through which, by the full restoration of silver as a money metal, it was hoped to end the era of diminishing values and contracting energies. At that time barely sufficient gold was produced to satisfy the demands of the world's dentistry and the arts, and none understood better than Senator Nixon the quantitative theory of money and the effect of the quantity of the circulating medium upon values. The extraordinary and unanticipated increase in the production of gold put an end to this movement, and we both drifted back to our original parties ; but the close intimacy of this association gave me a clear insight into the quickness of his perception and the clearness and vigor of his intellect. I formed a friendship for him which strengthened, notwithstanding our political opposition. . . .

Acting Governor Dickerson

Some of the important developments in law and administration started in the first term of Governor Sparks were more fully developed under acting Governor Dickerson.

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Mackay Gifts to University

The time has come, said President Stubbs in his report of December 1, 1904, "when the people of the state should take a larger outlook in respect to the matters of public and higher education, for the reason that the state is planning for greater things in the way of growth in population and in the settlement of farms rendered habitable and productive by the work of reclamation by the Federal government. . . . The greatness of the western states is that the people who have settled within their borders have determined that their schools and their universities should be of the very best types, and that their young people should have the opportunity for an education not a whit inferior to that given by the older states. The strength of the commonwealth of Nevada will be found in its homes scattered upon the reclaimed land and in its mining camps and business centers." In the thirty years since the university was founded, "it has developed from a preparatory department and seven students, to a well equipped university with a campus of thirty-five acres and with eleven buildings devoted to the various purposes of higher education."

To realize the ambitious program of President Stubbs new buildings and new facilities were demanded. Foremost among these was a building and equipment for the School of Mining and Metallurgy. In 1899 the resignation of Robert D. Jackson, founder of the School of Mines, followed by that of Dr. J. Warne Phillips had threatened to disrupt the university. It was probably due to this unfortunate situation that the Legislature in 1903, instead of making an appropriation for a mining and metallurgical laboratory for the university had appropriated $3,000 for the support and had created a school of mines to be known as the Virginia City School of Mines at Virginia City, which was placed under the direction of the state board of education. In 1905 the Legislature appropriated $16,000 for a building, and for machinery and equipment for a mining and metallurgical laboratory at the university. Some other appropriations were made for the exigent necessities of the university.

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Mr. Mackay gave $70,000 toward the building, exclusive of the architect's plans. In addition, the bronze statue of John W. Mackay by the sculptor Gutzon Borglum, placed at the entrance of the School of Mines Building, cost $25,000. This was the first private gift of any magnitude to the university. The Mackay School of Mines Building was under contract before the end of 1906, and its dedication on June 10, 1908, was a memorable day in university history. This was only the beginning of a series of gifts on the

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MACKAY SCHOOL OF MINES, UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO

part of Mr. Mackay and his mother to the university. On October 23, 1909, was dedicated the Mackay Athletic Field, with its training quarters and grand stand.

Under the inspiration of these magnificent gifts, the people of the state and the Legislature gained a larger appreciation of the university's usefulness and showed that appreciation by larger appropriations for equipment and maintenance.

A similar spirit of progress was reported in the public school system of the state, under the reorganized plan of supervision imposed by the act of 1907. Longer terms of school were kept, a better grade of instruction offered, more uniform text books were used, and in the more populous centers many thousands of dollars were expended in the modern type of school building.

Extension Work in Agriculture

The work and service performed by the Agricultural Experiment Station at the university was supplemented when the Legis-

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lature of 1905 appropriated $10,000 for the establishment of an experiment farm in the southeastern part of the state. The land and water rights were donated, and the site chosen consisted of about eighty acres in the Muddy Valley of Lincoln County, near Logan. Through the cooperation of older farmers in the Muddy Valley the first exhibit of horticultural crops from that section of the state was sent to the State Fair in 1909. First prizes were awarded on twenty-four of these products, including grapes, water-melons, pomegranates, peaches, pears, apples, canteloupes and other vegetables and fruits, including an award for the first lemons ever grown in Nevada and for almonds. These exhibits called attention to the wonderful possibilities of the tropical and semi-tropical region in the southeastern corner of the state.

Board of Assessors

Governor Dickerson to the utmost of his ability tried to enforce an equitable distribution of tax valuations throughout the state. He declared that valuations should be so fixed "that the expense of maintaining the government will fall as nearly alike upon all classes of property as it is possible for the board, with all the data before it that can be obtained, to make it." He intimated that either the Legislature should confer upon the state board of assessors the power and the duty to so fix valuations, or should abolish the board altogether and create another board. In the meeting of the board in 1910, at which Governor Dickerson presided, he was over-ruled when he sought to include the telegraph and telephone lines and electric light and power lines within the purview of the board's valuations. In the case of the railroads he tried to bring before the board the valuation data which had been presented to the state railroad commission for rate fixing purposes. While this board refused to assess the telegraph and telephone and electric light and power lines, it fixed for the first time the value for the Wells Fargo and the Pullman companies, using data furnished by the railroad commission. On the whole, valuations were increased, and in a subsequent session the board included the property of the Western Union Telegraph Company for valuation.

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ONE OF THE FREIGHT TEAMS OF 25 YEARS AGO WHICH HAULED FREIGHT BETWEEN FALLON AND THE MINING CAMPS AT RAWHIDE, FAIRVIEW AND WONDER

with market values. The valuations on small residence property and on the property of small owners generally were higher in the beginning and they continued higher to the end than the valuations on the big properties. The valuations of the big properties such as railroads and banks were, in 1912, higher in relation to real value than were the valuations of most public-service property other than railroads, and higher than the valuations on most agricultural land and on range live stock. . . . The fundamental defect in the system of assessments lay in the fact that the state board of assessors, taken in connection with the local assessors who worked independently, had no method of achieving uniformity of results."

State Railroad Commission

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sion law of 1907 had been assailed by the railroad companies on the score of constitutionality and other grounds, but the Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of the law and the chief contention of the companies was then directed toward establishing the fact whether the maximum rates imposed by the commission were "reasonable."

Reno Rate Case

The commission law was amended in 1909 so as to repeal the section of the previous law establishing maximum freight rates and conferring upon the commission positive rate making powers. This amendment also prohibited the long notorious evil of the granting of free passes. The work of the Nevada commission was part of a nation-wide program entailing the reduction of passenger fares and the elimination of many of the abuses which had been charged to railroad management. The Nevada commission summarizing its work up to 1909 said: "The reduction in passenger fares and freight rates thus far secured amount annually to more than ten times the entire expense of maintaining the commission. This has been done during a period of most severe depression, and in the face of the fact that for the first year and a half of its existence the thought and most earnest effort of the whole commission were employed in a struggle for its very life. The legal status of the commission is now fully assured, and it is in position to work exclusively for results."

It will be recalled that the oldest and most insistent complaint against the Central Pacific Railroad was the practice of charging rates on goods destined to Nevada the full terminal rate to San Francisco or Sacramento, with the local charge from those points back to Nevada added. This was popularly known as the "back-haul charge." This was a subject of interstate commerce, and no laws or regulations imposed by Nevada could stop the practice. The first important duty of the Nevada Railroad Commission was to represent the matter effectively before the Interstate Commerce Commission at Washington. Thus was initiated in 1908 what was known as the Reno or Nevada case, when certain business men and firms at Reno filed complaint with the state commission that the charges upon westbound freight were unreasonable and discriminatory, and that these rates taken in conjunction with rates charged by the railroad companies from Reno to northern Nevada points made it impossible for Reno to distribute goods in Nevada territory in competition with Pacific Coast distributing points.

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Thus the matter was peculiarly one affecting the commercial destiny of Reno and other Nevada cities which were logical points for the setting up of wholesale and jobbing houses. The Reno case was a celebrated one and in some of its aspects it remained as unfinished business before the United States Supreme Court for years. In the meantime modifications had been obtained in the rate making structure which were of inestimable value to the commercial interests of Nevada. To quote the railroad commission's report of January 1, 1913:

When the Reno, more properly the "Nevada" case was brought before the Interstate Commerce Commission, the commercial interests of San Francisco and Los Angeles intervened against us, and took sides with the railroad for the maintenance of the rates from the East into Nevada. The method of charging gave the coast cities virtual control of the distributing trade throughout this State.

            These antagonistic interests were represented at the first hearing in Reno. The strength of the case as then made by this Commission was so evident that it became a moral certainty that substantial reductions in rates would be made from the East to points in Nevada. It was not believed by those who represented the coast cities that we would secure full terminal rates, but they realized that any reductions to Nevada would deprive the coast jobbers of a portion of the advantage which they enjoyed. To offset such reductions and enable them to hold their ground in Nevada, they must have lower rates from the coast cities eastward over the lines of the Southern Pacific.

Accordingly, before the Interstate Commerce Commission took any definite action in the Reno case, the Traffic Bureau of the Merchants' Exchange of San Francisco brought a proceeding before that commission to secure lower rates from Sacramento eastward to all points upon the main line of the Southern Pacific Company in the States of Nevada and Utah up to but not including Ogden.

In June, 1910, the case was decided and by the decision class rates on east-bound freight from Sacramento to Nevada points on the line of the Central Pacific were reduced by from 30 to 40 per cent. Owing to the fact that the Reno case has not been fully decided, and due also in part to the high local rates in Nevada, these reductions have not as yet operated much to the advantage of the jobbing trade of Reno. But upon the whole they have been highly beneficial to the consuming public of the State: Lower rates on freight into the State from either direction must, of necessity, be advantageous to the people as a body. With the final decision of the Reno case, and a proper adjustment of local rates upon the main Central Pacific line in Nevada, the local jobber will receive his full and proper share of the benefits, and a most favorable traffic condition will have been created.

It must be remembered also that these benefits are not confined to points upon the main Central Pacific line. They automatically extend to every part of the State that is tributary to the main line. For example, there is a certain area of territory that must look to Reno as the immediate source of supply. Another depends upon Lovelock, still others upon

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Winnemucca, Elko and other main-line points. Lower rates to those points mean lower prices in the various areas served therefrom.

A specific illustration of the benefits secured from these rate modifications is given in the report of the railroad commission, March 20, 1914:

After the first full presentation of the Reno Case, the Interstate Commerce Commission made an order covering the case in part. The order dealt with class rates alone, leaving commodity rates for future consideration. By that order the first-class rate from Chicago to Reno was fixed at $2.90, giv-

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MAZUMA, PERSHING COUNTY

Before cloudburst of 1912 which wiped out the camp

ing Reno an advantage of 10 cents over Sacramento. From the Buffalo-Pittsburg line the first-class rate was fixed at $3.20, which placed Reno at a disadvantage of 20 cents compared with Sacramento. From New York the rate was fixed at $3.50, which gave Sacramento an advantage of 50 cents over Reno. The order made slightly lower rates from eastern points to Winnemucca and places east of that town within the State of Nevada. This was a substantial victory, but it fell a long way short of giving to the people of Nevada what they and this Commission believe to be just rates. So far as the class rates were concerned, it left very little to complain of. It is estimated that at least 75 per cent of all our west-bound freight over the line of the Central Pacific Railway comes from Chicago territory and points west. Of the remaining 25 per cent, at least one-half comes from points no farther east than Buffalo and Pittsburg, leaving only from 10 to 12 per cent coming from the Atlantic seaboard. It had been shown by the investigation of Professor Thurtell, a former member of this Commission, that the average differential against Nevada upon all west-bound freight was about 73

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Resources of Soil and Climate

Reference has been made to the act of the 1907 Legislature in establishing an industrial and publicity commission. In the report of 1909-10 the chairman, Sam P. Davis, enumerates some of the things that were placing Nevada in the ranks of progressive western states, and some of the opportunities which were calling the attention of the outside world to the sage brush state. His report opens with the expression of a regret that Nevada had been the only state in the Union not represented at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition at Seattle. He devotes some attention to the long-standing habit of writers and observers describing Nevada as a scene of "alkali wastes" and "stretches of the illimitable desert." Those are the aspects of nature which confront the eyes of travelers on the railroads, but the transcontinental railway was built through a stretch of country probably the least attractive to the tourist.

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BEAUTIFUL WINGFIELD PARK ON THE TRUCKEE RIVER, RENO

There are thousands of square miles in Northern Nevada where the eye in a day's travel rests upon nothing but stretches of green fields.

There are square miles in Elko County where the natural grass grows waist high and clover eighteen inches high in the same grass. Vast herds of cattle are fattened here for the outside market, and are hung in the butcher stalls as Christmas beef that have never tasted anything but the native grass of Nevada, and this beef brings a cent a pound more than any beef raised in California. The lands on which this nutritious grass grows never needs a drop of artificial irrigation.

You can ride for forty miles through Washoe County and never for an instant be out of sight of fruit orchards where fruit is raised for the London market. It can be shipped around the world and keeps crisp and succulent when apples raised by artificial irrigation in California and having no winter behind them, are spongy and tasteless a few weeks after being picked.

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There are stretches of country in Lincoln County where springs capable of irrigating thousands of acres gush from the foot of the hills in unceasing flow the year round.

There are tracts in Southern Nevada on the same isothermal line as Los Angeles which produce oranges and lemons and all the semi-tropical fruits.

There are square miles of alfalfa in Humboldt County where hundreds of thousands of cattle are fed in winter and farmers are getting independent off the products of the soil.

Douglas County is said to contain more wealth per capita than any county in the United States which is strictly agricultural.

Eureka, Lander, Nye, Esmeralda, Ormsby, Lyon, and White Pine have vast stretches of agricultural country, and it may be safely said that every county in Nevada is agricultural except Storey, which, with its seven hundred millions of metal production, may be excused from contributing to the agricultural wealth of the State.

The commissioner speaks of the prospects of "dry farming," then a much discussed practice throughout the West, being successfully applied to Nevada. The soil and climate of Nevada were peculiarly adapted to the production of sugar beets, as many years of experimental growing at the University Experiment Farm had demonstrated. The reports refer to the erection of a beet sugar factory at Fallon, the first in Nevada. A considerable part of the report is devoted to the subject of fruit raising, particularly in the Colorado River Valley. Some experimental work had also shown the possibilities of cotton growing in the Pahrump Valley in Southern Nevada. Another locality mentioned, particularly with reference to its horticultural products, among which was the production of the raisins of the seedless variety, was Mesquite, located on the Virgin River, in which locality a hundred families were rep-resented as having settled. "The Truckee-Carson project in Western Nevada is so far completed that lands are now open for settlement and crops are being grown, and the first fruits of the reclamation act are being harvested. There are now a thousand farms of excellent land in a country whose climate cannot be surpassed, and where there are good markets for the sale of all products of the farm."

The report also calls attention to a revived interest in reclamation under the Carey Act. The Legislature in 1909 gave authority to the State to act as agent for individuals or companies desiring to obtain lands in Nevada under the Carey law. By the close of 1910 there was a score or more filings and claims listed as a result of which nearly a million acres had been segregated or reserved to be reclaimed by private enterprise. The size of these claims ranged from 6,000 acres to over 300,000.

Mineral Production

The Legislature in 1909 created the office of inspector of mines. This was an office not only for the collection of statistics, but the official medium through which the State laws regulating the safety of mine workings and the industrial environment of miners could be applied. In spite of the collapse of a few of the mining booms, the inspector declared that the bullion production for 1909 of

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Nevada was almost as great as the value of the agricultural crops produced in the State of Iowa in the same year.

In the year 1909 Nevada ranked sixth in the production of gold, silver, copper and lead. So far this year her dividends amount to more than those of all the mines of the States of Montana, Arizona, Idaho and Alaska combined, more than those of the mines of Michigan, Utah and Colorado, combined, and almost as much as the aggregate of all the mines of Michigan, Utah, Colorado and South Dakota, in which latter State is located the world-famous Homestake property. Three years ago our output was smaller than that of any of the States named, and today Nevada is producing one-third of all the dividends now being paid by all the companies producing gold, silver, lead and copper in the United States. If she has gained that much in the last three years, what will be her standing in the next few, with better railroad, milling and smelting facilities?

The Goldfield Consolidated Mines alone paid in dividends the first eight months of this year over $5,000,000. This same property has contributed 40 per cent of the total profits paid by the fifty-three gold, silver and lead dividend-paying mines in the United States.

The Tonopah Mining Company of Tonopah has paid in dividends $1,100,000 during the same period. These two properties alone have accounted for fully 50 per cent of the total profits distributed by properties of this kind in the country. This is only a slight record of two of the mines in our State. We have many more in the same class. We point with pride to the Belmont, Montana-Tonopah, Sunnyside, Florence, Silver Peak Quartette, Seven Troughs Coalition, the mines of the famous Comstock, the Rawhide Coalition, Nevada Hills, the National, and many others.