Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1884-12-19
eureka Dailp 5entiuel.
FRIDAY DECEMBER 10. 1884.
THE AT OF NEVADA.

VIZ
There is no known method of putting
a State out of the Union, says the San
Francisco Alta, unless it wishes to go,
and, as the late civil war proved, there
are serious difficulties in the way even Of
self-removal. But there are certain
Eastern newspapers which think it wrong
for Nevada to remain a State, and have
two representatives in the Senate, when
its population is not much if any in e
cess of so, 900. A State with fewer in
habitants than a good-sized suburb to
one Of our first.class cities is rather an
absurdity, it is true; but the prospect Of
doing anything about it, except to wait
patiently for Nevada to grow bigger, is
very remote. During the last few years
Nevada has been retrograding in popula-
ton, undoubtedly, but that is due merely
to the exhaustion Of the Comstock mines,
and there are sufficient resources-agri
cultural and mineral-in Nevada to make
it certain that its present territory will
some day support a very respectable
population. 1t is going down now, but
it will come up again before a great many
years. The Philadelphia Press, the
latest newspaper to become agitated on
this subject, says: 'To the 81 other
States the d~isproportion of power en-
joyed by the handful Of people in this
immense pocket borough of Nevada is ex-
tremely unsatisfactory" The dispro-
portion referred to is probably that OF
giving two United States Senators to
Nevada, with its 10000 people, while
New York, with its :. ZOO, 900, and Penn
s~ylvania with its 1000, 600, have no
more. But this is the nature of the dis
proportion established by the Constitu-
ton for good and sufficient reasons, and
if we once begin drawing these compar-
isons, where shall we stop? One of
Pennsylvania neighbors is the little
State of Delaware, containing but three
counties and less than $50, 600 people.
The disproportion complained of in the
case of Nevada, as compared with New
York or Pennsylvania, is not much less
in respect to Delaware. That State, too,
has been in the Union since it was
formed, about a hundred years ago, and
a hundred years from the date of Ne
vada's admission it will doubtless be
found that she has beaten Delaware's
record on population. The Alta does
not like to see a small State kicked when
it is down by one of those big bullies in
the rowdy East, and, furthermore, it is
a sort of retributive justice visited upon
the political party which the Philadel-
phia Press represents to see it repenting
the admission of Nevada to the Union at
this late day. If it is wrong now for
Nevada to be a State, with $4,000 peo-
pie, it was wrong for the Republicans to
admit her in 1864, when her population
was very much smaller. In 1860 Ne
vada had 6.857 people, and four years
later she was admitted, for purely politi-
cal reasons. In 1870 the population was
but AZ, 49l, and it probably exceeds that
now A good deal is said about the
diminished vote of Nevada at the late
election, which was 5000 less thar in
1880. Still, it amounted to IL. TO, as
against but 11,69S in 1868, four years
after admission. There have been other
States in the Union with a population
not very much larger than Nevada now
has-notably Rhode Island and Della
ware at the time of the adoption of the
Constitution.