White Pine news weekly mining review. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1910-1920, 1911-02-26
7. |. ODD|E DELIVERS
FIRST OF SERIES OF LECTURES
LARGE Audience In Reno Listens to Dienified Ad-
dress From Chief Executive Upon Questions OF
Importance to Every Citizen of the State.

changing point of view with respect
to our social adjustments. We are
facing the solution OF problems I'M
known 10 our forefathers; are ac-
knowledging new equities in u
social relationship. and are engaged
in the task of moulding our state
governments and our national gov
eminent in conformity with these
changes and progressive viewpoints.
A Practical Worlds Progress.
This is a practical world. Pro-
gress is directed by natural laws, be-
You'd the power 10 modify or change
very much by any human Law that
We may enact.
The best and nos successful laws
are those which are passed in ae-
eordance with a practical knowledge
of the conditions they are 10 govern.
II is better that a law be but one step
in advance of the law il supersedes.
than 10 1e so far in advance of prac-
teal conditions that the general pub
lie sentiment will not support il.
The law abolishing gambling in Ne
vada was passed al a time when pub
lie sentiment was sufficiently aroused
to insure the enforcement of the pro-
hibition against games Of chance.
Had It been passed ten years before
IL would probably have been a dead
letter upon the statute books.
There must be behind every Law a
disposition on the part OF the ma
jortity 10 enforce il. and without
such disposition a law had better not
be passed. Good legislation, there
fore, while il has its inception in
theory. is not due 10 be put in prae-
tice until the united judgment of the
majority of the people is behind II TO
insure its enforcement.
Some Hard Facts.
/ am going now 10 leave generali-
ties and discuss specific measures.
To answer those questions. We must
first gain a correct understanding of
existing conditions. Let US disabuse
our minds of speculation and fancy
and face conditions as they exist. We
are a state Of something over n
hundred and nine thousand square
miles, and with about eighty-one
thousand population.
This is an average of about
persons TO each ten square miles OF
territory. Aside from the desolute
| Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. We are
about the most thinly populated part
of the globe. Our principal industry
at the present time is mining, with
stock raising second. and agriculture
third. With 10000, 900 acres of
land within the state. less than p
] 900 900 are cultivated. Including
all lands contained in government
forest reserves. all lands granted the
Southern Pacific railroad and all
lands sold 10 settlers. four-ffths of
the states entire acreage, a~ggregat-
ing $4,000. 900 acres. is still a part
of the unappropriated public domain.
The mining camp is ephemeral.
and its tenure of life and activity is
but a decade or two. The acre of
land that is reclaimed from the des-
ert and made fruitful by irrigation,
is the permanent land mark in state
! progress. Agriculture is today, as il
has ever been in the worlds history,
the foundation of a states wealth
and greatness. We have an enspirit-
ing climate in Nevada. clear air full
oNohNf III GULLY ohifE We hdNt
approximately 40. 900. 900 acres of
desert and valley land possessing all
the soil elements necessary to fruit
~fulness. The one element which We
lack to make this one of the greatest
of agricultural states, is water. Ma
ture. We can today believe, designed
this great barren territory for human
conquest. and in the light of what is
today occurring throughout the arid
west, We can feel substantial assur-
ance that within a generation the
genius of the engineer. the sinew of
labor, and the enterprise of the hus-
bandman. will conquer the waste.
and clothe with the verdure of al
falfa and grain many of the vast
tracks which are today covered with
the gray sage.
Nevada Has Jagged Behind.
II is my firm conviction that the
greatest work this state can under
take, lies along the lines of its agri-
cultural development. We have been
asleep TO Il opportunities, and to-
day are far, far behind. in the area
of reclaimed lands of where we
would have been had we taken ad-
vantage OF our opportunities for self
help with the same energy and prac-
teal Judgment as other states about
us. Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and
Idaho are not greatly dissimilar in
characteristics from the state of Ne
vada. They are forging ahead. we
tagging, at a growing, instead of
lessening, distance in the rear.
Seventeen years ago the United
States government granted to each of
the arid land states, under what Is