Reclaiming the Arid West The Career of Francis G Newlands

"... provides some fascinating insights into the life and times of wealthy and powerful men who made the West." --Journal of the West

"A fascinating study of Newland's complex professional and personal life..." --Nebraska History

"Unquestionably, serious students of the American West should read this meticulously researched and well-written biography..." --The Journal of Arizona History

"... very well researched..." --American Historical Review

"... an engaging, enjoyable portrait of a fascinating character... " --Water Resources Bulletin

"Through his narrative of Newlands' life, the author presents a clear and vivid sense of the political battles that led to federal dams and other water reclamation projects in the West. By reclaiming Newlands from the obscurity of history, Professor Rowley provides perspective on our present day battles." --State Environmental Monitor

"... skillfully blends the local and national, and it portrays Newlands with sensitivity and sound critical judgement." --Agricultural History

"... a valuable addition to the field and will be enjoyable reading for historians interested in the American West or natural resource management." --Journal of American History

This biography of Francis Newlands, a key figure in the irrigation of the West and an architect of the modern regulatory state at the beginning of this century, reveals a complicated and sophisticated man who successfully lived a dual political life under a cloud of personal and public scandal.

Widely noted for his role in the passage of the National Reclamation Act of 1902, Francis G. Newlands of Nevada was a champion of the growth of federal power in the modernization of America. One of the few liberal national Democrats at the beginning of the twentieth century, he is known as a key architect of the modern regulatory state. Newlands worked to irrigate the Nevada desert and other arid western states with nationally funded reclamation and dam-building projects. As a leading western Progressive, he supported national planning for the utilization of all the nation's water resources, the Progressive conservation cause espoused by Republican Theodore Roosevelt, and the supervision of private corporations by an enlarged and more powerful federal government. Yet he opposed Progressives on many issues, voicing suspicions about centralized banking, defending the right of private corporations to fair treatment by public regulatory agencies, even advocating the denial of suffrage to African Americans through the repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment. William Rowley's biography reveals a complicated and sophisticated man who successfully lived a dual political life under a cloud of personal and public scandal. It is a fascinating story of American politics in a time of immense national change.

WILLIAM D. ROWLEY is Professor of History at the University of Nevada in Reno. He is a student of Nevada history and western resource and environmental history. A former Executive Secretary of the Western History Association, he presently serves on the Board of the Forest History Society. He is author of M. L. Wilson and the Campaign for the Domestic Allotment, U.S. Forest Service Grazing and Rangelands: A History, and Reno: Hub of the Washoe Country.

Foreword by Martin Ridge

1. Senator Newlands: First Among the "Irrigation Cranks"

2. Toward the Promises of California

3. In Defense of Property

4. The "Wretched Case"

5. Newlands as a Nevadan

6. More than Noble Words

7. Challenging the Old Guard

8. With Water on His Wheel

9. Newlands: "A Model Democracy"

10. The Road Ahead

11. Racism and Reform

12. Visions Won and Lost

Notes

Index