Interview with Jerome Edwards

Question: How would you depict Nevada at the end of the 19th century?

Jerome Edwards: After 1880 when Nevada hit its height of population at something like sixty-two thousand, the Comstock went into sort of a terminal decline, and so did the rest of the state as no considerable gold or silver discoveries were made. So by 1900 mining production was probably about a fifteenth of what it had been let's say in the late 1870s. And the population of the state went down to forty-two thousand or so. A one third drop in twenty years. And I know of no other state in the history of our country that suffered a net loss of one third of its population. And actually if you take off the Indian population, the population of the Euro-Americans is even, it's even more precipitous than one third. It's a shocking decline. And the state hadn't found a substitute for mining. So by 1900 mining is ranked third among economic activities in the state, behind a not very productive agriculture, and behind railroading.

Question: What were Nevada's leaders doing to change this?

Edwards: The Nevada leadership, I think around 1900, thought they had the panacea for recovery in the magic issue of silver. Silver and mining still seemed to have this aura for the state. There was a tendency to blame the state's malaise on outsiders, whether it's the evil influences of Wall Street, Eastern or perhaps more specifically British capitalists, and big Eastern interests. Also a lot of blaming the railroad and its pricing practices and so on. Actually the state had just sort of run out of discovered ore or didn't have the technology and the means to recover what was there. And after 1900 when you did have new, exciting discoveries, then there was less malaise, less blaming of others for Nevada's predicament.

Question: How was Nevada viewed nationally?

Edwards: It's well to point out that Nevada is by far the smallest of all the states in the United States at this time. When Nevada was admitted as a state in 1864, probably no state was smaller at time of admission than Nevada, before or since. And of course things had gotten worse by 1900. I doubt if Nevada had one third as many people as the next smallest state, which I believe was Wyoming. I don't think the real fundamental changes occur until, well first of all the 1930s with the construction of Hoover Dam and the re-legalization of gambling. Then you start having federal money pouring into the Las Vegas area during World War II. It isn't until the 1950s that you can say that gambling is indisputably the biggest industry in Nevada. But I would say 1940 is the last census year in which Nevada retains its old character. You still had less than one person per square mile. After 1940, with the shift toward the south and so on, then Nevada becomes increasingly one of the fastest growing states and after 1950 the fastest growing state in the union.

It's an aberration among states. I think it always has been. In the 19th century it was terribly dependent on one industry, mining. Always boom and bust and always last in population. In the 20th century, the state sort of reinvents itself or re-creates itself. But again it becomes even more of an aberration because it tries to re-legalize things. And in the long run the repackaging is overwhelmingly successful; not all components of it are but certainly gambling is overwhelmingly successful.

Question: How did Nevada change after the turn of the century?

Edwards: Well from 1900 to 1910 Nevada underwent a terrific mining boom first in Tonopah right after the turn of century and then in Goldfield, which is sort of an offshoot of Tonopah. Then later in the decade in White Pine County with the successful mining and smelting of copper, which is the first big non-precious metal mining in Nevada. And temporarily, at least from 1900 to 1910, Nevada almost doubles in population. Of course, in 1910, it's still dead last in population among all the states, which it will hold until almost 1960. But the state began attracting remarkable people from out-of-state and Tonopah and Goldfield both sucked in people from elsewhere.

Question: Who are some of those people?

Edwards: I am thinking of remarkable people like Key Pittman for example who came, born in Mississippi who came here by way of Seattle and the Klondike. And there are native-born Nevadans who sort of begin making it politically or economically in Tonopah, Goldfield. And this leadership was rather a remarkable leadership. It dominates the Nevada political scene for the next two generations. To be from Tonopah or Goldfield meant you were from somewhere. I might also mention that the Comstock leadership basically pillaged the state. The leaders of the Comstock, they moved elsewhere, they took their money with them. They often held high political office in Nevada but they lived elsewhere. After 1900 the leadership of Tonopah and Goldfield stayed within the state. George Wingfield, for whatever reason, stays within the state and his money is invested in things, which helped the development of the state. For a quarter of a century, I would argue, Wingfield dominates the political and economic life of the state you know.

Question: How did McCarran and Wingfield get along?

Edwards: The two men disliked each other over time. McCarran was kept successfully in the political wilderness by sort of an aberration. He finally makes it after many tries into the United States Senate in 1932. But Wingfield is a member of a group of people who share many of the same impulses and general ideas, who are uncomfortable about the rather pushy McCarran, a man who tends to upset the apple cart. And McCarran is just kept in the wilderness for about a 20 plus year period. McCarran represented Wingfield's common law wife in a very messy divorce case. He defended May as vociferously and vigorously as he could and there were certain things stated in the case that I'm sure hardened the feelings between the two people. Also McCarran opposed the Police Bill of 1908. He 's perhaps the most prominent Nevada politician at the time to oppose which was to create a state police force or a state militia, which would give backing - once federal troops are taken out of Goldfield - to the oligarch controlled Goldfield. That makes McCarran seem like an outsider. Then McCarran had a bad record of challenging incumbents in his own party. He challenged Key Pittman in the Senator race in 1916, and he challenged Rep. Bartlett in one race. After 1933 and 1934, after Wingfield declares bankruptcy and after McCarran become senator, then all the dues have been paid and the two men become more friendly with each other.

Question: So was McCarran at odds with his party?

Edwards: I would think a major factor in McCarran treating politics the way he does is the fact that he's Irish, and very Irish and proud of it, too. It's dangerous to go into stereotypes perhaps but there is an Irish type of politician and I always think of McCarran as sort of much like an Irish politician in a big eastern city. Only Nevada really has about as much population, let's say, in 1930 as an aldermanic ward in New York City or Chicago. So the approach is very similar. You do favors for people, and even as a senator you do favors for people. This is one of the reasons why you are a senator. You act as ombudsman for your constituents against a sometimes difficult bureaucracy. In return, you only demand one thing, but it's a big thing. You demand their full loyalty. And the McCarran political organization, you could use the word machine, is very personal in nature. It isn't centered in ideas. McCarran is at the best of times a maverick Democrat and at the worst of times a really roving Democrat, roving away from the party. But I don't think of this as an attribute coming from his mining town environment. In fact McCarran is not really explained as the product of a mining town environment. He lives in Tonopah maybe four to five years. He passes through, although Tonopah catapults him to more prominent offices than he's ever had before. But then he moves to Reno, back closer to where the family ranch was. He's really much more a Washoe County/Reno product than a Tonopah product though there is that association with Tonopah. But I think it's his Irishness that explains a lot of his character.