Interviews: Chris Driggs | Phillip Earl | Ann Howard | Bob Kent | Elizabeth Raymond | Guy Rocha

Guy Rocha
Nevada State Archivist

Q: So we come out of WWI and it's an unsettling period. From what I read, the IWW looked at as a place they could target and have if they could win Nevada and have a presence there, that would help really establish them and cement them in their labor union. Is that accurate?

GR: That was the way it was in Goldfield in 1907, 1908. What they were doing, as I see it, in 1919 they were trying to reorganize. They had been desemated during the war, they had been arrested etc., etc. and they were trying to rebuild their ranks and they set up a regional local, a regional locals throughout the country, there's one in Phoenix, that organized minors. And they felt that Tonopah was one of the key areas within the region in which to organize the workers but it wasn't you know the apocalyptic event that was going to lead to you know the revolution. That's, that was kind of the Goldfield thing. Goldfield had a real sense that they were going to take control. In this one what they were trying to do was negotiate better wages, shorter hours and the rest of that. Get the workers to join the union and use this as a building block to establish themselves or reestablish themselves in the mining west. That's what I see there.

Q: So when you look at Tonopah from the IWW's perspective, why was Tonopah such an important place for them?

GR: The IWW was trying to reestablish itself in the American west. It has suffered all sorts of repression during WWI. Everything had been on hold, the Wobblies; the socialists are being rounded up. The country is being controlled on a federal level in terms of prices and wages and everything that is government oriented at that point. After the end of the war things are booming again but people are dealing with weight scales that are not addressing the issue of the cost of living. Workers have held off, unions have held off on asking for more and now the nation is ready for a new economic boom but at the same time workers are asking for more. The Wobblies are trying to address those issues, they are now a Phoenix based operation in terms of a regional miners union and they look at Tonopah, the silver mining camp, which they'd had a presence before reestablishing themselves and using it as a base in which to make them strong again where they could argue for the principles of a workers common wealth and eventually maybe lead to where they wanted to go which was the end of the capital system.

Q: Were the workers in Tonopah solidly behind the Wobblies?

GR: No and it was a mixed bag there were certainly all sorts of people with different political interests. Clearly they wanted more in the way of wages, better conditions. Fundamentally though, they were not all happy with the Wobblies. The Wobblies represented something for many of the workers that was much too radical for them. Yet there had been a core group that had been there for quite a long time and they were organized successfully over the years. So what you had was a lot of division, you have different competing interests even representing working people and you have other unions which are created at the time to try to address the more conservative position of working people who want to negotiate with the mining companies and get concessions without promoting a revolutionary world view.

Q: I'm assuming the strike was seven weeks, or longer?

GR: It begins August 17th 1919 and extends to November 8, 1919. So you have that period of time with a lot of extended dynamics and ongoing negotiations and then periods of lulls, new players coming in other players leaving so it's, it's a complex period and it's a protracted strike. You have a federal mediator there for a period of time; you have them with Boyle there with the state labor commission for a period of time. You have George Wingfield himself showing up on the scene after other efforts have failed. So clearly it's one of ongoing negotiations and different parties, different camps not in agreement as to what the final outcome might be of the strike action.

Q: So why was Boyle so adamantly opposed to the IWW?

GR: Emmet Boyle in his philosophy was a progressive. He felt that workers had a right to organize, they had a right to have labor unions that there needed to be, just like there were organizations for mine owners, business owners workers too needed a collective bargaining mechanism. So he felt workers had a right to work within the capitalist system to get a better piece of the pie, and bigger piece of the pie. But the Wobblies represented someone saying, you know, we are going to over throw this system one-day and if we don't do it today, we'll do it tomorrow. And Boyle, as far as he was concerned they were as good as the Bolsheviks. He did not want to see these Wobblies have their day, win this strike, win over the workers, and basically hold the mine owners and the state government in their hand in negotiations. He went down their not to negotiate with the Wobblies but to negotiate with the working men who were willing to take a more conservative stance and accept the tenants of an American capitalist system.

Q: Boyle writes in a letter to Wingfield that the Wobblies promote class division. But there was a class division between miners working for a buck a day and the mine owners.

GR: Well yeah the salary range was probably in the range of 4 to 5 dollars a day. But what he was saying is, "You need to negotiate in good faith with the mine owners. The mine owners in turn need to negotiate with you in good faith and government should be a neutral party, an arbitrating party. We'll bring both sides together and reach a common agreement. The Wobblies were intractable at times. They made their demands. There was no negotiating and ultimately the rhetoric was what really scared so many people. The idea that this was just one step towards a new world order opposed to just resolving one labor issue so fundamentally what Emmet Boyle saw in the Wobblies were people who were going to undermine the American citizen and he did not want to negotiate with these people because he felt that their article of faith was an athema to what he stood for. He was prepared as you know during the war, WWI, he wanted to interne these people, put them in concentration camps if you will to keep them people away from the workers. After the war, the Criminal Syndicalism Act was passed, he could prosecute them, or at least get the judges to do so using injunctions, for their philosophy. He felt their philosophy did not belong in the American system and there was no room, in areas of free speech and civil liberties for people who would talk about the overthrow of the United States Government.

Q: Actually there is also a reference during the influenza when they wanted to stop people at the border and check trains saying well you know we tried that and it didn't work when they wanted to try to keep the Wobblies out of Nevada. I'm assuming that was the reference about keeping the Wobblies of Nevada when he said we tried that once before.

GR: I don't think he wanted to see deportations like the Bisbee deportations. He didn't want to see people rounded up and then taken across state lines and things of that nature. But within the framework of law therefore you get laws passed, the Criminal Syndicalism Act, using injunctions okay using law to basically prohibit this activity. And then using the criminal justice system, stopping the Wobblies from doing any more of their campaigning for workers rights within the context of an anarchical syndicalism system. Okay that's what he was against. He was not involved in what I consider extra legal activities. He felt there was a rule of law. Emmet Boyle felt there was a role for government working between ownership which at times could be arbitrary, greedy, mean and capricious. And at the same time, workers who had real needs and then here's the Wobblies who thrive on this agitation and then mine owners who sometimes feed it. And his job was to walk that fine line and bring these parties together and try to reach conciliation. But the Wobblies were intractable. We can't work with them. That's why he wanted to exclude them from the bargaining table, because they were not promoting American principles. 1919 was a nation in an uproar because of the growth of the communist party in the country, the revolution in the Soviet, well Russia, soon to be the Soviet Union, there was very much fear that the Wobblies were part of an effort world wide to over throw nations. And the fear factor was tremendous. He wanted to break the Wobblies using legal means. Others were prepared to break the Wobblies using any means. George Wingfield was one of those people. So he wanted to basically be even handed, but as far the Wobblies were concerned they weren't players in the game, they were to be excluded. But legally, then prosecuted if they broke the laws once passed, imprisoned and ultimately it would be American Federation of Labor unions and other people who accept the American principals and system of capitalism. He could work with them because workers did need a voice and he recognized that. That was important to him. Where people like Wingfield and a lot of other mine owners didn't care if the workers had a voice because they were planning to exploit them.

Q: Was Boyle an unusual governor for Nevada up to that time?

GR: I would argue that governor Emmet Boyle up to then and possibly since his term of office, 1915 until 1922, early 1923, was one of the most enlightened governors we've ever had in terms of his educational background, his attitude towards government and it's role. He was not a servant of power in my opinion. He had strong opinions, certainly did not embrace radicals but he didn't embrace power in such a way that he was held hostage to the people who had the money in this state. He tried to be an independent governor with progressive ideas about bettering the human condition. Bettering the condition of workers. Bettering the conditions for women and children, bettering the conditions in the case of even prisoners and prison reform and other areas. He really had a sense of his role in enhancing the state of Nevada and it's attitudes towards it's people. And he didn't want those who had continuously controlled the state, the railroad corporations and the mining corporations to hold sway over him or the state. To maintain that level of independence was extraordinary at that time because virtually everybody who ever went anywhere in Nevada in terms of higher office took the money of the moguls and Emmet Boyle made it his way and he was extraordinary and I think deserves the attention he is getting today.

Q: Nevada used to relish in the fact that there was so much ethnicity in the area and they get to the point where it's thrown out the window. Then there is an organization there that is promoting America, America first. I know he tried not to but you still had people who took it too far.

GR: Well that's the point. And the point that you're making is the important point. Yes Emmet Boyle like virtually every governor in every state set up these councils of defense. It was important to win the war, support the war effort. And there were some real questions of civil liberties and due process at this time, something that was not sophisticated. This was before the ACLU, okay. Emmet Boyle was not extreme in this case, but there were many extreme people in terms of their patriotism who used the council of defense to not only suppress what they consider radical ideas but people who they thought wold be subversive and the concern about this new immigration, these south Slavs and Mediterranean people was that they were highly susceptible to propaganda. That this was the people that the socialists and the Wobbliest could control and they were afraid that they didn't have American principles didn't understand the nature of the system. They were fearful that they would be used in such a way to undermine the American system. So they had to be controlled, they had to be watched, they were disenchanted from where they came from but they were also bringing foreign ideas and Emmet Boyle, I felt from what I've looked at, did not fear the new immigration. But he did fear the organizations that manipulated the new immigrants. Fundamentally there were other people who were just absolutely were bigots. You know the Fins, the Scandinavians, the Slavs; these people were all to be feared because they didn't fit well into the system. And Emmet Boyle did not lead a charge on that but yes, like every governor he set up a mechanism where people who had extreme positions in many cases took advantage of the power and abused it.

Q: There was one case in Tonopah where a man was put on trial for uttering statements against the war, but whatever happened to free speech? Where did that go?

GR: The concept of free speech had not been well established in our country at that time. Both in terms of statutory law and case law. There will be some important cases that would come out of efforts like this and the American Civil Liberties Union. Roger Baldwin who would pursue issues because this is what our nation was doing at this time and the person primarily responsible for that Tonopah activity was a district judge Mark R. Averal okay, who had tremendous anti-foreign sentiment, anti-socialist sentiment, anti-wobbly sentiment and he would go to any extreme to suppress these people. But he was not an agent for Emmet Boyle, he was an independent agent with not a great deal of constraint on his activities so you would get cases like this where people were being tried under sabotage laws, alien sedition laws and all the rest of that. And what we would consider by today's standards due process and civil liberties, clearly their rights were abrogated. But fundamentally back then, the laws were not clear. The fundamental case that was heard in the Supreme Court by Oliver Wendell Holmes when we hear about, in terms of crying fire in a crowded theatre. Well that had to do with Russian anarchists and their free speech efforts on the East Coast. But the question was, what presents a clear and present danger? And the idea is where do we draw the threshold? Where do we draw the line? It took us many years after world war one, which was kind of a test period where we were just the nation, was trampling as we see it today these kinds of rights. But back then they weren't well defined, there wasn't the kind of advocacy groups that could fight and support these people and they didn't have the money in which to make the case. So clearly the standards by which we would measure what was going on in WWI and shortly there after in 1919 are standards that we have arrived at during the course of out lifetime and don't represent the kind of attitudes that people in positions of power approached, labor leaders, political leaders and groups who were not empowered at that time. Rights were violated, by our standards today, all the time. And it was very hard to get justice at that time. Particularly during wartime. Because you deal with war emergency and many times civil liberties even as they were defined at that time, were suspended.

Q: So that case, Al Shydler had no excuses for making the statements but he was the only one to go to prison.

GR: It was to make an example of him. And also he was German, he had a Germanic last name. He by example he could demonstrate to others, you do what this man does, this could happen to you too. So much of what I saw in my research regarding WWI and the way the Council of Defense handled their business relied on fear. Okay, that people were watching. Okay people were constantly watching your behavior, the things that you said, your associations and all the rest of that. It had to be very scary for people who had independent positions much less people who had very adverse positions to the war. And there were people who did not want to support WWI and who were not un-American but fundamentally they had problems with our role in that war. There was no room for any descent. Descent was not enjoyed at that time. And people like Shydler who makes an offhand comment given the district judge at that time and the Council of Defense in Tonopah, they were prepared to do anything and everything to send him to federal prison which they did.

Q: Was the election of 1914 a pivotal one for Emmet Boyle?

GR: I would argue that Emmet Boyle, the first native son to run for governor and run against Tasker Oddie, that was an upset. Tasker Oddie had been a lackey for George Wingfield. Clearly he had followed those directives and the presumption was that he would be readily supported. The wealth had been mustered behind him and here comes this native son who has local appeal but you know, university education. He's not from the working business ranks, he doesn't come from the power ranks and he's successful at putting a progressive agenda. It says something about Nevada that there were enough people in the state at that time, as colonial as it was as control as it was by mining and railroads, an independent like Emmet Boyle could appeal to that male vote as I remember, it was the, I'm trying to remember, it was the all male vote in 1914. And those men supported him in his case and then he would then support female suffrage as well. I mean his ideas were expanding and empowering more people. And that's not traditional Nevada because control came from powerful lobbyist who took their money from powerful mine owners, railroad owners and other mining interests. So Emmet Boyle represented an exception, a deviation from the long-standing pattern of governors who owed their success to powerful economic forces behind them. Emmet Boyle was able to break from that mode and say I'm bringing the kind of progressive feel which the nation had been embracing for some time, that Nevada had been fitfully toying with it because of it's colonial status. Emmet Boyle was probably flagship of progressive; he represented the leadership of progressives which did not have a strong base in this state. A betting man would not have felt that Emmet Boyle would have won that election.

Q: When Emmet Boyle walked into the 1915 legislature how hard was it for him to achieve what was on his agenda?

GR: This one you're going to have to ask Chris Driggs. This one I don't know enough about his particular agenda. I can say this much: In 1915 that's when we get the state labor commissioner. Now I know one of the people that supported that particular office was a state senator by the name of Martin Joseph Scanlin, he was a socialist and the socialist state senator. But clearly this is the kind of thing that Emmet Boyle would support is a labor commissioner where government would have a representative to work with workers and their unions, mine owners and their associations as again a neutral third party to affect arbitration and this is the kind of thing he would have thrown his support behind even though he may not have sponsored the bill. Clearly if you look at his state of the state addressed he's asking for change that relates to expanding, empowering citizens as opposed to bolstering the economy at the behest of the money interest. And he's a person that would support clearly suffrage and expand it across the board. And of course would in the ratification process of the 18th amendment, okay would support the 18th amendment and sign it personally and have a whole ceremony involved in that. His interests again were as much as one might expect the common man, clearly a more middle class approach but not interested in promoting Wingfields agenda. Ironically though in the 2nd fun, Winfield saw the handwriting on the wall and supported Emmet Boyle. What I find so amazing about that is after having a successful 1st term, winning an election he probably wasn't expected to win. That he would take George Wingfields money but wouldn't necessarily take Wingfields advice. And anybody to do that had to be pretty damn courageous because George Wingfield cast a long shadow in this state. And the relationship of Emmet Boyle to George Wingfield is one that always fascinated me and that they did work together, even in the Tonopah strike in 1919 not because he was subservient to Wingfield but that they were both in their way, trying to engineer an outcome and I think that Emmet Boyle had to be very unhappy that Wingfield had to come in and do it after him and exercise his power because I think Boyle wanted to get that negotiation concluded with a positive outcome without involving George Wingfield. Sadly he didn't realize how powerful the Wobblies are and it must have just angered him that the Wobblies had again undercut him.

Q: So what was the legacy of the Tonopah strike?

GR: Clearly, there's a legacy for the Wobblies in that in terms of the mining industry in this state that was probably one of the biggest strikes, the mining strikes associated with the Wobblies except for the Goldfield labor strike 1907, 1908. It was the death mill for the Wobblies and the mining industry in Nevada. Clearly, the only time the Wobblies would ever even make a comeback in at any level and get some profile was during the construction of Hoover Dam and the big strike in 1931 but there was a whole different venue. So the legacy for the IWW is Nevada is no longer that state where they had hope for using it as foundation for further expansion in the industry. Wingfield in conjunction with Emmet Boyle in bringing the strike to a successful conclusion on their terms really broke the Wobblies. And then it was a cleanup action for the next few years. The Wobblies never had the presence that they could have and using the state police, using the court system they squashed the Wobblies until there really was no presence until about the mid- 1920’s. As far as Emmet Boyle is concerned, he can take great pride ultimately in the end even though it wasn’t concluded- let me go back- ultimately in the end for Emmet Boyle even though he did not conclude the strike in the way he wanted to with Wingfields support his physical presence in Tonopah, he broke the Wobblies. And in breaking the Wobblies it’s something that he’d been wanting to do for a long time and hopefully the new unions, the International Unions of Smelter workers and others that accepted American principles would move forward. So I suspect Emmet Boyle would look back with pride on the outcome of the 1919 strike and saying that we have finally brought the Wobblies to their knees. And labor in Nevada and labor in the nation is better for it.

Q: Didn’t he call out the state police in Ely on one occasion? The state police was used to protect the mines especially during the war in fear of destruction right?

GR: The strike I believe you are referring to is the 1912 strike. Tasker Oddie called out the state police and it involved in killing workers and it was a very controversial event. But Emmet Boyle also used the state police but it never led to violence, injury or death. And when the state police over stepped their bounds, they were known to, he reigned them back in. Again I want to emphasize, as much as Emmet Boyle despised the Wobblies and their philosophy, everything they stood for, he wanted to break them using the system legally. Even though it may say some things about limiting civil rights, and civil liberties and free speech and the rest of that, he wanted to pass laws, he wanted to use the courts he wanted to use the existing mechanisms to break them. Others wanted to use other means. Anything and everything which meant turning your backs on deportations, other acts which would end up violating these people, beating them up, dumping them off of trains, he didn’t want to see that happen. He felt he could use the system, make the system work in order to break the Wobblies as opposed to manipulating the system illegally in such a way that Wingfield would have no problem doing. Wingfield would do anything inside and outside the system to get his desired outcome. Emmet Boyle wanted to play by the rules of course he wanted to dictate what the rules were.

Q: A lot of what you see going on at this time was bringing in whoever it takes to break what was going on.

GR: There were detectives though. There were detectives that belonged to the field detective agency the pinkertons etc. they were working for the mine owners now the so called goons: there were people who were paid by the mine owners like Clarence A. Sage who’s job was to ride hurt on events and they would physically hurt people, that’s a fact. And there are, there were people alive who remember these incidents of beating people in the streets an doing all sorts of activity where the sheriff and people would look the other way because they were Wingfields men. Emmet Boyle did not support this kind of thing. Fundamentally that’s he felt that’s where business, the mining corporation in this case were over stepping their bounds and turning good working men and working women away from the system because the system was being too much controlled by economic interests. He felt that government could again conciliate between the two sides where people who support capitalism and American principles and not feel the mine owners were the controlling outcomes, he felt that he could be fair and even handed as a bargaining agent so he felt that mine owners played in the hands of radicals by alienating good Americans who turn to Wobblies who never would have turned to Wobblies if the mine owners would just be reasonable. And he felt many times that Wingfield was not reasonable. Okay, Emmet Boyle was exceptional in that sense. And I don’t know that we’ve had many governors that can say they were that independent. And probably James Scrogin, possibly Michael Callahaun could really say that they were fighting for the interests of the common man not letting major economic interests dictate that political reality and not worry about the political fall out. It seems Emmet Boyle felt secure in taking this position. He did not fear the withdraws of money or other political retaliation. What a courageous guy. Even if you understand where the radicals were coming from and what they are trying to do and the kinds of tremendous human dislocation at this time. And that’s why their philosophies did appeal to people because capitalism was running Russia over working men and working women. Emmet Boyle says let’s win them back. Let’s back those mining corporations off. Let government come in, control the excesses of the mining companies and the railroad companies, work with the workers, show them that the American government can give them fairness in the workplace, can give them a living wage, can give them reasonable working hours, can give them good conditions in the mines or where ever else they are working. And we can protect them and let them embrace Americanism and American principals because the government can treat them fairly even if the corporations don’t. It’s a spatial position and that’s what the progressives were all about because that’s where we could, the progressives, cold work in between these working parties, this class conflict that government could be a neutral. Most of the time, government sided with capital, left and right, historically sided with capital. Strike after strike it seemed and under the previous administration the state police, the law enforcement agencies, the courts, were always siding with capital. In the case of Emmet Boyle, he felt they could truly be fair and this governor did everything in his power to try to do it this way. Didn’t help the Wobblies because he didn’t want them at the bargaining table in the 1st place.

Q: With the influenza killing so many, this was an incredible period of time.

GR: This period, WWI shortly thereafter 1919 was extremely dynamic in the United Sates but even in the world. We can talk about the Russian Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, clearly people were watching what was happening there and they were looking at conditions in the United States particularly after the war when people are agitated and things have been tough, they are looking to reestablish themselves. And yet here is this new movement talking about the day of the capitalist is over in places like Tonopah, Nevada the whole concern is are we going to have revolution here, is this going to be embraced? Is this what’s happening here? What kind of changes are we going to pursue? Women are demanding full suffrage. People are expecting more change, how much change? Like Lenin? That kind of change? 1919 there’s full of fear in the nation. There’s hope and there’s fear. And then there’s death of course the influenza epidemic, this sense of a major public health problem and everybody is keeling over dead, falling, dying. What’s going on? What is this thing that’s being transmitted? Then there’s this other epidemic. Bolshevism. A new world order, and people in Seattle and the general strike their scared. What’s going to happen? The communists going to take over Seattle? Are they going to take over New York? Are they going to take over Tonopah? What’s going to happen? The fear factor in 1919, the fear of dying, the fear of world change, the fear of economic instability, lead to a lot of excesses. Okay and of course this is the period when you see the organization of the FBI and this was Jay Edgar Hoover’s period, when he begins to emerge. And also this was the beginning of Roger Baldwin and the American Civil Liberties Union you begin to see a lot of what we see today. You know the dynamics and the players emerging out of this very fertile period of WWI shortly thereafter, the questions that were being asked of that time. Now we have some resolution. The Soviet Experiment didn’t work. But back then it was argued that that was the New World order. Everybody was looking to them to say capitalism has had its day, this is coming. And there were people saying hell no. It ain’t gonna’ happen. And it ain’t gonna happen in Tonopah, and it ain’t gonna happen in Nevada. And it ain’t gonna happen in the United States. And with that kind of attitude you had some major confrontations. Tonopah was our principal one in the state of Nevada. What an exciting time, what a fearful time. It’s the time that we are talking about today. 09:25:37:15

Q: After WWI and at the beginning of the 1920’s where is Nevada? What about the change? Where does it go?

GR: Nevada changes in the 1920’s there’s no question. The mining industry itself the Pittman silver act which had stimulated the economy in 1918 only lasted until ’23, was not reauthorize. And so the artificial subsidy and the price of silver was gone. Mining went in the toilet in Nevada. And mining was no longer driving the state. Silver, so not only were there not jobs for the miners, but there was no work for the unions to try to organize. Things were very troubled there. Nevada is in an economic decline it was losing population again it had come back from the brusque of following the Comstock and Tonopah and Goldfield and Riolite and Ely and from 1900 to 1919, 1920 things seemed like Nevada was on it’s way back. Now Nevada is starting to decline again. What does it mean for Wingfield? Their trying to find new industry, what are we going to do? How are we going to support ourselves? You know what is Nevada going to do now that mining isn’t really providing the necessary economic base for which to operate on. It was a state looking for new opportunity. Emmet Boyle, while he was there as this new period was ushered in, left office that first money of January 1923 and went into the newspaper business. He was going to report on this but he was no longer going to be in the area of public policy. It was really governor James Scoggins who would have to address issues. And he began to look at destination tourism, recreation. See Nevada, see what’s out here. Come on the train, bring your automobile. So Nevada was starting to look at what else do we have to offer because the mining isn’t going to make it. The railroad is no longer powerful, commercial transportation things of that nature. Reclamation tried that in Fallon, we don’t have a lot of that going on. Nevada was looking for new industry. In 1920, Nevada was looking for a new identity. And what do you begin to see? Transportation networks, highways, cars, roads. You begin to see the marriage industry begin because it’s easier to get married here. You know you got to deal with issues of waiting periods, you got the deal with issues of blood tests. And so people began to coming to Nevada, come to Nevada. Get away from it. Get a quick marriage, get a quick divorce. The divorce industry begins to really take off. Yes it existed but beginning in the 20’s, you begin to see people like Mary Pickford coming here. And promoting that and people promoting Nevada in such a way that it’s a get away from it all. Come to Nevada. And you also begin to see looking at liberalizing the divorce laws and gambling. There’s also efforts by the end of the 20’s to make it possible to have casino gambling. Finally successful in 1931. There’s also talk about how can we make Nevada a tax haven? You know we got rid of the radicals? We don’t have any communists. We don’t have state income tax. We don’t have an inheritance tax. How can we get the rich to come here? And through the 20’s it’s this struggle to find ways to reinvigorate the state economy. It’s loosing population; it’s in the doldrums. And in the 1930’s during the nations depression Nevada begins to define itself much in the way it is today. Gambling, divorce. The idea that it’s very conservative we don’t have problems with radicals, Wobblies and socialists. We don’t have the problems you find in New York City and San Francisco. Come and bring your millions, let it trickle down to the masses. Nevada becomes a conservative state beginning in the 1920’s. The radical voice, the voice of change, the voice of the people the socialist party who had people in the legislature, who had people as justice of the peace’s, people on school boards, all of it, it’s all gone. Nevada becomes increasingly more conservative, in the 20’s is a time when Nevada looks to vice and legislating and looks towards capital and millionaires the powerful people to come to Nevada and help this state move into the future. Working people, labor unions, progressive issues. With Emmet Boyle and possibly James Scoggins, it died. It was over; Nevada became the state it is today. Conservative with no vision of change involved with coming from the masses. Change would come from those that had monopolized the wealth and who would share it with Nevada in the respective ways that it did. Ultimately though it would mean that Nevada would be run by powerful interests again. It was only that period and Emmet Boyle presided over eight years of it, when there was some sense of the common man and woman, the working people, having more of a voice in the outcomes in Nevada because gaming would become the new juggernaut and as that concentration of power particularly as the larger interests came in and then corporation, it was gaming that ran the state just like mining interests ran the state and railroad interests ran the state. We don’t have a large labor lobby, whether it’s the teachers or the AFL-CIO, we don’t have strong advocacy groups whether it’s common cause or ACLU. The people that drive the future in this state are lobbyists who basically take their money from gaming corporations. That’s a fact, good bad or otherwise, that’s a fact. It used to be the mining companies and it used to be the railroad companies. So Emmet Boyle was a spokesman for progressive change, when he left office and in the midst of that depression in the 1920’s, James Scoggins did try to diversify but ultimately did not pay homage to George Wingfield. And when Wingfield got Fred Bowser elected we went back into that kind of colonial mentality where people like Wingfield and later Pat McCarrann with his concentration of power dictated the reality in the state.