Beyond The Hundredth Meridian Part 10

Stewart: Have you not insisted that it be maintained? Have you not insisted that it be maintained?

Powell: I have not insisted upon anything, but when asked my opinion as you ask it now, I have expressed it. I have not insisted upon anything, but when asked my opinion as you ask it now, I have expressed it.

Eventually Allison observed that Brother Stewart had been at Powell long enough, and was keeping the other brethren from their rights. The other brethren came in strong, most of them to secede from the arid empire, to challenge Powell's rainfall figures, to attack his low opinion of artesian wells, and to shake their heads over the governmental paternalism he seemed to approve. They did not want individual initiative interfered with, they wanted the West taken care of by means of "natural conditions and natural enterprise." Montana, the Dakotas, Idaho, Was.h.i.+ngton, denied his premises. Only Senator Reagan of Texas gave him strong support, citing the attempted water-grabs in New Mexico as reason for federal control, and proposing legislation based on Powell's notion of the unified drainage basin. Powell had had a rough time, but he might have felt that he had held his own. Only Stewart and Moody had really crowded him, though the subcommittee proper had all been skeptical of too much extension of federal power, and Sanders of Montana had kidded Reagan, and hence by a.s.sociation Powell, with being a disciple of Henry George.

Against Stewart's hostility, Senate suspicion of his too-great powers, and Western irritation at the freezing of land, he might even have won if his missionary campaign had paid off. But he got less public support than he expected. Apparently he underestimated the capacity of the plain dirt farmer to continue to believe in myths even while his nose was being rubbed in unpleasant facts. The press and a good part of the public in the West was against him more than he knew. His revolutionary proposals for arid-belt inst.i.tutions had found only scattered supporters like Reagan and Elwood Mead. The American yeoman might clamor for governmental a.s.sistance in his trouble, but he didn't want any that would make him change his thinking.

Another year, another appropriation, would convince them, Powell thought. But he didn't get the year, he didn't get the appropriation. By the same side door through which it had come into existence - by an amendment to the Sundry Civil Expenses Bill - Powell's General Plan was pushed out. A Senate Amendment eliminated all the clauses dealing with reservation of irrigable lands, and thus threw the public domain open again, to the utter confounding of Powell's hopes for reasonable planning. All entries made in good faith - and good faith was fairly easy to prove to most Land Offices - since October 2, 1888, were declared valid, though the number of acres a man could acquire under all existing land laws was dropped to 320. Hydrographic work was pointedly not mentioned, and since this appropriations bill was the sole authorizing legislation for the survey, hydrographic work was completely eliminated unless the Geological Survey wanted to undertake it.7 The appropriation, instead of the $720,000 Powell had asked, was $162,500. The appropriation, instead of the $720,000 Powell had asked, was $162,500.

To some it might have seemed only a temporary check, a sign of Congressional impatience with the Irrigation Survey alone. At least the chastis.e.m.e.nt was qualified, for the appropriation of $719,000 voted for the Geological Survey proper made it the best-supported scientific organization in the world. Powell was still Mr. Science, the High Priest.

And yet the reduction of the Irrigation Survey from a comprehensive and articulated General Plan to an ineffectual and aimless mapping of reservoir sites was the major defeat of his life, and the beginning of the end of his public career. Everything that happened to him from this point on was doc.u.mentation of a decision already made, corroboration of his public decline from the peak of 1890.

For this General Plan that Congress had just stomped to death for the second time incorporated his whole knowledge and experience and faith. The possibility that sometime events would converge toward an opportunity was the end and excuse of many of his political alliances and fights and deals and all the interlocking activities of his bureaus from 1877 on. All science must eventually be practical; the Science of Earth and the Science of Man led to the same end, the evolving and developing of better political, artistic, social, industrial, and agricultural inst.i.tutions, "all progressing with advancing intelligence to secure justice and thereby increase happiness."8 The General Plan had been his vision of the way in which, by the help of science, justice and happiness could be guaranteed for the people and the region to which he was most attached. The opportunity had come unexpectedly, but it had opened up the dazzling possibility that the whole thing could be realized: that the waste could be stopped, the random and ill-advised mob of settlers directed by scientific knowledge and planning and steered into becoming colonists and communities.

But they hadn't given him time. They had beaten him when he was within a year of introducing an utterly revolutionary - or evolutionary - set of inst.i.tutions into the arid West, and when he was within a few months of saving that West from another half century of exploitation and waste. It was the West itself that beat him, the Big Bill Stewarts and Gideon Moodys, the land and cattle and water barons, the plain homesteaders, the locally patriotic, the ambitious, the venal, the acquisitive, the myth-bound West which insisted on running into the future like a streetcar on a gravel road.9

6. Coup de Grace

A SUCCESS which left Powell still in possession of power was unsatisfactory to Senator Stewart. Completely incapable of understanding either the scope or the meaning of Powell's General Plan, he could have no notion of the damage he had done his enemy by restricting the Irrigation Survey to a little topography west of the 100th meridian. He would not rest until he damaged him a great deal more. which left Powell still in possession of power was unsatisfactory to Senator Stewart. Completely incapable of understanding either the scope or the meaning of Powell's General Plan, he could have no notion of the damage he had done his enemy by restricting the Irrigation Survey to a little topography west of the 100th meridian. He would not rest until he damaged him a great deal more.

With the Irrigation Survey pulled down, he turned his attention to the Geological Survey, which, created by the kind of law that was jammed through in the frantic last days and nights of a session, was vulnerable to the same tactics in reverse. Much might be made of the fact that Powell's budget was not itemized. In some instances, simply to forestall criticism, he had designated specific sums for specific purposes, but his general immunity from Congressional control was complete. His budgets showed no k.n.o.bs or irregularities that could be whittled off by the watchdogs of the Treasury. And the spies and whisperers had made much of his arbitrary powers without producing any change, princ.i.p.ally because Powell's personal integrity was as unquestioned as the efficiency of his book-keeping. But his freedom of expenditure could be made to look bad: the malice of the Cope crowd and the persistent hatred of Stewart could work at that structural weakness like ice at a crack in a wall.

In 1891 the Stewart forces hung on relentlessly until they turned back the steady curve of appropriation increase for the Survey. The cut of $90,000 that they succeeded in getting 1 1 was the first reduction Powell had suffered since his fight for survival in 1877. But more alarming than the reduced budget was the fact that this appropriation designated specific salaries and allocated specific sums to different branches of the bureau. was the first reduction Powell had suffered since his fight for survival in 1877. But more alarming than the reduced budget was the fact that this appropriation designated specific salaries and allocated specific sums to different branches of the bureau.

That was more than ominous; it amounted to a vote of no-confidence. It meant that the whispers about the scientific Tammany had found hearers; that Powell's power, even though no one had ever proved it abused, troubled more and more Congressmen; and that his indefatigable enemies were starting to weaken the front of support on which he had been able to count through the years.

Since 1878, when Representative Patterson of Colorado had thundered denunciations of "this revolutionist," there had always been an opposition to the Survey in Congress, and the opposition had from time to time distinguished itself for bombast and ignorance and bad faith. It had been anti-science, anti-control, anti-reform. To it, planning was insufferable, intelligence an insult to free Americans. "Do not shackle us with this folly," Patterson had bellowed in the debate over the National Academy's proposals in 1878. "Allow the people of the West... that scope and opportunity which our present wise system of land laws afford and in a few years you will have peopling the vast interior of our country as numerous, thrifty, enterprising, patriotic, and happy a population as is now the boast of the most powerful states of the Union." 2 2 Since then, some towns in Kansas and even in Patterson's own state of Colorado had been settled and abandoned as much as three times. The wise system of land laws had marched the West swiftly and directly toward homesteader failure and land and water monopoly by corporations and individuals. The farming population of those plains where the Pattersons and the Gilpins saw visions, and where settlers dug for firewood and drilled for the dependable artesian water, was already defeated by conditions that the Pattersons and the Gilpins would never admit. There would be fewer of Patterson's thrifty, enterprising, and happy farmers in large parts of Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma, and the Dakotas in 1940 than there were in the peak year of 1890.3 Now in 1892 Patterson was long gone, and with him Page of California, Maginnis of Montana, Haskell of Kansas, Dunnell of Minnesota, and other tub-thumpers of homestead settlement. Gone were some of those who had suspiciously sniffed at the heels of government science in 1885. But Congressmen often have a long life, and some, like Jukeses, leave worthy successors. In 1892 Hilary Herbert was still in the House, Wolcott and Stewart and Power and Carey still in the Senate. Their grievances differed but their object was the same: to get Powell.

Again, as in the newspaper attack of January, 1890, it was Marsh whose flank was turned to expose Powell's position. This time the group which was opposed to government science and was hunting a way to reduce Powell's size discovered that the Geological Survey had published a study by Marsh on the Odontornithes, or Toothed Birds.4 A man whose reputation had been gained and kept by shaving and denying and cutting things in budgets, Representative Herbert could grow as caustic about birds with teeth as he had about Elliot Lord's history of the Comstock or Powell's frivolous addiction to topography. Representative Wilson of Was.h.i.+ngton was picked to introduce the ridicule of the toothed-birds book into the House. Herbert then expanded that opening into a full public airing of all the whispers and slanders of 1890, 1885, 1878-79, 1874, and all the years between. A man whose reputation had been gained and kept by shaving and denying and cutting things in budgets, Representative Herbert could grow as caustic about birds with teeth as he had about Elliot Lord's history of the Comstock or Powell's frivolous addiction to topography. Representative Wilson of Was.h.i.+ngton was picked to introduce the ridicule of the toothed-birds book into the House. Herbert then expanded that opening into a full public airing of all the whispers and slanders of 1890, 1885, 1878-79, 1874, and all the years between.5 It may have been significant that Eugene Smith, the State Geologist of Herbert's state of Alabama, was one of Cope's crowd. It may have been significant that Eugene Smith, the State Geologist of Herbert's state of Alabama, was one of Cope's crowd.6 At any rate, Cope and Endlich were dragged out and dusted off, Aga.s.siz found his letters against government science read again into the record. The topographical atlas of the United States on which Powell had spent close to half of the six millions he had received in appropriations over the past thirteen years was pawed over and revealed to be only half completed. At any rate, Cope and Endlich were dragged out and dusted off, Aga.s.siz found his letters against government science read again into the record. The topographical atlas of the United States on which Powell had spent close to half of the six millions he had received in appropriations over the past thirteen years was pawed over and revealed to be only half completed.

There was no end to any of it, they cried. It was all a gigantic scheme to perpetuate in power and plush the director and his henchmen. His "scheme of geology," Herbert said, was "the most ambitious ever conceived by the human mind" - and he was not far wrong. If geology conceived on that scale was a fit concern of government, why did we not expand into physics, chemistry, biology? (By now we have, and to a degree that would appall Mr. Herbert.) Multiplying researches, topographical maps that never got done, birds with teeth, waste, expense, featherbedding - Herbert made his charges aggressively and in detail, and every charge he made found supporters who hated Powell, supporters who feared government sponsors.h.i.+p of science, supporters scared of government control of irrigation, supporters who were simply economy-minded. Herbert said with horror what Powell would have said with pride: that the United States government spent more in promoting science than any other nation in the world.

The General Plan was a whole; since Stewart had managed to knock off one of its comers in 1890, it was only a question of time until the whole structure was brought down. Herbert and his cohorts brought it down in 1892. Admitting that the only way they could get at Powell was through the "pure science" branches of his immune bureau, Senator Wolcott of Colorado joined with Herbert, Wilson, and others in the House in a concerted attack. Herbert moved the eliminination of paleontology from the bureau and the appropriation - a move that paralleled the earlier action of the California legislature in destroying the Whitney Survey when Clarence King, fresh out of Yale, was one of its surveyors. Moved by the same arguments of impracticality, the House Appropriations Committee cut the budget. Powell's supporters rallied in the Senate Appropriations Committee and restored everything the House committee had cut. When the bill came before the Senate, Wolcott proposed an amendment cutting the appropriation from $541,000 to $400,000. Powell's supporters defeated him. But the Westerners who were after Powell's hair did a little horse trading with the South, and got through by a vote of 26 to 23 Senator Carey's amendment cutting the sum even more, to $335,000. That amendment also specified the size and salaries of the staff: two geologists at $4000, one at $3000, one at $2700, two paleontologists at $2000, and so on. A desperate sortie by Powell forces lifted the total sum to $430,000, but lost the two paleontologists and fourteen other staff jobs.7 That brought the house down, and with it much of the structure of government science that Powell had labored with for more than twenty years. All of the scientific bureaus felt Herbert's axe; even the Smithsonian suffered. And when the temple came down the High Priest of Science was in it, a maimed man, in constant pain from the regenerated nerves of his stump, a man getting on toward sixty and in trouble with a wife who over the years had grown into something of a shrew. He was tired and he was licked. Curtly, almost insultingly, he fired Marsh, reduced his staff, cut down his work to the topography which was almost all they had left him, and subsided. After a decent interval of two years he would retire and pa.s.s his Geological Survey on to Charles D. Walcott, who impressed him as the member of his staff most likely to bear up under the wear and tear of fighting the bureau's battles in Congress.

For himself, he was done. The whisperers and spies could subside, and the Senatorial warriors could stop striking the body, the medicine men could resume the chanting that denied the West's ills or would cure them with invocations of the Jeffersonian G.o.ds or the artesian waters.

But one more repudiation awaited him before the gulf between intelligence and wishfulness, fact and fable, would be ultimately clear. It came in October, 1893, when Powell was invited to address the International Irrigation Congress meeting in Los Angeles. The Congress was Powell's natural ally. It had been born out of the same flurry of public alarm that had created his Irrigation Survey, and its purpose was to make a million forty-acre farms by means of vast irrigation works throughout the West. It represented one form of public response to the persistent drouth of the late eighties and early nineties, and to the extent that it was a spontaneous uprising of citizens determined to do for themselves what neither private companies nor government seemed able or willing to do,8 it matched perfectly with the democratic and co-operative bias of Powell's thought. it matched perfectly with the democratic and co-operative bias of Powell's thought.9 Through numbers and persistence and pressure upon political representatives it might be able to inaugurate some such program as Powell himself had suggested, and might rescue some if not all of the reclamation aspects of his General Plan. Through numbers and persistence and pressure upon political representatives it might be able to inaugurate some such program as Powell himself had suggested, and might rescue some if not all of the reclamation aspects of his General Plan.

But when he got to Los Angeles Powell found the delegates talking as if the whole billion acres of the remaining public domain could be irrigated, as if the whole West could be reclaimed. The ancient myth of the Garden of the World, dimmed by drouth and hot wind and dust storms, came back green and lush at the first irrigation of hope. It was not a program that the delegates backed, but an illusion, the unchastened illusion of William Gilpin. This was close to the irrigation which was as simple as fencing, and these acres now parched and dusty wasteland or skimpy range were to be the future homes of more people than had thronged the Roman Empire under the Antonines.

Major Powell put aside his planned speech and told them that they were mad. The highest percentage of reclaimable land that he had ever ventured, in the first flush of his Irrigation Survey optimism, had been twenty per cent. His more confirmed guess now was around 100,000,000 acres, about twelve per cent of the 850,- 000,000 acres still remaining in federal hands. He knew the limitations of artesian waters, his engineers had measured the capacity of the streams. "I tell you gentlemen," he said into their heckling and the rising clamor of their indignation, "you are piling up a heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights for there is not sufficient water to supply the land."

He told them, and they booed him.10 So a transition in society had been attempted and - at least as a unit and for the time being - had failed. Science had gone down before credulity, superst.i.tion, habit. And in a curious way the conqueror of scientific planning was not only ignorance and credulity and a crowd of stupid and venal Senators and Representatives, but that very Republickism by which according to Powell's faith the will of the people was delegated to its responsible representatives. At the time when they whipped him, the anti-planning, anti-science people in Congress were more representative of American and especially of Western thinking than Powell was.

It might have seemed by 1893 that every sort of education led to failure. Henry Adams, grandson and great-grandson of Presidents, born to public responsibility and high intellectual and ethical effort, trained in diplomacy, in journalism, in history, in social intercourse, companion and friend of his country's best and brightest, felt a decade later that 1893 showed them all how little education mattered. William C. Whitney, one of those who "owed their free hand to marriage, education serving only for ornament," seemed to Adams typical of what the world called successful. "Already in 1893 Whitney had finished with politics after having gratified every ambition, and swung the country almost at his will; he had thrown away the usual objects of political ambition like the ashes of smoked cigarettes; had turned to other amus.e.m.e.nts, satiated every taste, gorged every appet.i.te, won every object that New York afforded, and, not yet satisfied, had carried his field of activity abroad, until New York no longer knew what most to envy, his horses or his houses." " ... Clarence King, whose education was exactly suited to theory, had failed; and Whitney, who was not better educated than Adams, had achieved phenomenal success."

Allow for Adams' persistent and not always honest negativism; still the spectacle of Clarence King's failure was impressive. His fortune, once close to a million, had been dissipated in years of indulgence abroad and annihilated in the Panic of 1893. His art collection was mortgaged to his friend John Hay, who accepted it as security for his loans not so much because he wanted any security as because of a wish not to hurt King's pride. King himself, leaving behind him a clandestine Negro wife and five unacknowledged children, one of them defective, in an obscure Brooklyn street, was in the Bloomingdale Asylum, victim of a complete breakdown.

But it was not his education that had brought King there, nor outrageous ill fortune. What had brought him there was a lack of what Adams himself conspicuously possessed: character. Though Adams' life had been, as he said, snapped in two with his wife's suicide in December, 1885, yet he had grimly, almost as a memorial to that happiest of marriages, finished the nine-volume History of the United States during the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison, the United States during the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison, and completed their publication in 1891. They put a period to that section of his life; he thought of himself as finished and cut adrift. But the twenty-seven long, lonely, wandering years that followed proved, almost against his will and in the teeth of his insistent pessimism, more productive of humanly valuable observation and thinking and writing than the whole lifetimes of any but the best. What he called failure and retirement would have triumphantly justified the lives of most men. and completed their publication in 1891. They put a period to that section of his life; he thought of himself as finished and cut adrift. But the twenty-seven long, lonely, wandering years that followed proved, almost against his will and in the teeth of his insistent pessimism, more productive of humanly valuable observation and thinking and writing than the whole lifetimes of any but the best. What he called failure and retirement would have triumphantly justified the lives of most men.

Something similar can be said of Powell. A period of his life too came to an end with his defeat by Stewart and the others in 1890 and again in 1892; his hope to accomplish a major work in the West was killed. His education, incomparable for the jobs he had set himself, seemed to have failed the most important test. In 1894, while Adams was chaperoning the convalescent and restless King in Cuba, Powell was withdrawing from his former position of power and settling into the relative obscurity of the Bureau of American Ethnology. He wore the scars of two dozen years in Was.h.i.+ngton. But he was not defeated and d.a.m.ned as Clarence King was; and with as much unexpended intellectual vigor left as Adams himself possessed, he had less cause to mask it behind an apparent ennui and bitterness. He was never touched in the slightest by the cynicism that tinged all of Adams' long later life.

7. Consequent Drainage POWELL RESIGNED from the United States Geological Survey in May, 1894. His outward excuse was physical disability: the stump of his arm, twice-operated-upon, was painful and difficult to live with. But he was careful to select as his successor the durable Walcott rather than the scholarly Gilbert, and in his last year he had the satisfaction of a partial restoration of his mutilated budget. from the United States Geological Survey in May, 1894. His outward excuse was physical disability: the stump of his arm, twice-operated-upon, was painful and difficult to live with. But he was careful to select as his successor the durable Walcott rather than the scholarly Gilbert, and in his last year he had the satisfaction of a partial restoration of his mutilated budget.1 He left the Survey with hope for its future and a markedly paternal pride in its achievements. His bureaus had from the beginning had a high He left the Survey with hope for its future and a markedly paternal pride in its achievements. His bureaus had from the beginning had a high esprit de corps; esprit de corps; in that, they established models for the later Forest Service, National Park Service, Soil Conservation Service, and other government agencies, mainly under Interior and Agriculture, which have been notable for the disinterested effectiveness of their work. But the Geological Survey had had more than esprit. It had had brilliance. "In this severance of our relations," said Powell's last report, " ... I cannot refrain from an expression of profound grat.i.tude for the loyal and loving aid which they have given me, ever working together with zeal and wisdom to add to the sum of human knowledge. The roster of those honored men is found in ten-score volumes of contributions to knowledge and fifty-score maps familiar to the scholars of the world." in that, they established models for the later Forest Service, National Park Service, Soil Conservation Service, and other government agencies, mainly under Interior and Agriculture, which have been notable for the disinterested effectiveness of their work. But the Geological Survey had had more than esprit. It had had brilliance. "In this severance of our relations," said Powell's last report, " ... I cannot refrain from an expression of profound grat.i.tude for the loyal and loving aid which they have given me, ever working together with zeal and wisdom to add to the sum of human knowledge. The roster of those honored men is found in ten-score volumes of contributions to knowledge and fifty-score maps familiar to the scholars of the world."2 They had been dedicated to a high purpose, and the revenue of their new discoveries had enriched them individually and collectively. From the initial exploration of the last American Unknown they had extended their work across the nation; their isostatic force had raised whole continents of knowledge into the light. But certainly one of the saddest parts of Powell's general defeat was the defection of Dutton, one of the earliest and the best, the inheritor of Powell's geological labors, whose testimony had become a weapon in Stewart's hands. Dutton was gone before Powell was, back into his regular army duties.

An aging, tired man, one might think, gave up his administrative power in 1894. The last years of a man whose reach had so far exceeded his grasp might be bitter. But Powell had filled his life with such a variety of interests that even the defeat of the General Plan left him much. Long ago he had given up geology. He had been forced to give up land reform. Now he had given up administration except for the relatively minor administration of his Bureau of American Ethnology. His public career was so reduced that it could be said to have ended. But his intellectual career went on. Mental force, like water, can be dammed, but its immediate reaction is to pond behind the dam until it breaks over into a new channel. Powell's last eight years might be described in his own geological terms as an example of "consequent drainage."

What he had left to him was the Science of Man, and now he could devote himself to it. There is even some indication that he entertained ambitions to build the Bureau of American Ethnology into a great organization for anthropological research on the scale of the Geological Survey. If he did, the feeling against government science, the personal hostility of a part of Congress, and the position of the Bureau of Ethnology within the Smithsonian where it was safer but also had less freedom, all combined to thwart another piece of major bureau building. His friend W J McGee said that the failure to expand his anthropological organization embittered Powell's late years and shortened his life;3 there is no indication other than McGee's statement that it really did so. there is no indication other than McGee's statement that it really did so.

For even without that opportunity, he had another ambition, this one completely out of the hands of Congressional committees. He wanted to summarize human knowledge, the history of the human experience, the history of mind, from the savage level through Plato and Aristotle, Bacon and Linnaeus, and beyond those to the triumph of science in his own time. His novum organum novum organum was planned in three volumes. But though the synthetic rewriting of human history which Adams had foreseen as the result of geological and anthropological discoveries tempted him as it had tempted Marx, Ward, Spencer, Sumner, Morgan, he was less historian than a.n.a.lyst. History provided the ill.u.s.tration for his epistemology. All human progress led toward science, error gave way slowly to truth. And "most of the literature of the past," Powell had said in 1885, "is a vast a.s.semblage of arguments in support of error." was planned in three volumes. But though the synthetic rewriting of human history which Adams had foreseen as the result of geological and anthropological discoveries tempted him as it had tempted Marx, Ward, Spencer, Sumner, Morgan, he was less historian than a.n.a.lyst. History provided the ill.u.s.tration for his epistemology. All human progress led toward science, error gave way slowly to truth. And "most of the literature of the past," Powell had said in 1885, "is a vast a.s.semblage of arguments in support of error."4 To point out those errors, cut away the acc.u.mulated web of argument and disputation masking mythology or thaumaturgy or unverifiable belief, to establish the knowability and verifiability of the properties of phenomena, to map the progressive stages of development of human organization and intelligence - those were jobs enough for his declining years. Also, he was as good a man as any to take the jobs on. By common consent among all but his personal enemies he was one of the foremost scientists in America, one of the foremost in the world. This farm boy with the homemade education held honorary degrees from several universities including Harvard and Heidelberg. In 1891 he had been awarded the Cuvier Prize, given every three years for "the most remarkable work either on the Animal Kingdom or Geology," in recognition of the combined work of the Geological Survey. He was a member of a dozen national and international scientific societies, and he had not been boasting when he said that the work of his bureau - which was to a large but indeterminable extent his own - was known to the scholars of the world. Among anthropologists he was quite as well known. Perhaps he did not, as Spencer Baird said, know "more about the live Indian than any live man," but he was outranked in the Science of Man by no more than three men, dead or alive - if Gallatin, Morgan, and Brinton could really be said to outrank him. Age and retirement were the proper time for memoirs: the appropriate memoir for John Wesley Powell was a summary of human growth, the "larger synthesis" which Henry Adams had long sought and finally lost hope of.

With his philosophy of science, his epistemology, this book has nothing to do. It was the late, cherished, cranky, highly original, wildly abstract, and characteristically unfinished culmination of his years of scientific education. No one who couldn't formulate and hang on to an abstraction, he said, had any business psychologizing.5 He himself formulated and hung on to a complexity of abstractions that bewildered his contemporaries, dazed his most loyal friends, and has apparently influenced as yet not one philosophical thinker. He himself formulated and hung on to a complexity of abstractions that bewildered his contemporaries, dazed his most loyal friends, and has apparently influenced as yet not one philosophical thinker.

His friend Lester Ward, who had dedicated to Powell his Dynamic Sociology Dynamic Sociology6 and to whom Powell dedicated his first philosophical volume, called and to whom Powell dedicated his first philosophical volume, called Truth and Error, Truth and Error, accused Powell of being a little touched on the five-fold properties of matter; accused Powell of being a little touched on the five-fold properties of matter;7 Powell replied with dignity that he was not making numbers-magic as Ward thought he was, but was simply reporting what long and verified observation had taught him. Gilbert confessed frankly that he did not understand the Major's philosophical writings. Powell would have told him, and perhaps did, that his difficulty was not the complexity of the ideas in Powell replied with dignity that he was not making numbers-magic as Ward thought he was, but was simply reporting what long and verified observation had taught him. Gilbert confessed frankly that he did not understand the Major's philosophical writings. Powell would have told him, and perhaps did, that his difficulty was not the complexity of the ideas in Truth and Error, Truth and Error, but their dazzling simplicity. It was only the acc.u.mulation of centuries of error, metaphysics, and idealism, the reification of various voids, the confusion of abstraction with a.n.a.lysis, that made Powell's system seem difficult. His system reduced the complexities of the world, if not to unity, at least toward simplicity; but their dazzling simplicity. It was only the acc.u.mulation of centuries of error, metaphysics, and idealism, the reification of various voids, the confusion of abstraction with a.n.a.lysis, that made Powell's system seem difficult. His system reduced the complexities of the world, if not to unity, at least toward simplicity;8 the philosophers of the past had built the simplest things into complexities until at length matter itself disappeared and Reality, as in the Idealists, became Illusion. the philosophers of the past had built the simplest things into complexities until at length matter itself disappeared and Reality, as in the Idealists, became Illusion.

Powell believed in objective reality, and he did not trouble himself overmuch with the "supersensual chaos" that frustrated Adams' search for Unity. He thought he knew the essential properties of matter - number, extension, speed, persistence, and consciousness. He thought he could tell the difference, as few philosophers had been able to, between these inherent and concomitant and irreducible "properties" and the subjective "qualities" which human consciousness had read into them and confused with them. Upon these five properties of matter he built his whole system, and logic led him to find the fifth of them - consciousness - as certainly in the particles of a molecule as in the human brain. The force that made hydrogen atoms seek always a certain arrangement and structure, or that made minerals arrange themselves in definite patterns of crystals, or that led a watermelon seed to extract from soil and water precisely those chemicals that would build new watermelon vines and fruit, was choice, choice, and this choice could be tracked back to the smallest particles of matter as definitely as could speed, persistence, extension, or number. and this choice could be tracked back to the smallest particles of matter as definitely as could speed, persistence, extension, or number.

On the evolutionary scale, the highest choice, the most complicated relations.h.i.+p, was that in which the human intelligence was conscious of itself: the consciousness of consciousness, the knowledge of knowledge, the perception and apprehension of mind. It was mind toward which all evolution moved, and since Powell believed with Lamarck that long exercise of an organ increased its use and function and size and efficiency, evolution for him was no longer blindly biotic, but mental. When he died he had a bet on with W J McGee that his brain was bigger and heavier than McGee's. For whatever it mattered, it was.9 Knowledge of knowledge, method of method, perception of perception, a philosophy of mind. What do you want to do all that thinking for, Dona Ana's father asks Don Juan in Shaw's Man and Superman. Man and Superman. Why don't you just relax and enjoy yourself? Ah, says Don Juan, without the mind you only enjoy yourself. You do not know the fun you are having. Why don't you just relax and enjoy yourself? Ah, says Don Juan, without the mind you only enjoy yourself. You do not know the fun you are having.

Epistemology is not our province. If there is any virtue in the Major's five-fold systematizations, if he succeeded in making any sort of coherent and enduring structure out of the ideas he ransacked from chemistry, physics, geology, astronomy, biology, anthropology, psychology, personal experience, philosophy, and the acc.u.mulated ma.s.s of human error, some philosopher will eventually discover the first volume of his novum organum novum organum and the scattered essays which were to make up the second. The fact that he does not appear in the discussions of modem philosophers or get himself quoted in the symposia which aim, as he did, to synthesize scientific knowledge, may mean much or little. Powell does not appear importantly in the social and political histories either, or has not until recently, when Walter Webb, Henry Nash Smith, and Joseph Kinsey Howard all discovered him. Oberholtzer's ma.s.sive and the scattered essays which were to make up the second. The fact that he does not appear in the discussions of modem philosophers or get himself quoted in the symposia which aim, as he did, to synthesize scientific knowledge, may mean much or little. Powell does not appear importantly in the social and political histories either, or has not until recently, when Walter Webb, Henry Nash Smith, and Joseph Kinsey Howard all discovered him. Oberholtzer's ma.s.sive History of the United States since the Civil War History of the United States since the Civil War does not mention him in text or bibliography. Allan Nevins in does not mention him in text or bibliography. Allan Nevins in The Emergence of Modern America gives The Emergence of Modern America gives him a few paragraphs. Fred A. Shannon's otherwise admirable volume on post-Civil War agriculture, him a few paragraphs. Fred A. Shannon's otherwise admirable volume on post-Civil War agriculture, The Farmer's Last Frontier, The Farmer's Last Frontier, ignores him completely, though he was one of the most potent influences both in the West and in Was.h.i.+ngton in those postwar years, and he proposed and almost put into effect a program that would have altered all the agricultural history that Professor Shannon wrote about. George Wharton James' ignores him completely, though he was one of the most potent influences both in the West and in Was.h.i.+ngton in those postwar years, and he proposed and almost put into effect a program that would have altered all the agricultural history that Professor Shannon wrote about. George Wharton James' Reclaiming the Arid West Reclaiming the Arid West in 1917 gave Powell credit for being the father of reclamation, and Louise. Peffer, in in 1917 gave Powell credit for being the father of reclamation, and Louise. Peffer, in The Closing of the Public Domain, The Closing of the Public Domain, traced back to him a number of contemporary land policies. Yet the Truman Water Resources Commission's report in 1952 never mentioned his name. traced back to him a number of contemporary land policies. Yet the Truman Water Resources Commission's report in 1952 never mentioned his name.

Still, comparative neglect does not necessarily mean unimpor tance : importance has been overlooked in other cases than his. It is possible, though hardly probable, that his epistemology will be dug out by someone less dazed than Gilbert and less captious than Lester Ward, and shown to have as much validity in the half-mapped terrain of the philosophy of science as his plan for the conservation and reclamation of the arid regions has in the drouthy West.

Of the validity of that Western blueprint, which is our concern here, there is not the shadow of a doubt. He was not merely an explorer, an opener, and an observer, he was a prophet. And yet by the law of motion (and hence of history) which he himself accepted, his motion as a particle in the jar and collision of American life was bound to be spiral. His reforms have taken effect, his plans have been adopted, but partially, belatedly, sidelong, as a yielding resultant of two nearly equal stresses.

VI.

THE INHERITANCE.

1. Resurrection Morn, with Reservations

DURING THE EIGHTEEN-NINETIES Hamlin Garland, busily interviewing everyone who had ever served with Grant, in preparation for his biography of the late President, was sometimes a visitor at the "literary evenings" at the Powell house on M Street. Hamlin Garland, busily interviewing everyone who had ever served with Grant, in preparation for his biography of the late President, was sometimes a visitor at the "literary evenings" at the Powell house on M Street.1 He admired the Major as a student of the Indian and as the explorer of the Colorado: the nature and implications, and even the fact, of Powell's attempted Western reforms seem never to have struck him, though the rebellious plowboy novelist and the scientific bureaucrat were one in their democratic optimism, their loyalty to the small farmer, their mistrust of monopolies, their firsthand knowledge of both Midwest and West. Powell would have made a reasonable facsimile of a Populist; his General Plan could have been dovetailed with the Populist platform of 1892 without serious conflicts. Certainly its purposes of relieving and preventing agricultural distress, extending scientific government aid to farmers, and protecting small landholders against monopolistic practices and the inequalities or inadequacies of the laws, were completely in harmony with what Garland had preached from soapboxes in Nebraska and Dakota. It is an index of how little Powell's ideas had been able to enter the public consciousness, and how intra-congressional a matter his defeat really was, that even an aware and militant and experienced agrarian like Garland had apparently never heard of them. He admired the Major as a student of the Indian and as the explorer of the Colorado: the nature and implications, and even the fact, of Powell's attempted Western reforms seem never to have struck him, though the rebellious plowboy novelist and the scientific bureaucrat were one in their democratic optimism, their loyalty to the small farmer, their mistrust of monopolies, their firsthand knowledge of both Midwest and West. Powell would have made a reasonable facsimile of a Populist; his General Plan could have been dovetailed with the Populist platform of 1892 without serious conflicts. Certainly its purposes of relieving and preventing agricultural distress, extending scientific government aid to farmers, and protecting small landholders against monopolistic practices and the inequalities or inadequacies of the laws, were completely in harmony with what Garland had preached from soapboxes in Nebraska and Dakota. It is an index of how little Powell's ideas had been able to enter the public consciousness, and how intra-congressional a matter his defeat really was, that even an aware and militant and experienced agrarian like Garland had apparently never heard of them.

Nevertheless Garland admired the Major, and meeting him some years later, broken and shuffling on the arm of a colored servant, his memory gone, a palsied and dying old man, he was shocked and saddened. He thought of Powell as a trail-breaker, one of the openers of the West, and he connected him in his mind with his own Uncle William, who had chased a dream westward all his life and was now a similarly shaken wreck in San Jose. In tribute to the two Garland wrote a poem called "The Stricken Pioneer." Its theme is admiration for the courage and leaders.h.i.+p of the westward seeker - "Our velvet way his steel prepared" - and it concludes : Then bury him not here in city soil Where car-wheels grind and factories spill Their acrid smoke on those who toil: Bear him far away - to some high hill That overlooks the mighty stream Whose thousand miles of pathway through the corn Blazons his progress. There let him dream And wait his resurrection morn!

It would be an injustice to Major Powell to let so lame a verse be his epitaph, or for that matter to bury him beside the Mississippi, which is apparently the "mighty stream" that Garland had in mind. But let us, with permission, imagine that the mighty stream is the Missouri, and let us imagine Major Powell buried there, perhaps seated on his horse like the Omaha chief Blackbird so that he can look out up and down the river by which white civilization first came watchfully into the West. From there he will have a view of all that the years have done or will do with ideas he bequeathed his country.

He will already have seen some curiously mixed evidences of human cussedness, contradiction, belatedness, and failure to see straight, along with some equally human persistence, growth, and ability to learn. He will see some ground that he thought successfully taken lost again, or fought over with as much viciousness as if his own battles had never been; and the repet.i.tiveness of that struggle, the similarity of the antagonists both individual and inst.i.tutional to those he knew, may impress him with the unlikelihood of the evolved human perfection he once dreamed of. He will not have seen resurrection morn yet, but he will have seen some streaks that look a little like dawn and some clouds that may perhaps indicate rain for the great day.

If Major Powell were to return and study the map of reclamation activities, present and proposed, that was published by the Bureau of Reclamation on January 1, 1951,2 he might get the impression that resurrection morn had really dawned. All the great river systems - Missouri, Columbia, Colorado, Rio Grande, Sacramento-San Joaquin, and every tributary branch and twig - have been surveyed and mapped in even greater detail than he intended. Blue river, lines are strung with the irregular blue beads of reservoirs or projected reservoirs, and the storage dams, as well as the map symbols that record them and the topographic base map on which they are superimposed, are part of the heritage that Powell left. The wide flood-plain of the Missouri from Gavin's Point to the mouth of the Musselsh.e.l.l shows as an almost-continuous lake on this map which indicates both what is and what will be, and the sarcastic questions of Senator Gideon Moody about how water will be got out onto the fields from the sunken riverbed have their not-too-difficult answer. he might get the impression that resurrection morn had really dawned. All the great river systems - Missouri, Columbia, Colorado, Rio Grande, Sacramento-San Joaquin, and every tributary branch and twig - have been surveyed and mapped in even greater detail than he intended. Blue river, lines are strung with the irregular blue beads of reservoirs or projected reservoirs, and the storage dams, as well as the map symbols that record them and the topographic base map on which they are superimposed, are part of the heritage that Powell left. The wide flood-plain of the Missouri from Gavin's Point to the mouth of the Musselsh.e.l.l shows as an almost-continuous lake on this map which indicates both what is and what will be, and the sarcastic questions of Senator Gideon Moody about how water will be got out onto the fields from the sunken riverbed have their not-too-difficult answer.

From approximately the 95th meridian all the way to the Pacific, in fact, reclamation has already remade the map of the West. It has had an effect on the very shape and tension of the earth: reservoirs such as Lake Mead have redistributed so much weight in water and silt that seismological stations watchfully record the settling and s.h.i.+fting of the crust, and the isostacy which Powell and Gilbert and Dutton established as a physical force has been affected by the work of men's hands. The whole Western future is tied to the multiple-purpose irrigation-power-flood-control-stream-management projects built to specifications first enunciated by Powell's bureaus, and the West's inst.i.tutions and politics are implicit in the great river plans.

Some of the wildest water that Powell's boats ran will someday soon be silted mudflats, as Separation Rapid, except during an occasional scouring flood, is a mudflat now. Intense blue water may some day fill the inner gorge of the Grand Canyon whose dark rock the boat parties hated and feared; blue water may lap the feet of the Rainbow Bridge on the flank of the mountain that Powell first named for the Howlands; blue water may extend - unless another group of conservationists is successful in preventing it - from the junction of Yampa and Green up both river canyons. On every little creek and tributary the runoff water is already or will be ponded and diverted and fed out and controlled, or run through turbines to create the power for a Western empire. Colorado River water has permitted the mushroom growth of Los Angeles and the full use of the Coach.e.l.la and Imperial Valleys. A project like the Deer Creek Reservoir on the Provo insures the growth for decades of the Salt Lake Valley, where the first Anglo-American irrigation on the continent began a little over a hundred years ago.

Within the seven great reclamation regions, planning has increasingly come to be by coherent river basins and drainage basins, as Powell foresaw that it must. The responsibility for long-range planning that Powell thought belonged to the federal government, since no one else could or would a.s.sume it, has been a.s.sumed. The Bureau of Reclamation which came into being with the Newlands Act just a little before Powell's death in 1902 is such a bureau as Powell himself might have proposed, devoted to purposes which his own Irrigation Survey began.

And the effect of long-range planning has indeed been what Powell said it would be: the reclamation of arid land in Montana has a direct relation to the reclamation of swamps in Louisiana; the control of waters on the tributaries does indeed not only check floods below and provide a regulated flow for navigation, but it has cleaned out of the channel of the Missouri and Mississippi many of those snags and sawyers and window-makers that used to peril navigation all the way to New Orleans. Without the dams already installed, the 1952 floods on the Missouri would have been very much worse than they were - would have been unmitigated disaster from the Milk River to the Gulf.

Major Powell was never primarily interested in the forests: those were to be Gifford Pinchot's peculiar province.3 But he would approve the reservations that by the middle of the twentieth century totalled 139,000,000 acres, plus another 21,000,000 in Alaska. He would approve the National Parks which add another 12,000,- 000 acres to the reserved public lands. He would approve of the steady liberalizing of the homestead laws and the increase in the size of grazing homesteads through the early years of the century. Most of all, he would approve the Taylor Grazing Act which in 1934 practically closed the public domain to further homestead settlement. But he would approve the reservations that by the middle of the twentieth century totalled 139,000,000 acres, plus another 21,000,000 in Alaska. He would approve the National Parks which add another 12,000,- 000 acres to the reserved public lands. He would approve of the steady liberalizing of the homestead laws and the increase in the size of grazing homesteads through the early years of the century. Most of all, he would approve the Taylor Grazing Act which in 1934 practically closed the public domain to further homestead settlement.

The reservation of those same arid lands by the Irrigation Survey resolution in 1888 had been both accidental and temporary; but Powell from the very beginning4 thought much of the West ought to be permanently retired from farm settlement. The drouth of the late eighties and nineties had only corroborated what the Major already knew. But it took other drouths and other disasters, specifically the dust bowl disaster of the early 1930's, to convince the country at large. Another panicky retreat from the edge of the arid plains, another abandonment of the plowed and wind-eroded fields, another collection of dry tanks, weatherbeaten shacks, sand-pitted corrals, was necessary to bring a solution. When solution came, it followed from the same inescapable conditions that had led Powell in 1878 to hurry his thought much of the West ought to be permanently retired from farm settlement. The drouth of the late eighties and nineties had only corroborated what the Major already knew. But it took other drouths and other disasters, specifically the dust bowl disaster of the early 1930's, to convince the country at large. Another panicky retreat from the edge of the arid plains, another abandonment of the plowed and wind-eroded fields, another collection of dry tanks, weatherbeaten shacks, sand-pitted corrals, was necessary to bring a solution. When solution came, it followed from the same inescapable conditions that had led Powell in 1878 to hurry his Arid Region Arid Region report into the hands of Carl Schurz, and in 1889 to plead his ideas before the Montana and North Dakota Const.i.tutional Conventions. report into the hands of Carl Schurz, and in 1889 to plead his ideas before the Montana and North Dakota Const.i.tutional Conventions.

Powell's accidental suspension of the historical process of homestead settlement had brought on his defeat by Congress in 1890. More than forty years later Representative Edward Taylor of Colorado, for years a rabid States' rights enemy of Was.h.i.+ngton bureaus and federal meddling, and an advocate of cession of the public lands to the states, drafted, introduced, and fought through Congress a grazing bill that might conserve not only the natural resource of the range, but the industry built on it.5 Congressman Taylor may be taken as a striking example of the deflection of path when forces collide. Or rather, he should perhaps be taken as showing the ultimate teachability of a people, for he began pure Gilpin, he ended pure Powell. Congressman Taylor may be taken as a striking example of the deflection of path when forces collide. Or rather, he should perhaps be taken as showing the ultimate teachability of a people, for he began pure Gilpin, he ended pure Powell.

"I fought for the conservation of the public domain under Federal leaders.h.i.+p," he said later, "because the citizens were unable to cope with the situation under existing trends and circ.u.mstances. The job was too big and interwoven for even the states to handle with satisfactory co-ordination. On the western slope of Colorado and in nearby states I saw waste, compet.i.tion, overuse, and abuse of valuable range lands and watersheds eating into the very heart of western economy. Farms and ranches everywhere in the range country were suffering. The basic economy of entire communities was threatened. There was terrific strife and bloodshed between the cattle and sheep men over the use of the range. Valuable irrigation projects stood in danger of ultimate deterioration. Erosion, yes even human erosion, had taken root." 6 6 One may query the geological or metaphysical propriety of an erosion that takes root, but one may not doubt Congressman Taylor's sincerity or the validity of his observations. He had finally learned what an earlier and abler student of erosion had fruitlessly taught for half a lifetime. A good part of that learning process involved the brus.h.i.+ng aside of a mythic figure: "The praises and eulogies upon the American homesteader will continue. as long as our Republic survives. The West was built, and its present proud development rests most largely upon the courage, privations, and frightfully hard work of the pioneer homesteaders ... But my dear sirs, if those hardy pioneers had had to go onto the kind of land that is contemplated within this bill, the West would still be a barren wilderness." 7 7 If they had listened to Powell fifty years earlier they would not have had so hard a lesson to learn in 1934. For while Taylor's bill was before the Senate, winds from the West carried soil from the dustbowl states clear to the east coast and the air of the capital was thick with the presence of what one Senator called "the most tragic, the most impressive lobbyist" that had ever come to Was.h.i.+ngton.

The bill which was eventually pa.s.sed by Congress and signed by President Roosevelt created an authority, the National Grazing Service, to organize grazing districts in which established stock interests could obtain grazing leases of specified acreages at specified nominal fees. Its effect in practice was to provide the unfenced common range - carefully supervised - that Powell had proposed as a co-operative device in 1878 and as a part of the drainage-basin. local control in 1889.8 . The innovation - with which again Powell would probably have agreed - was the application to the range of the leasing principle that had already been devised for grazing areas within the national forests and for certain kinds of mineral and oil lands owned by the government. (The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920.) With the Taylor Grazing Act, a historical process was complete: not only was the public domain virtually closed to settlement, but the remaining public land was a.s.sumed to be continuing Federal property, income-producing property to be managed according to principles of wise use for the benefit of the whole nation. . The innovation - with which again Powell would probably have agreed - was the application to the range of the leasing principle that had already been devised for grazing areas within the national forests and for certain kinds of mineral and oil lands owned by the government. (The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920.) With the Taylor Grazing Act, a historical process was complete: not only was the public domain virtually closed to settlement, but the remaining public land was a.s.sumed to be continuing Federal property, income-producing property to be managed according to principles of wise use for the benefit of the whole nation.9 On any composite map showing the modern use and management and reclamation of western lands, that is, it would appear as if almost every suggestion Powell made has been finally adopted, and every type of western land is being put to the kind of use Powell advocated. Time and loud debate have effectively cla.s.sified the lands as he began to cla.s.sify them in 1875. Grazing land is cropped in large unfenced ranges, irrigation farms under Reclamation Bureau dams are limited to 160 acres.10 The development of hydroelectric power from the multipurpose dams has created a source of continuing income which can be devoted to new projects and to the federal supervision and management of the public's enterprises. States such as those on the Colorado have edged closer to Powell's drainage-basin organization by compacts establis.h.i.+ng the several rights to water. The principle of tying water rights to land t.i.tles is accepted through much of the West. The development of hydroelectric power from the multipurpose dams has created a source of continuing income which can be devoted to new projects and to the federal supervision and management of the public's enterprises. States such as those on the Colorado have edged closer to Powell's drainage-basin organization by compacts establis.h.i.+ng the several rights to water. The principle of tying water rights to land t.i.tles is accepted through much of the West.

And yet what seems, on the maps and on the record, to be a progressive triumph for the Major's ideas is not quite so complete as it seems. The forces that he fought all during his public life are, as of 1953, not only still there but active and aggressive. The agencies that he helped consolidate still persist in division and antagonism. The private interests that he feared might monopolize land or water in the West are still there, still trying to do just that. And the scientific solutions to western problems are still fouled up by Gilpins, by the doubletalk of Western members of Congress, by political pressures from oil or stock or power or land or water companies, by the obfuscations of pressagents and the urgings of lobbyists. In 1953 a public land policy that a few years before had looked reasonably consistent and settled was in danger of complete overturn.11 Take it back to the first real struggle in which Powell engaged - the jurisdictional dispute between civilian and military agencies over who should survey the unopened West. That row between Powell, Hayden, and to a degree King on one hand, and Lieutenant Wheeler and the Army Engineers on the other, was apparently settled with the establishment of the United States Geological Survey in 1879. But within limits the army could still allocate funds for survey work of a specifically military character, and it could, across a long span of years, succeed in establis.h.i.+ng its right to navigational and flood-control projects on the western rivers. The policies which Henry Adams' "first modern act of legislation" pointed toward have never fully come about.

The Missouri Valley development which by logic and public demand should already be well under way is reduced to piecemeal improvisations by that same jurisdictional dispute between the Department of the Interior and the War Department that hampered the early Western surveys. Where does irrigation leave off and navigation and flood control begin? On a river like the Missouri, which purpose is paramount? And if neither bureau trusts the other, and both have powerful political backing, and each has its fixed prerogatives, how shall they be compelled to compromise and work for the realization of a systematic river-development plan? A degree of co-operation necessarily exists, but the full authority to harness the Missouri as the Tennessee has been harnessed is blocked by interbureau jealousies and overlappings, and these jealousies are exploited by enemies of the public land policies.

Or look farther West. One of the really ma.s.sive and hopeful reclamation developments is the Central Valley Project which the state of California turned over to the Bureau of Reclamation after a special referendum election in 1933. The state turned it over because it realized its inability to carry out its own admirable and coherent plan for use of the waters of the Sacramento, American, San Joaquin, and other valley rivers. Turning over the plan meant putting the individual projects under reclamation law. And reclamation law, completely in the spirit of Major Powell and of all those who for many decades tried to make the land laws fit the needs of the small farmer, carried specific restrictions. It limited the public land that could be homesteaded under a reservoir to 160 acres; it limited existing private owners under such reservoirs to the water that would irrigate 160 acres. And it gave preference to public and co-operative agencies in the distribution of power generated at the dams.

Locally the Bureau of Reclamation has not always lived up to the letter of the Newlands Act, though the administrators of the bureau have generally tried to carry out its terms. But the Engineers, whose purposes are flood control and n