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1912 Election, Part 2

Recently, we've talked about the 1914 election - the women's suffrage voteand the reelection of Senator Francis Newlands. That's not all that went on that year.

When Newlands was running, advisers said he would benefit from a strong Democratic ticket. They were happy with the winner of the Democratic primary, Emmet Boyle, a native Nevadan born in Gold Hill, a graduate of the University of Nevada in Reno, a former state engineer, and a state tax commissioner. The Republicans had a strong candidate of their own: Tasker Oddie, the incumbent. During his term, Oddie had pushed through a tougher divorce law, an eight-hour work day for miners, workmen's compensation and a state Tax Commission-to which he had named Boyle.

But Oddie had problems. The accomplishments he cited weren't his alone: Democrats controlled the state legislature. When Republicans split between Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft in 1912, Oddie tried to avoid taking a position. He didn't want to offend anyone and, in the process, offended almost everyone. He claimed to be a progressive, but others who claimed that mantle had their doubts. The divorce law had hurt Reno's economy, but Oddie defended it and the state's anti-gambling law. He also had declared martial law during a copper miners' strike in White Pine County, which pleased mine owners but not necessarily their workers. And a socialist candidate threatened to cut into his total.

In the end, Boyle defeated Oddie by about a thousand votes. Considering that the socialist candidate got more than 3,000 votes, he may have swung the election either way. Oddie ran well behind Boyle in Washoe County, which made clear its desire for an easier divorce law. Boyle supported a change and went on to serve two terms. Oddie came back in 1918 to lose to him again, then ran for the Senate in 1920 and won the first of two terms.

Other key players in Nevada history were on the ballot in 1914, and so were some harbingers of the future. Edwin E. Roberts won the third of four terms he would serve in the House before returning to Nevada to be mayor of Reno. Maurice Sullivan won the first of his three terms as Nevada's lieutenant governor-and as long as term limits exist, he will hold the record for service in that office. George Cole won office as state controller and Ed Malley as state treasurer-and they went on to embezzle more than half a million dollars while holding those jobs. George Thatcher became attorney general, defeating progressive leader George Springmeyer; four years later, rather than seeking another term, Thatcher joined William Woodburn and Frank Norcross to form the state's most powerful law firm. A newly elected university regent, Charles B. Henderson, later would become a U.S. senator, then head of the federal Reconstruction Finance Corporation. In that post, he shepherded the creation of a new town in Clark County that was named for him.

A century ago, Nevada's population numbered less than 100,000, and only about 21,000 voted in the 1914 election. But the people they voted on and the issues they decided, from U.S. senators to women's suffrage, remain important to us today.