Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
administration in the 53
rd
Congress (Table 15.1.1). Electoral results in these decades did not provide the means of
producing a stable policy consensus. Instead, institutional arrangements were developed to manage short term
working coalitions that could produce policy outputs to satisfy constituents. While neither party could maintain a
majority of seats beyond a single election, individual members of Congress were re-elected and did find the means
of consolidating power in order to govern and share power with the continually changing Presidents and
bureaucrats.
Institutional arrangements within the legislature that could override the stalemate election results arose in the late
nineteenth century. Party hierarchies developed, including leadership tracts, lengthened careers, and subject matter
standing committees (Polsby, 1968). For a member, retaining your seat produced influence in the chamber,
regardless of whether your party maintained the majority. A separate policy making structure developed which
centered on the committees, not the political parties. The Republican Speaker of the House in the 51st, 53rd, and
54th congresses Thomas Bracket Reed of Maine, consolidated power in his constitutional office as a counter-
balance to the swing in power from the political party leaders to the long serving members of Congress.
Into this politically volatile setting, Powell
s policy recommendations challenged the status quo, in the minds,
hearts, and experiences of legislators, and in the common law. The report on the arid lands (Powell, reprint 1962)
contained two policy recommendations for the orderly settlement of lands west of the 100th meridian (where
annual rainfall dipped below that necessary to support economic agriculture). While some years would have
adequate rain to bring a crop to harvest and produce a profit for the farmer, this would not be the case on average.
The public lands status quo in 1878 presumed that public ownership of land was a temporary and undesirable
condition compared to private ownership. Further, land and water rights were inseparable in the common law and
the experience of generations who farmed the eastern lands. Powell
'
s data convinced him and his colleagues that a
different model was necessary for the practical agricultural development of the arid lands.
'
Powell
s survey was mineralogical and ethnographic. His observations were filled with successful models for
farming economically even when rainfall was seasonal and water was scarce and intermittent. Collective water
usage had been practiced by the Mormon settlers in the Salt Lake Valley, and in numerous Native American
populations who also used collective water practices. Powell based his policy recommendations on the sound
scientific evidence available at the time. Congress was incredulous. The life experiences of the representatives
could not comprehend the state of aridity Powell
'
s words described. They saw no reason to abandon a policy
consensus reached only 16 years earlier when the Homestead Act had passed a legislature diminished by
resignations and expulsions precipitated by the state secessions. Further, members of Congress had competing
reports from the territories that highlighted the opportunities available for emigrants should policy remain
unchanged.
'
Powell recommended that the cadastral survey be abandoned in the arid lands (Powell, reprint 1962). Instead, he
recommended that location of land should proceed by groups of more than nine farmers organized in irrigation
districts within watersheds. Powell argued that the irrigation infrastructure necessary for viable farms should be
collectivized for the economic benefit of all. Dams and reservoirs would be needed to allow irrigation techniques to
supplement crop growth in dry years. Powell
'
s second policy recommendation regarded pasturage districts that he
argued should also be collective ventures. As an ancillary proposal in the report, Powell recommended that the four
surveys operating in the west be centralized for greater efficiency and cost savings. The 45th Congress acted almost
immediately to pass the legislative authority for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to be founded in
1879 (Rabbit, 1979, 1980). The substantive recommendations in Powell
s report did not reach the consensus
threshold then, or in the next generation. Successive Congresses failed to build a consensus until a new electoral
coalition was produced in the 57th Congress seated in March 1901.
'
Policy Consolidation: 1902
-
1934
The twelve elections between 1878 and 1902 added to the proportion of progressives in government
(Figure 15.1.1). The possibility for a legislatively effective progressive coalition existed by 1901, with elected
officials and civil servants, and in the number of progressively minded constituents and clients served by these
government officials. Those
were found in both political parties. They believed in science and
efficiency, and in eliminating government waste, corruption, and graft. These beliefs unified the coalition that
passed the 1902 Newlands Act which created the Bureau of Reclamation. The coalition did not hold across a broad
array of policy issues, but a majority consensus was able to form around good government issues that created new
“
modern men
”
