3.go2. 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



151 



HON. FRANCIS G. NEW^ANDS. 



Mr. Newlands has come to be regarded as the champion of national irrigation in the House 

 of Representatives. By his tireless activity and unremitting perseverance he has kept before 

 the attention of the Members of the House, and of the country at large, the importance of 

 national construction of large storage reservoirs, and of works for diverting rivers, the magni- 

 tude of which places them beyond the scope of private or even of state enterprise. He was 

 born at Natchez, Mississippi, August 28, 184(8, and entered class of 1867 at Yale College, where 

 he remained until the middle of the Junior year. Later he studied at the Columbian Law 

 School and was admitted to the District of Columbia bar. Afterwards he removed to San Fran- 

 cisco, where he practiced law until 1886, when he became a trustee of the estate of William 

 Sharon, a former U. S. Senator from Nevada. In 1888 he became a citizen of the State of 

 Nevada, and was actively interested in irrigation development. He was elected to the Fiftv- 

 third and subsequent Congresses, has served on the Committee on Banking and Currency and 

 the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and is now a member of the Wa3's and Means Committee 

 and the Committee on Irrigation. His most notable effort was the preparation of the so-called 

 Newlands bill, which was introduced into the Fift}--sixth Congress, and which in substance, 

 incorporated in the Hansbrough bill, passed the Senate during the Fifty-seventh Congress. 

 This bill is intended to create a fund for the reclamation of the arid lands, proceeds from the dis- 

 posal of the public land from the western states being set aside for this purpose. The bill is 

 now before the House of Representatives and has received the serious consideration of various 

 public men, including the President. 



