Page:EB1922 - Volume 32.djvu/1131

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WYOMING
1091

9th Earl of Scarbrough, widow of Earl Grosvenor, mother of the 2nd Duke of Westminster, and became private secretary to Mr. Balfour, at the time Irish Secretary, a position which he held till 1892. In 1889 at the age of 26 he entered Parliament as Conservative member for Dover, and retained the seat till his death. In 1898 he was appointed financial secretary to the War Office, a post in which he distinguished himself during the Boer War, in particular by a brilliant defence, in the debate on the Address in 1900, of the conduct of his office in regard to intelligence and reinforcements. But his chief claim to political remembrance is based on his tenure, from 1900 to 1905 (after 1902 as a Cabinet minister), of the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland. Having been private secretary for several years to the most successful chief secretary of modern times, he started with a large store of experience, and his appointment was regarded with benignity even by the Nationalists on account of his descent from Lord Edward Fitzgerald. His early work in Ireland met with general approval. He developed enormously the policy of land purchase, which the Unionists had found to exercise such a calming and beneficial effect; and the Land Purchase Act which he successfully carried in 1903 was the most comprehensive measure of tl\e kind ever submitted to Parliament. He entertained hopes of arranging some form of local government which should sufficiently meet Nationalist hopes; and with this in view appointed an eminent Anglo- Indian, Sir Antony (afterwards Lord) Macdonnell, who was known to be a decided Home Ruler, to the permanent secre- taryship in 1902, giving him at the same time greater authority and wider scope than is usually conferred on a civil servant. The Unionist party, both in Ireland and in England, became suspicious of the tendencies of his administration, and he was driven to resignation. He never held office again, but he was very active in support of the causes which he had at heart, such as tariff reform, and woman suffrage; he was a keen critic of Lord Haldane's army reforms, and threw himself vigorously into the " die-hard " campaign of 1911.

This varied political activity was however but a portion of his life. He was also a man of letters, possessed of fine taste and a graceful style. Here his genius was stimulated by his friendship with W. E. Henley, who dedicated a book to " George Wyndham, soldier, courtier, scholar." His principal published work was an edition of Shakespeare's Poems (1898); but he wrote also on North's Plutarch and Ronsard. The Admirable Crichton of his day, he was keen alike on field sports and the arts, the friend and admirer equally of Cecil Rhodes and of Rodin, a railway director and a yeomanry colonel. Oxford, Edinburgh and Glasgow gave him honorary degrees; the two Scottish universities made him lord rector.

By his father's death in 1911, Mr. Wyndham came into possession of his beautiful house, Clouds, in Wiltshire. Two years later, at the early age of 50, he died in Paris, of congestion of the lungs, after only a few hours' illness. Lady Grosvenor survived her husband. They had one son, Lt. Percy Lyulph Wyndham, who followed his father in the Coldstream Guards, was married in 1913, a few weeks before his father's death, and was killed in action in France on Sept. 15 1914, leaving no child.


WYOMING (see 28.873). The pop. of the state in 1920 was 194,402 as compared with 145,965 in 1910, an increase of 48,437 r 33-2%, as against an increase of 57.7% in the preceding decade. The density of pop. was two per sq. m. in 1920. The urban pop. (in places having 2,500 inhabitants or more) in 1910 was 43,221, or 29.6% of the whole; in 1920, 57,348, or 29.5%. The rural pop. was 102,744 in 1910, 137,054 in 1920. The cities in Wyoming having a pop. in 1920 of over 5,000 and their percentage of increase were:

1920

1910

Percentage Increase

Casper . ... Cheyenne . Laramie Rock Springs Sheridan

li,447 13-829 6,301 6,456 9.175

2,639 11,320

8,273 5,778 8,408

333-8

22-2 23-5

11-7 9-1

The increase of pop. has been chiefly elsewhere than in the southern parts of the state, which had been the first to be settled.

Agriculture. The number of farms was 6,095 m 1900, 10,987 in 191, 15.748 in 1920. The acreage of all crops was estimated for 1920 as 1,826,000. The number of sheep in 1919 was 4,000,000 valued at $49,200,000. In 1920 the number was 3,200,000 valued at $32,640,000, being one-fifteenth in numbers and value of the total sheep in the United States. The estimated product of wool in 1919 was 33,415,000 lb., the average weight per fleece 8-5 Ib. The total number of neat cattle in 1919 was 1,180,000 valued at $75, 580,000; in 1920 there were 869,000 valued at $47;37o,ooo. Other figures are correspondingly higher for 1919. In 1920 there were 258,000 horses valued at $11,925,000; mules 4,000, valued at $360,000; and swine 63,000, valued at $1,159,000. Other agricultural products of Wyo- ming and their value in 1920 were as follows:

Crop

Ac. sown

Production

Value

Hay, cultivated Hay, wild, salt and prairie . Oats Wheat Corn. Barley Potatoes .

740,000

360,000 300,000 254,000 65,000 28,000 27,000

1,850,000 tons

360,000 tons 11,400,000 bus. 5,080,000 bus. 1,560,000 bus. 1,008,000 bus. 3,375.ooo bus.

$22,200,000

5,148,000 7,068,000 6,858,000 874,000 1,109,000 4,050,000

The irrigated area was 1,133,302 ac. in 1909, 1,209,527 in 1919. In 1920 the acreage capable of irrigation was 1,799,361. There were, in 1918, 978,681 ac. of land used for dry farming.

Mining. The annual gross value of Wyoming's mineral products at the places of production was estimated at $68,250,000 for 1920. In 1917 the state ranked ninth in the output of bituminous coal with 8,575,000 tons valued at $16,593,619; in 1918 it was 9,300,000 tons; in 1919 7,145,000 tons (the decrease being attributed to labour shortage). The largest product comes from Sweetwater, Lincoln and Sheridan counties. The total production of coal to the end of 1917' was 148,000,000 short tons. Copper mining has decreased, the an- nual production averaging in value about $200,000. The gypsum production in 1917 was 55,804 short tons valued at $197,867. The average output of iron ore was about 500,000 tons, worth $1,500,000 at the mines. A deposit of carnotite (uranium, radium), accidentally discovered near Lusk in Niobrara county, produced in 1919 71-86 tons valued at $382 per ton. Most important in the state's mining development is the petroleum industry. In 1918 the output was 12,596,287 bar., in 1919 13,580,000 bar., and the estimate for 1920 16,000,000 bar. of crude oil, valued at over $45,000,000 at the wells. There were 17 fields in the state where oil was produced for market. About one-half the state's output was from Salt Creek field in Natrona county. Converse county came next in 1919 with 3,267,302 bar., Hot Springs followed with 2,151,867 bar., and Park with 773,893 bar.

Manufactures and Railways. Wyoming's manufactures continue to be of little relative importance, aside from the petroleum refin- ing industry to which this great increase of 1919 is due. The fol- lowing figures are from the census report :


1919

1909

Number of establishments. Persons engaged .... Value of products .... Value added by manufacture .

576 8,095' $81,445,394 39,194,866

268

3,393 $6,249,078 3,640,889

Of the 8,095 persons engaged 3,057 were wage-earners in the steam railway construction and repair shops. Railway mileage in 1917 was 1,924 m. as compared with 1,623 in 1909.

Education. The educational system was reorganized in 1919 by Act of the Legislature providing for an elective state superintendent of public instruction, a state Board of Education appointed by the state superintendent with the approval of the governor, and a commissioner of education appointed by the state Board with the approval of the governor.

History. Wyoming in 1921 was still governed under its first constitution. The six amendments which had been adopted gave additional powers to the Legislature notably for workmen's compensation measures, highway construction and protection of live stock from disease. An eight-hour day for underground work in mines was established in 1909. A direct primary law was passed in 1911, and a Mother's Pension Act in 1915, the latter to be administered by the county commissioners. A Public Service Commission was established in 1915, composed of members of the state Board of Equalization, with power to supervise and regulate any public utility doing business in the state. In 1919 a " blue sky " law was passed. In the same year the Executive Budget system was adopted. In 1921 a system of rural credits, to be managed by a Farm Loan Board, was pro-