Proceedings in the Senate MONDAY, June 25, 1945. Mr. MCCARRAN. Mr. President, it is my sad duty to announce to the Members the death of my colleague, Senator JAMES G. SCRUGHAM of Nevada. In my public life I have never had occasion to make an announcement which so impressed me with sadness as the one which I am called upon to make to the Senate this afternoon. Senator JAMES G. SCRUGHAM, as a young man, a graduate of the University of Kentucky, his native State, was called by my alma mater, the University of Nevada, to take the chair of electrical engineering in the University of Nevada. He was with us in Nevada only a short time when he was made dean of that institution. As a teacher in engineering he was, as he has been found ever since, a persistent, persevering, sympathetic man. The boys who took the course under him loved him from the day they entered his classes until his death, and throughout the length and breadth of the earth his boys are today mourning the passing of their old teacher and adviser. He had an unusual approach in guiding those who enrolled in his classes. If he saw that a new student seemed to lack aptitude for the particular line of work he taught, he took him into his counsel and tried to search into his very being in order to ascertain whether he was capable of carrying on that profession successfully as his life's activity. If he found that a boy was not suited to that calling and did not have the aptitude for that particular line of work, he counseled with him and found another place where the boy's natural inclination would have opportunity for greater success. So, when his boys graduated, everyone in his classes was called for by some of the great electrical engineering concerns of the country, and found immediate employment, and they are standing today at the head of their particular line of work. Mr. President, the First World War found Senator SCRUGHAM putting on the uniform of his country. He was commissioned a major and sent into the Ordnance Department where his bent naturally led him. Senators will recall that at that time, we were called upon to mechanize our Army in order to meet a mechanized army abroad. So JIM SCRUGHAM, the engineer, the man who had trained engineers, was called into the Army to be an engineer in Ordnance. And there he rose rapidly. When the war was over and he retired to private life he did so as a colonel. His work in the Army was outstanding. His Army record is marked by his inventive genius and the persistency with which he worked to accomplish things. Returning to the State of his adoption he resumed classroom work, but he was in the classroom only a short time when the Governor of Nevada appointed him to be State engineer of the State of Nevada, a position of signal importance in Nevada, because the State engineer has charge of the adjudication of all water rights in the State, and, water being such a scarce commodity in that State, every drop of it is sacred. JIM SCRUGHAM had placed upon his shoulders the obligation of adjudicating differences between men concerning water rights. There is no more contentious thing in all the world than the subject of water-water which sustains life in the arid and semiarid States. JIM SCRUGHAM, as was his custom, revolutionized the work of the engineer's office. Instead of calling to his office those who were in dispute, instead of adjudicating simply by looking over papers, SCRUGHAM went out into the field, out to the little streams, to the little water holes, to the springs, to the rivers, and there sat down on the riverbank perhaps, or in the meadow, or on the rancher's bench with the contestants, and there on the scene decided the dispute, settled the trouble. His decisions were so wise and fair that there is not a farmer or a water user in all the length and breadth of Nevada who does not today love the name of JAMES G. SCRUGHAM. Then, Mr. President, the people of the State of Nevada, recognizing JIM SCRUGHAM's ability, called him to the Governor's chair. He served for one term as Governor with outstanding credit to himself. To be Governor in Nevada is a task of no mean magnitude, for it is a State containing 110,000 square miles, and since only 110,000 people live in those 110,000 square miles, the Governor practically has to touch the individual in order to solve the problems which are common to the people of a sparsely settled State. JIM SCRUGHAM became affectionately known as the Governor on wheels, because he traveled over the 110,000 square miles day in and day out, and met men in the little canyons, in the little draws, on the desert, and on the mountainside. Wherever there were men to meet, there the Governor of Nevada rode and rode and rode until he met them. He talked over with them their troubles and their problems, and then returned to his office to continue his work. I have known him to spend a day in his office busily engaged in the work of the Governorship, and then at nightfall take the car and drive to Las Vegas, Nev., 550 miles distant, and arrive there at sunup the next day. That was a common occurrence with Gov. JIM SCRUGHAM. So every man, woman, and child in that broad State grew to know him, to speak his name with affection, and to love him. I have heard it said with what I believe to be absolute candor that JIM SCRUGHAM could call more men in the State of Nevada by their given names than any other man in that State. I believe that to be true. Then, Mr. President, having concluded a term in the Governor's office, a change of administration took place, and |