The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 107, July 2003 - April, 2004 Page: 490
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
By the second decade of the twentieth century, however, prohibition gained
ground in Texas and in the United States as a whole. What changed? By 1911,
when reformers undertook another campaign for statewide prohibition, contin-
ued migration into Texas had created in North Texas "the stronghold of a
regional Anglo-Protestant establishment that would try to assert its hegemony
over the entire state in the prohibition campaign" (p. 104). The growth of a
national progressive reform culture provided another important explanation.
The 1911 campaign failed, but produced a much closer contest than the 1887
effort. In 1919, Texans followed the national trend and supported prohibition.
Ivy presents his case clearly and forcefully and his argument rests on solid
research. He covers the 188os thoroughly, but, given the dramatic changes that
occurred by 1919, this reviewer would have enjoyed seeing twentieth-century
developments covered in much greater detail than a final chapter aptly titled
"Coda: From a Regional to a National Reform." As it stands, the book makes
valuable contributions to political, social, and cultural history in Texas during
the Gilded Age.
Texas Chrstzan Unzversity TODD KERSTETTER
Silver Fox of the Rockzes: Delphus E. Carpenter and Western Water Compacts. By Daniel
Tyler. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003. Pp. xxi+392.
Foreword, acknowledgments, maps, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.
ISBN 0-8061-3515-8. $34.95, cloth.)
Daniel Tyler's Silver Fox of the Rockhzes is a carefully researched study of Delphus
Carpenter and the Colorado River Compact he authored and shepherded to
completion. Emphasizing Carpenter's interest in local interests and state's rights
in an era of progressive federalism, Szlver Fox offers a fresh perspective on the
arid West's suspicion of the federal government.
Delphus Carpenter, Tyler argues, was a product of the irrigated West. Raised
by pioneer irrigators, Carpenter became a water-rights lawyer whose beliefs
were shaped by the experience of fending off out-of-state claims to Colorado's
rivers and streams. His frustration with the way interstate litigation could tie up
development for years-even decades-led him to look for alternative solutions
to the problem of shared watersheds. Imbued with the classically western suspi-
cion of eastern interference, Carpenter invoked the "compact clause" of the
Constitution, advocating legal arrangements between states that were analogous
to treaties formed between sovereign nations. Carpenter thus laid the ground-
work for a states-rights challenge to federal control of western water, a chal-
lenge ultimately embodied in the Colorado River Compact of 1922. Tyler's
examination is capped by a thoughtful conclusion that looks at the significance
of the compact in the years after Carpenter's death in 1951; environmental and
legal ramifications are given particular attention.
Overall, Tyler offers a thoughtful and respectful portrait of a dedicated pub-
lic servant and first-generation westerner. The reader comes away with a strong
sense of Carpenter's commitment to the compact process and his concern forJanuary
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 107, July 2003 - April, 2004, periodical, 2004; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101224/m1/548/?rotate=180: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.