Question of the Day - 20 September 2017

Julius Caesar and his armies ran rampant across what are now Germany, France, and Great Britain, whereupon they returned to Italy and seized power in a military coup. As in the U.S. Confederacy, slaves were a cornerstone of the economy during the Roman Empire. Caesars took this a step further, selling 53,000 Gauls into slavery. Back in Rome, a slave could be as high-ranking as a physician or as downtrodden as a miner, prostitute, or gladiator. Torture and summary execution of slaves were commonplace. On the other hand, some, like Cicero’s slave Tiro, earned their freedom. 

All that said, we're not cognizant of anyone who has a beef with Julius Caesar or representations of Ancient Rome and its personages, so we doubt we’ll see protest marches on the Strip or demands that Caesars Palace be de-themed. However …

There is one hot-button figure in Nevada history: the late U.S. Sen. Pat McCarran (Dem). You know him from the airport that bears his name — a name that state Senator Tick Segerblom (Dem) tried to have removed from the airport in the 2015 Legislature and he’s going to try again this year. Said ex-Sen. Harry Reid (Dem) of the xenophobic Red-baiting politician, “Pat McCarran was one of the most anti-Semitic, anti-black, prejudiced people ever to serve in the Senate.” In fact, Segerblom proposes to replace McCarran’s name with Reid’s.

In a 2012 Las Vegas Review-Journal column, John L. Smith argued that the anti-McCarran forces, while justified, were displaying selective amnesia. Where, he wondered, was the outrage over naming places — including the capital city — after notorious Native American-killer Kit Carson? For that matter, “I regularly get messages from spitting-mad taxpayers who remain disgusted by the fact they can still find the names of corrupt ex-Commissioners Lance Malone, Erin Kenny, Dario Herrera, and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey on plaques honoring their contributions to various county buildings and facilities prior to going off to the penitentiary.”

In McCarran’s defense, he definitely delivered the pork: He sponsored the creation of the gunnery school that became Nellis Air Force Base; he brought Basic Magnesium to Nevada, thereby unintentionally birthing the city of Henderson; he wrote the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938; and when Sen. Estes Kefauver (Dem) had the gaming industry in his gun sights in the early 1950s, it was McCarran who took the bullet. 

University of Nevada-Las Vegas history professor Michael Green says, “Do we even have that airport without McCarran? It’s debatable.”

Will the Legislature address the long-running McCarran controversy? We’re skeptical. But we also doubt that any populist outrage will arise from either the pro- or anti-McCarran camps. He never stood for a cause (like slavery) that people still feel compelled to defend. Outside of the punditocracy, the McCarran name doesn’t have much traction and it will probably stay that way.