Hang Tough! Grant Sawyer: An Activist in the Governor's Mansion

Grant Sawyer served two turbulent terms as Nevada's governor from 1959 to 1966. Sawyer was an advocate of progressive change. By the late fifties he had come so far from his start in the conservative political machine of Senator Patrick McCarran that many powerful Nevadans considered his policies on education, the environment, and civil rights to be dangerously radical. When he demanded meaningful regulatory control over casino gaming and took decisive action to purge the industry of its mob connections, the establishment's resistance stiffened. Eventually, Sawyer's positions brought him into open conflict with special interests and led to a collision with the justice department of the federal government, but he never backed down.
    Hang Tough! is fifty years of state and national politics as remembered by an insider who was never reluctant to speak his mind. Recalling years of trying to get casino gaming under control (including the bizarre events leading to the revocation of Frank Sinatra's gaming license), Sawyer reveals an incongruous link between gaming regulation and the emergence of civil rights in Nevada. The book also explores various environmental resource issues that have shaped Nevada and the American West since the Second World War.

"An invaluable source.... It's warm and real and has something that touches the lives of every Nevadan and most Americans."
     Mike O'Callaghan, Las Vegas Sun

"The memoirs of former Governor Grant Sawyer take the reader back to the Kennedy era, when liberal was not a dirty word and politicians were a force for necessary social changes.... [Sawyer] pulls no punches."
     Ed Vogel, Nevada Appeal

"The book was constantly enjoyable."
     Jon Ralston, Las Vegas Review-Journal

"It is an absorbing, quite informative autobiographical narrative and one of the very best to come out of the University of Nevada's oral history project."
     Jerome Edwards, Nevada Historical Quarterly

"Readers will find Sawyer's forth-right comments about the key issues and political figures of his time refreshing."
     Utah Historical Society Quarterly

Hang Tough! Grant Sawyer: An Activist in the Governor's Mansion. Reno: UNOHP, 1993. (256 pages, 20 photo pages; Hardcover $21.95, Paperback $12.95).