to us that $307,000 was a pretty large sum for the prison inspectors to pay for a penitentiary in so young a state and so sparsely populated, and it further seems to us that $174,000 was a low price for 44,800 acres of land." The lands, it was insisted, were to pay in full for the buildings. It was never dreamed that the state would be called upon for the payment of $160,000 or any other sum. But, as a matter of course, the legislature authorized the levy of a half mill state tax for 1873 and 1874, and a mill tax for 1875 and 1876 to pay the excess which was incurred not only unlawfully but unreasonably. This tax was a grievous burden on the settlers in those years of grasshopper devastation and a still more hurtful burden for many years to come in the shape of Stout politics as well as Stout contracts.
   It was a grievous fault of the newspapers at that time to make extravagant and often reckless assertions as to malfeasance of public officers upon hearsay. Thus the editor of the Omaha Herald made the boldest charges against the Butler administration and in the penitentiary affair, yet in both cases, when summoned to testify, he as positively asserted that he did not know "a solitary fact" -- except of course by hearsay. A juster public opinion today requires of newspapers an available basis of fact to justify accusations of this nature; and so the press is doing the most effective as well as genuine detective and reform work. Demands by the legislature in the form of joint resolutions, upon the late acting governor, auditor, and superintendent of the insane asylum, for funds and furniture belonging to the state, which, the resolutions alleged, had been wrongfully appropriated by those officers to their personal use, illustrate the continuing disgraceful public corruption, or else a mean and outrageously slanderous spirit. The legislature seconded the contention of the governor that the state should be rid of the Indians by memorializing Congress to that end, and continued the now familiar complaint of manipulation by the railway companies of their land grants in a manner unfair and oppressive to the homesteaders and preëmptors.

   The continuing aggression of the Indians on the westerly settlements was set forth in a request for the establishment of a military post, west of Red Willow county, by the federal government; and the impracticability of leaving an uncivilized and unassimilable, though peaceably inclined, people in juxtaposition with aggressive civilization was emphatically set forth in a demand that the Otoe and Missouri, Omaha, and Pawnee be absolutely restrained from passing through the white settlements on their way to the hunting grounds now beyond the frontier.
   The public scandals which had been continuous since the organization of the state government -- and especially since the removal of the capital to Lincoln -- up to this period, were varied or signalized by periodical, explosive episodes. There was the impeachment of Governor Butler in 1871, the anarchical disturbances between the legislature and Governor James in 1872, and now, in 1873, another famous state trial in which Governor Furnas, though nominally plaintiff, was really defendant. Furnas foolishly began the suit but, in view of the damaging facts which it judicially established, he more foolishly allowed it to be brought to trial. The defendants were George L. Miller and Lyman Richardson, publishers of the Omaha Herald, and they were charged with having libelously alleged that Furnas stipulated to receive and had received $3,000 in gold, while a member of the council of the third territorial legislature, in 1857, to influence his vote on the question of the removal of the capital from Omaha to Douglas City. The trial began June 19, 1873. Oliver P. Mason, Seth Robinson, and John C. Corwin were counsel for Furnas, and Eleazer Wakeley, James W. Savage, and George W. Ambrose for the defendants.
   Furnas voted for the removal bill when it passed the council, but on the dilatory motions made by its friends who favored a test vote on the question of passing the bill over the governor's veto, he changed sides and voted with the anti-removalists. Finney, member of the house from Nemaha -- the same county which Furnas represented

voted against the passage of the bill. These two were the only members from the South Platte section who stood against passing the bill over the veto, and, more significantly, only the vote of each was lacking in his respective house to override the veto.
   Benjamin P. Rankin, who had been member of the territorial legislature and also treasurer of the territory, was a lobbyist in the legislature of 1857 and conducted negotiations with Furnas. At the time of the trial he lived at San Jose, California, and Oliver P. Mason took his deposition at that place. In the course of his testimony he said: "I may have told, and probably did tell, Poppleton and others that I had paid, or was to pay, R. W. Furnas money in consideration of his vote." He also testified that he made no offer or promise of money to Furnas except to compensate him for loss of profit on public printing which might be taken away from him by the majority of the legislature, which favored removal of the capital, if he should vote against them. The witness "understood" that there was $3,000 deposited at Moffat's bank to secure the vote of R. W. Furnas, but did not see it deposited or taken from the bank.
   The following pledge which Furnas signed was introduced in evidence: "I hereby pledge myself to oppose any and every bill for the removal of the capital from Omaha city at the present session of the legislature of Nebraska, and for the division of Douglas county and for the change of the county seat of said county." Furnas testified that this pledge was in Rankin's handwriting, but he himself signed it. Rankin said to him, "If you will sign this pledge I will protect you in the profits of public printing." "I think since," Furnas answered, "that it was very improper for me to sign it. Other men may have reaped benefits from it, and I have had to lay under that cloud for seventeen years." He expected that citizens of Douglas county would make up the loss of the profits on his contract for the territorial printing if there should be any, and that was the admitted reason why he signed the pledge. His reason for having torn his name from the pledge was, "I did not want my name to remain there anymore." He thought there was no impropriety in this. "You are aware that was the way things were done in those days."
   Furnas voted in accordance with the pledge against the Douglas county division bill and so against the sentiment of his section of the territory.
   There were printed shares of the site of Douglas City which were promoted by McComas and Nuckolls. He took some of these shares himself, but that was before he was elected a member of the council. To Wakeley's question, "Did you know it was a fact that McComas had distributed shares to all the members who would go for the removal of the capital?" he answered no. He admitted that he heard about the charge that money had been deposited for him in the Moffat bank the following winter. When pressed to explain why he did not go to the bank to look up such an important matter, he answered, "I don't know why I didn't." He testified that he was never in the bank, but Alfred D. Jones and James A. Jackson testified that they saw him there during the session of the legislature. Furnas also denied that he received the certificate of deposit as alleged by other witnesss (sic).
   David H. Moffat, who became a very prominent banker and railroad builder, of Denver, Colorado, was at the time of the alleged bribery teller and bookkeeper of the Bank of Nebraska at Omaha and was only eighteen years of age. He testified as follows: "There was a sum of $3,000 deposited in the bank in which I was teller, to be paid to Robert W. Furnas on the condition that be voted for the retention of the capital at Omaha. I issued a certificate of deposit, payable on the condition above mentioned to the order of Robert W. Furnas, and delivered that certificate to Benjamin P. Rankin. After the adjournment of the legislature that winter, Mr. Rankin and Robert W. Furnas came into the bank with the certificate properly endorsed and satisfied me that its conditions had been complied with, and I paid over the money. I suppose that certificate is among the papers of the Bank of Nebraska, in the possession of B. F. Allen, at Fort Des Moines, in the state

of Iowa. I do not recollect whether Rankin took the package of money away from the counter, or whether Furnas did. They were both together." Q. "Do you know for whose use the package of money was received, or what was to be done with it?" A. "I understood it was for the use and benefit of Robert W. Furnas."
   Andrew J. Poppleton testified that B. P. Rankin told him, "during the canvass for delegate to Congress," that he got $3,000 for Furnas on his vote on the question of capital removal and that Furnas used the money to pay debts and buy a printing press.
   Theodore H. Robertson testified that he saw the certificate of deposit in Moffat's bank, that it was payable to Furnas or his order, on condition of the defeat of the capital removal bill and the bill for the division of Douglas county at that session of the legislature. Witness also saw the pledge signed by Furnas with the certificate of deposit. Joshua Hanscom's testimony showed that the certificate was delivered to Rankin but was payable to Furnas, and that he saw the pledge. Experience Estabrook showed that Furnas was in favor of the removal bill until the governor vetoed it. This witness also saw the certificate in the bank in the fall of 1858 and made a copy of it. William B. Hail, member of the first five territorial legislatures, testified that Furnas advocated removal in the caucuses of the legislature which were held for the consideration of that question, "up to near the time of the bill being voted on by the council."
   James A. Jackson testified that Rankin represented to him that a fund must be raised to prevent the removal of the capital, and $3,000 was collected. Furnas asked him if he knew what would have to be done to prevent removal. "About the time the bill was to come up for final action in the council," said this witness, "myself and others were notified to make a deposit of the fund of $3,000 raised that morning for Furnas, the plaintiff, or it would be too late. I went to the Bank of Omaha [Nebraska], of which one David Moffat was cashier [teller], on the morning designated, and found plaintiff Furnas in waiting with Dr. Rankin. The $3,000 raised was that morning placed in the hands of Mr. Moffat in the presence of Furnas, the plaintiff.
   At the time the money was so deposited, Mr. Furnas, the plaintiff, said to me, 'My constituents will go after me for this,' or, 'make it mighty hot for me,' or something of that kind, and I have seen nothing of the money so deposited or any portion thereof since."
   The jury disagreed, but only two stood for the plaintiff, which was, of course, a damaging defeat. Furnas complained that sectional prejudice was so strong, that he, being of the South Platte section, could not have a fair trial in Douglas county, and that, through the influence of the defendants, "the court officer having principally in charge the making up and handling of the jury, there were and are, good grounds for a belief that partiality would be and was exercised for the defense and against the plaintiff." The defendants, on the other hand, alleged in the Herald that the jury was composed of six republicans, only four democrats, one "temperance party" and one "mixed."
   The principal tactics of the prosecution was to make a scapegoat of Rankin. His reputation so nearly adjusted itself to the other circumstances of the case as to make the theory that Rankin was the real culprit and beneficiary of the bribery fund at least very plausible. Mr. Cowin contended in his argument to the jury that Rankin's testimony showed that Furnas was the victim of conspirators who divided the plunder they procured in his name. When the trial went against him, Furnas pursued the same policy by extra-judicial methods. In January, 1873, in preparation for the trial, he wrote to Rankin requesting him to make a statement of the facts in relation to the charges as he remembered them, as he thought it might lead to a settlement of the suit without trial. Rankin's reply was evasive and of little help to Furnas, so that it became necessary to take his deposition. After the trial, Furnas made a passionate appeal to Rankin to write a statement exonerating him from the guilt which the evidence and the verdict of the trial had fastened upon him, and the response was more favorable, though

still equivocal. James A. Jackson and David H. Moffat wrote letters to Furnas in which they expressed a belief that he had been the innocent victim of a base conspiracy. Furnas was severely criticised (sic) for publishing these letters of his friend Rankin, who had admonished him to regard them as confidential.
   The testimony of David H. Moffat that he made out the certificate of deposit of the $3,000 payable to Furnas, which Furnas and Rankin afterward brought to the bank "properly endorsed," and of Theodore H. Robertson that about eighteen months afterward he saw the certificate so described in Moffat's bank, with the strong corroborative evidence, is very difficult to overcome or explain away; but it leaves some room for the theory that Rankin fooled Furnas with promises and actually got all the money himself. But Furnas's own admissions leave him in a plight but little better than if he had confessed to taking the money itself. Though the Bee was only less hostile and aggressive in personal attack than the Herald, yet its estimate of Furnas's admissions seems fair and correct: "That testimony needs no comment. It proves that things were 'loosely managed in those days.' It exhibits a lack of moral stamina that was properly characterized by one of the able legal councillors (sic) [counsel] of the governor as decidedly compromising . . . The admissions made by the plaintiff are, however, of such a nature that we cannot comprehend what can be gained by dragging this suit to another court or before another jury." But Furnas came to comprehend that nothing could be gained for himself by a retrial, and he dismissed the suit notwithstanding his pre-mature and too heroic declaration that he would "be further vindicated though it cost me my last dime and last breath." The unusual temptations and vicious practices incident to newly formed societies are commonly but unwisely pleaded in palliation of dishonesty in public relations. Moreover, there were public servants in Nebraska from the beginning who walked uprightly.
   There were no general elections in the state in 1873 and so no partisan convention, but a convention of the "Grand Castle of the Order of American Farmers and Mechanics of Nebraska" was held in Lincoln July 29 and 30, 1873. The resolutions adopted declared that while the objects of the order were to exert a general benevolent, beneficent, educational influence, yet a part of its duty was to rid legislatures and the federal Congress of monopolists and corruptionists and procure the passage and enforcement of just laws, etc.; that the beneficiaries of the "back and increased pay" in Congress were knowingly guilty of a gross and brazen fraud upon the nation; that freight and passenger railroad tariffs on trunk lines were unjust and oppressive; that there should be no pooling or combinations of railroads; no subsidy for railroads or other corporations -- hotels, printing companies, and flouring mills were as much entitled to such aid as railroads; that the members of the order were friends to the railroads as servants but opposed to them as masters; and that organization of all industrial classes was necessary.

   All of the state conventions of 1874 were held in Lincoln. The republican convention was in session September 2d and 3d. Charles H. Gere of Lancaster county, was temporary chairman and Nathan K. Griggs of Gage county, president. Lorenzo Crounse of Washington county, was nominated by acclamation for member of Congress for a second term. Silas Garber of Webster county was nominated for governor on the first ballot; Patrick 0. Hawes of Douglas county, for contingent member of Congress; Bruno Tzschuck of Sarpy county, for secretary of state; J. C. McBride of Colfax county, for treasurer; George H. Roberts of Harlan county, for attorney-general; J. M. McKenzie of Nemaha county, for superintendent of public instruction; Nathan S. Porter of Dixon county, for state prison inspector. Two of the state officers, Governor Furnas and Attorney-General Webster, were denied the customary second term -- Furnas, because of the scandals associated with his political career, and Webster, because he had not been as subservient to the ruling political powers as safety demanded, and, in particular, because with imprudent temerity he had begun suit for the state against

Thomas P. Kennard to recover proceeds of the sale of certain lots of the capitol site which, the petition alleged, the defendant had not accounted for.
   The platform contained a timid recommendation for return to a metallic basis for money; a milder insinuation of the monopolistic tendency of the national bank system; a positive declaration against a presidential third term, aimed at signs of a movement to again nominate General Grant in 1876; and positive denunciation of political outrages in the southern states and of the so-called Quaker Indian policy which had "failed to afford either benefits to the Indians or protection to the frontier settlers." The declaration in favor of an amendment to the federal constitution providing for the election by direct popular vote of the president, vice president, and all other federal officers, and also of United States senators, superficially regarded, seems an inexplicable freak of radicalism; but it should probably be accounted for on the ground that the republican party then still felt the progressive impulse of youth and had not yet attained the condition of an almost 'reactionary defender of vested interests, now popularly known as "big business," which characterized it for about a quarter of a century and up to the revival of recent years. There was an apologetic show of protest against excessive railroad rates, earnest of the long innocuous policy of the party which was to follow. The pristine radicalism of the party broke out also in the declaration favoring the establishment and operation by the federal government of a double-track railroad from the Missouri river to the Atlantic seaboard; and in view of the burden imposed upon people and products by the still uncontrolled system of private ownership, it would perhaps be rash to stigmatize this policy of the young republican party as radical. The demand for equable taxation of railroad property was direct, and it was emphasized and particularized by the request for the passage of the bill for taxing non-patented subsidy railroad lands in the state, which had been introduced in Congress by Mr. Crounse.
   The convention recognized that there was by this time a positive and growing popular sentiment in favor of stricter control of the liquor traffic, by advising that the question of incorporating prohibition, local option, and license in the new constitution be submitted separately. A resolution offered by ex-Governor David Butler declaring in favor of a local option law which should empower the people of the several towns, precincts, and municipalities to decide to prohibit or regulate the sale of intoxicating liquors, was defeated by a vote of 47 to 181. Governor Butler led in the debate in favor of the resolution and Edward Rosewater against it.
   The "People's Independent Convention" met September 8th, with about one hundred delegates in attendance. J. F. Gardner of Richardson county was temporary chairman and A. Deyo of Cass, temporary secretary. Robert R. Livingston of Cass was president and John D. Calhoun of Franklin, secretary of the permanent organization. J. F. Gardner was nominated for governor; Fred Weibe of Hall county, for secretary of state; Thompson Bissell of Saunders county, for attorney-general; R. H. Walker of Douglas county, for state prison inspector; J. M. McKenzie of Nemaha county, for state superintendent of public instruction; James W. Davis of Douglas county, for member of Congress, and John D. Calhoun for contingent congressman. The platform declared with emphasis that all political power is inherent in the people; in favor of the restoration of gold and silver as the basis of the currency and the resumption of specie payment "at the earliest practicable day without injury to the business interests of the country," and the maintenance of the credit of the country until the resumption of specie payment by "a system of currency based upon the credit of the nation, issued by the government directly to the people"; opposed all combinations and devices that tend to increase the cost of transportation beyond a fair remuneration to the carrier; and demanded the exercise of all constitutional powers to remedy these evils; opposed any further land grants, subsidies to steamships, and all donations of bonds to aid public enterprises; favored a tariff for revenue only; demanded the

election of President and United States senators by a direct vote of the people; favored strictest economy in all public affairs; stated that taxes in the state were high beyond endurance and must be reduced; favored revision of homestead laws and a memorial to Congress for relief of homesteaders in the grasshopper district; declared that interstate commerce should be regulated by Congress and that railroad pools like that of the Burlington and Missouri, Chicago & Northwestern, Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, and Kansas City, St. Joe & Council Bluffs, be prohibited so that competition might be encouraged.
   The democratic state convention was held in the opera house, September 10th. E. A. Allen of Douglas county was temporary chairman and Frank P. Ireland of Otoe, temporary secretary. Mr. Allen was president of the permanent organization; Samuel Cowdrey of Saline county, J. W. Pollock of Cuming, Loren Miller of Douglas, Dr. John Black of Cass, and Israel Loomis of Johnson, vice presidents; Frank P. Ireland and F. G. Beecher of Platte county, secretaries. A committee consisting of J. F. Morton, Stephen H. Calhoun, Benjamin Hankins, Milton Montgomery, and James E. North reported the following platform which was adopted by the convention: 1st. The restoration of gold and silver as the basis of currency; resumption of specie payments as soon as possible without disaster to the business interests of the country by steadily opposing inflation and by the payment of the national indebtedness in the money of the civilized world. 2d. Individual liberty and opposition to sumptuary or prohibition laws, free commerce, and no tariff except for revenue purposes. 3d. Rigid restriction of the governments, both state and national, to the legitimate domain of political power by excluding therefrom all executive and legislative intermeddling with the affairs of society, whereby monopolies are fostered, privileged classes aggrandized, and individual freedom unnecessarily and oppressively restrained. 4th. The right and duty of the state to protect its citizens from extortion and unjust discrimination by chartered monopolies. 5th. That we appreciate the beneficial influence of railroads in developing the resources of the country, and favor liberal legislation in that direction, but only on a basis of taxation equitable in its application both to citizens and to corporations. 6th. That we believe the people are the source of all power and that their will and not the wishes of mere party demagogues should govern and form the real basis of all republican governments.
   The following nominations were made without opposition: For governor, Albert Tuxbury of Otoe county; secretary of state, John A. Eatherly of York county; treasurer, Robert C. Jordan of Hall county; attorney-general, Milton Montgomery of Lancaster county; superintendent of public instruction, Eli Huber of Otoe county; state prison inspector, R. H. Walker of Douglas county; member of Congress, James W. Savage of Douglas county. Only twenty-eight of the fifty-eight counties on the secretary's list were represented.
   The republicans foreshadowed the facile opportunism which later came to characterize their party by making theirs the most radical of the three platforms. The money plank of the democrats shows that they had ceased to follow the greenback god of Pendletonism, where J. Sterling Morton had led them a few years before, and it is more orthodox than the republican declaration. The independents contradicted themselves by demanding a return to specie payment, but also that its way be blocked by an intermediate system of uncovered paper currency. They took what was then advanced ground in favor of the regulation of interstate commerce by Congress, a position which the already apparent and to be long continued devotion of the leaders of the two old parties to railroad interests prevented them from assuming; and so their declarations on this subject were perfunctory generalities, lacking point and specification essential to real meaning. The declaration of the republicans in favor of the construction of a railroad by the federal government and popular election of United States senators and federal officers was a temporary lapse or aber-

ration, and misrepresented the dominant influence of the party at that time.
   The first prohibition convention to nominate a state ticket was held September 9th. It kept the middle of the road, steadfastly refusing to endorse the nominations of the other parties save one. Notably, also, the convention declared in favor of a currency convertible into gold and silver but upon a gold basis. This is the first declaration distinctly favoring a gold standard ever made by a party convention in Nebraska. Besides demanding prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors, the convention called for the lowest rates of railroad transportation. But the influence of the railroad corporations was soon able to check this rising popular reform sentiment, and through the subserviency of the political leaders they were able to hold it in virtual subjection for upwards of thirty years.
   Though the political campaign this year was much milder than its predecessors under the state government, yet the republicans were again vigorously assailed on account of the continuing corruption, now centered in the Kennard-Stout ring, successors to the Butler régime. The staunch party habit of that period inevitably induced ring and boss dominance and graft, which in turn commanded the submission of all aspirants to place and power, irrespective of their original inclination to cleanliness or corruption. The report of the Garber penitentiary investigating committee was adduced to show the subserviency of the republican candidate for governor to the dominant ring. This report, it was charged, whitewashed "the most monstrous system of swindling that has occurred in the whole history of the state." That the penchant for personal attack still survived, appeared in the showing that Roberts, republican candidate for attorney-general, while captain in the Nineteenth Pennsylvania cavalry, had been dishonorably discharged in 1864. The republicans, however, published an order issued by direction of the president "to correct the record" and to issue an honorable discharge. It was contended that the first order was obtained through spite.
   The republican candidate for governor received 21,568 votes; the democratic candidate, 8,946; the people's independent candidate, 4,159; and the prohibition candidate, 1,346. The vote for the rest of the candidates did not vary much from that for the heads of the tickets, except that Roberts, candidate for attorney-general, received only 19,797 votes, while his fusion opponent, General Montgomery, whose career in the Civil war left him with an empty sleeve, received 15,709. The proposal for a constitutional convention carried by a vote of 18,067 to 3,880. The opposition was scattered irrespective of sections -- Burt, Cass, Dixon, Dodge, Nemaha, Otoe, Pawnee, Platte, and Sarpy making the largest relative showing. In this campaign the Omaha Bee fairly entered on its long course of peculiarly aggressive and relentless personal political journalism which destroyed a large number of political ambitions -- in most cases, however, to the public advantage. At this time, Mr. Hitchcock, United States senator, was Mr. Rosewater's principal target and his fire proved fatal. For defense the senator, striving for reëlection, bought the Union. John Taffe was again editor of the Republican, which pursued a conservative course and so considered the Union a useless injection into the already overfilled field of Omaha journalism.

   Butler, the star of the political stage, having been driven off, Kennard was now the principal target of the anti-graft fire. His faults, though similar to Butler's, were not tempered by the latter's virtue of open-handedness and natural leadership. Kennard's alleged acquisitiveness would have done credit to the public land grafters of the present day. It was recklessly asserted that by virtue of his office of secretary of state and capital commissioner, with a salary of $600, his profits on the sale of Lincoln lots were half a million dollars. It was charged that Governor Furnas falsely denied that he had appointed Kennard state agent, under the act of the legislature of February 8, 1873, to recover what might be due the state under the provision entitling it to the usual five per centum for lands filed upon with military bounty warrants and on account of the Indian reserva-

tions, and also to have swamp lands given over to the state. It was vehemently insisted that Kennard was not fit for the agency and that he could not consistently undertake it if, in view of his public record, the people were suspicious of him.
   The charge that Furnas had secretly appointed Kennard agent arose from the assertions that during the year 1873 he diligently prosecuted the claims of the state in Washington while his contract with the state for that purpose was not executed until October 15, 1874. Mr. Kennard based his contention that under the enabling act the state was entitled to five per cent of the aggregate value of all the Indian reservations in the state, rated at $1.25 an acre, on similar allowances made under specific acts of Congress to the states of Arkansas and Mississippi. The solicitor of the Indian department approved the claim, the total percentage amounting to about $58,000, but the comptroller of the treasury refused to concur in the decision. After the passage of the acts authorizing the sale of the Pawnee and the Otoe and Missouri reservations, Kennard again presented his claim, this time asking for five per cent of the actual proceeds of the sale of the lands. On the 14th of January, 1981, the commissioner of the general land office decided to allow the claim as to the Pawnee reservation, five per cent of the sales amounting to $43,807.42, and $27,043.99 was actually paid to the state; but then the decision of the land commissioner was questioned, and no more payments were made. The first payment on account of the sale of the Pawnee lands, amounting to $6,275.47, was made direct to the state, but Governor Nance denied Mr. Kennard's application for half that sum according to the terms of his contract with the state. A bill appropriating the amount of this claim passed both houses of the legislature in 1883, but owing to the neglect of the secretary of the senate it was not presented to the proper officers of that body for signature. In 1895, the legislature passed a resolution permitting Mr. Kennard to sue the state on his contract, and in a suit begun in the district court of Lancaster county, May 29, 1897, he obtained a judgment for $13,521.99 -- half of the amount the state had received on account of the Pawnee sales. But on appeal to the supreme court the judgment was reversed on the ground that the reservation was public land and therefore it was within the provision of the act of 1873 authorizing the appointment of the agent which excepted cash sales of public lands. The supreme court of the United States refused to assume jurisdiction on appeal because no federal question had been pleaded in the state court, but it incidentally held, what Mr. Kennard's attorneys contended for in the state supreme court in a rehearing, that the reservation did not constitute public lands. In support of this contention, they showed, conclusively, it would seem, that the reservation had been segregated from the public lands when it had been conveyed to the tribe in question, and that the United States accounted to the Indians for the proceeds of the sale of the lands. By the final decision, then, of the land department, concurred in by the dictum of the supreme court of the United States, the state was not legally entitled to the money it received, but still holds by a characteristic quip of the law. The state then unjustly remains the beneficiary of one-half of the $27,043.99, which it is not disputed Mr. Kennard procured for it.
   The sixth legislature convened in the fourth regular session, January 7, 1875. There were only fifteen opposition members -- democrats and independents --in both houses, and the officers were chosen without party division. Nathan K. Griggs of Gage county was chosen president of the senate and Edward S. Towle speaker of the house -- both unanimously. Daniel H. Wheeler of Cass county was elected secretary of the senate, receiving ten votes against three for Thomas Wolfe of Seward county. George L. Brown of Butler county was elected chief clerk of the house, receiving 27 votes against 7 for E. S. Chadwick and 4 for F. M. Dorrington.
   The governor's message to the legislature contains an unusual amount of information relative to the affairs of the state. Up to this time the state's growth and development had been obstructed by the same influence which