was another feature of the campaign. Judge Holcomb received 97,815 votes, Majors 94,613, Sturdevant, Cleveland democrat, 6,985 and Gerrard, prohibitionist, 4,439. The republicans secured the legislature by a large majority and elected John M. Thurston to the United States senate. The legislature appropriated $250,000 for seed and food to drouth sufferers, besides $28,000 received in donations. It reenacted the law giving a bounty of one cent per pound upon the production of beet sugar and added a bounty on the production of chicory. It established a state banking board and an additional soldiers home at Milford, passed a general irrigation act, an act to protect the butter producers, submitted twelve amendments to the state constitution and enacted that the Golden Rod should be the floral emblem of the state.

An Artesian Well

      In the presidential campaign of the year 1896 Nebraska became a central figure in the nation's politics. The triumph of the free silver wing in the national democratic convention, followed by the nomination of William J. Bryan for president, and his subsequent nomination by the peoples party at St. Louis brought about a complete fusion between the peoples independent and democratic parties in the state of Nebraska resulting in the election of an entire state ticket, a majority of both houses of the legislature, and four out of six members of congress. Investigation by the incoming officers disclosed that the outgoing republican state treasurer, J. S. Bartley, was defaulter in the sum of $553,074.61, and the outgoing auditor, Eugene Moore, had collected $28,000 of fees which he had failed to turn into the state treasury. Prosecution of both of these officials resulted in Moore's acquittal on a technicality, and Bartley's conviction and sentence to imprisonment for twenty years in the penitentiary. Some of the

Farm and Alfalfa Field

more important measures passed by this legislature were an act to regulate charges in the South Omaha stockyards, an act to prohibit corporations from contributing money to election campaigns, a stringent anti-trust act, an act to prevent the adulteration of food, an act providing for the initiative and referendum, an act forbidding further sale of school lands.

     Before another legislature assembled in the spring of 1898 war began between the United States and Spain. Three regiments of Nebraska soldiers, in all nearly 4,000 men, were furnished. The First regiment sailed to the Philippines, took part in the capture of Manila from the Spaniards, fired the first shot in the subsequent war with the Filipinos, took part in half a dozen battles losing its commander, Colonel Stotsenberg, and returned after a year's absence. The Second regiment was sent to the great military camp at Chattanooga, where it remained in camp until the close of the war. The Third regiment crossed to Cuba and had part in the military occupation of the