island. In March, 1898, the United States supreme Court, rendered decision in the maximum rate case involving the act passed by the legislature in 1893. The court held that the legislature had the right to fix reasonable maximum charges for transportation within the state, but that the rates fixed by the act were too low, and therefore void. The election of 1898 disclosed a falling off in fusion strength,--W. A. Poynter, nominee of the peoples independent and democratic parties, receiving 95,703 votes, M. L. Hayward, republican, 92,982, and H. V. Muir, prohibitionist, 1,724. The republicans secured the legislature and chose M. L. Hayward United States senator. Among the bills passed was a corrupt practice act, limiting election expenses, an act to prevent child labor, an act appropriating $25,000 for the purchase of the governor's mansion, and acts creating a marks and brands commission, a barbers' examining board, a state insurance bureau, and a state embalming board.

     The presidential election of 1900 witnessed the return to power of the republican party in the state of Nebraska. The chief cause for this change is yet matter of dispute between those interested in political affairs. Among the causes which affected the situation may be enumerated:--the natural inclination of the human mind to swing from one side of the pendulum's arc to the other, dissatisfaction among fusionists over the failure of their officials to accomplish any regulation of railroad rates, dissatisfaction of populists with the rejection of their nominee for vice president by the national democratic convention, which again nominated W. J. Bryan for the presidency, and general improvement in the industrial condition of the country under republican national administration, manifesting itself in better prices for the products of Nebraska

farms and ranches. Whichever of these causes was the dominant one, the result was the election of the entire republican state and electoral tickets by a plurality of about 8,000. For governor W. A. Poynter, fusion, received 113,018 votes, C. H. Dietrich, republican, 113,879, L. O. Jones, prohibition, 4,315, Taylor Flick, midroad populist, 1,095. The legislature again was republican. By the death of Senator Hayward there were two United States senators to be chosen at this session, and an intensely bitter factional struggle in the republican party ensued ending only on the last day of the session by the withdrawal of the two leading republican candidates, D. E. Thompson of Lincoln, and Edward Rosewater, of Omaha, and the selection of Governor C. H. Dietrich, of Hastings and J. H. Millard of Omaha, as senators. This legislature abolished the state board of transportation,--thus ending a twenty-five years' struggle to regulate railway freight rates in the state by an abandonment of the issue.

Mill and Dam Across Republican River at Orleans.
(Photo. by C. E. Condra, Department of Geology, U. of N.)

      It enacted an inheritance tax law, an act for the relief of settlers upon Boyd county school land, and it created a state game warden, a state library commission, and a state board of charities and corrections.

     Lieutenant Governor Savage became governor upon the election of Governor Deitrich to the office of United States Senator. His action in pardoning ex-State Treasurer Bartley from the penitentiary awakened a storm of protest in his own party as well as elsewhere, and virtually forced him out of the race as a candidate before his party's convention in 1902. After a very animated contest the republicans nominated John H. Mickey, of Polk county, as their candidate. The democratic and the peoples independent state conventions met at the same time in the city of Grand Island, and were deadlocked all night upon the question of which should name the candidate for governor. At daylight the populist convention accepted W. H. Thompson, of Grand Island, the democratic nominee. The campaign turned