Proceedings & Collections - NSHS - Vol. IV

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tion of the school 471 boys, and 149 girls have been committed there by the courts. Of this number, 281 boys and 67 girls have been paroled, pardoned, discharged by legal process and otherwise. Ninety per cent of those who left were regularly discharged, and at least eight out of every ten of these are doing well; many of them holding responsible positions. The present enrollment is 275. The educational, physical, and moral training has been carried on as thoroughly as possible. Each inmate attends school from four to five hours each day during nine months in the year. Statistics show that at the time of commitment 61 per cent of the boys were idle, 23 per cent were attending school, and 18 per cent were at work. Of the girls 33 per cent were idle, 19 were at work, 32 were at school.
The report of the Superintendent of the Home for the Friendless will make known to you the condition and operations of this institution:
Number of inmates in Home December, 1888, 116; admitted since December, 1888, 402; surrendered to friends, 102; placed in homes, 130; returned to friends, 34; number for whom work was found, 54; absent to other institutions, 10; deaths, 77; number in Home December, 1890, 111; total, 518. The Home for the Friendless is accomplishing a great amount of good.

In the message of 1889 he said:

In this institution the waifs of humanity find comfortable homes, and kind motherly care. It is conferring a blessing upon the State, and upon humanity. Those in charge are imitating the example of their Divine Master in relieving human suffering. They are gathering in and saving the abandoned; their institution is in reality the home of those who have no home. I trust you will regard it with favorable consideration.

In anticipation of the report of the State Board of Agriculture, Gov. Thayer echoed the universal opinion of patrons in the following language:

While nearly all the conditions and environments of the work for the year 1890 were of adverse character, extraordinary efforts on the part of the management, exhibitors and patrons were crowned with unusual success. For reasons well known to all, crops were short, and the people, in many instances, discouraged. Still there was never be-

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fore so grand a presentation of the products, resources and possibilities of the State. This was true more particularly in the matter of direct products of the sod, thus showing in a marked degree our wonderful capabilities as well as the, characteristic energy and industry of our people. At the State Fair, the Horticultural Society succeeded in bringing together the best exhibit of fruit which has ever been on the grounds, and it was thought to be as good a one as was made by any state fair in the United States last year.

In addition to the stereotyped items of Governor's message, Gen. Thayer had many new subjects thrust upon him, as the result of the marvelous progress and changed condition of the State from her infancy to majority; for in reality the end of his second term closed the first quarter century of her existence as a state in the Union. In his biennial message of 1889, he said of the Union Pacific Railroad:

The kind of settlement, which the Union Pacific makes with the government, does not interest the people of Nebraska nearly as much as the question of lower and reasonable rates. In regard to all railroads in this State, this principle, this right, must be asserted and maintained, namely, that no higher schedule of rates shall exist in Nebraska than prevails in Kansas or Iowa, or other states. The board of transportation now possesses full power. If, however, anything is wanting, it should be given them. The members of the board should be chosen by the people.

In 1891 he expressed the following sentiments:

Observation cannot have failed to convince any one that there is a growing disregard for the sanctity of the ballot. Too many regard it as merchantable instead of being the grand right of American citizenship. Too stringent enactments can not be made for guarding the purity of the ballot. There are many who seem to have no proper conception of its value. They look forward to the election when they may offer their votes for a price just as the farmer looks forward to the coming of the harvest time. What is known as the Australian Ballot System evidently comes nearest to preventing frauds on the elective franchise. The testimony from those states where it has been tried is that it has accomplished the purpose for which it was designed, and has given general satisfaction. I, therefore, unhesitatingly advise its adoption in this State.

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The experience of the last two years has made it apparent that public warehouses are a necessity in order to protect the interests of the farmers. A year ago the price of corn was 14 cents a bushel. It is now selling at an average of 45 cents per bushel. Had a warehouse law similar to that of Illinois and other states been on our statute book, its beneficial results would have been of almost incalculable value. I, therefore, recommend the passage of a law with an emergency clause providing for public warehouses with suitable provisions for holding grain and other products by compelling the warehouse men to receive, ship, store and handle the same without discrimination. Warehouse receipts taken for the grain thus stored are equal to the best commercial paper.

The Governor had an opportunity of testing the practical utility of the National Guard, which was mustered and officered under his own administration, when they were called upon in aid of the Regulars in suppressing an Indian outbreak.

I cannot too strongly commend the promptness and patriotic zeal manifested by the officers and members of the National Guard when the order was issued for them to take the field. It reminds one of the days of '61 when loyalty and patriotism seemed to inspire all hearts. Fortunately the Indian war on our northern borders has been brought to a close, and the National Guards sent forward for the protection of the settlers have been returned to their respective homes. It gives me great and sincere pleasure to say that all the reports from the region where they performed their service commend them in the highest terms for their soldierly bearing, and their faithful discharge of the duties devolving upon them. The service to them was new, and it was rendered in severe weather, subjecting them to cold and privation, yet their duties were performed without a murmur, and they rendered most valuable service to the people in shielding them against the probable attacks from hostile Indians and in restoring confidence to all. General Colby and all his command have won for themselves the unbounded respect of the people of the State, and have made a reputation in which all citizens will take just and laudable pride.

He thus refers to the work of the Live Stock Sanitary Commission in 1889:

At the beginning of the work of the board Texas fever existed in nearly every county in the State. The fight against

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its insidious ravages has been, and is still a determined one, and so far successful that at the present time forty counties are reporting no cases. The law, as amended by the last legislature, allowing payment of indemnity of animals destroyed by the State, has greatly facilitated the reporting of suspected cases and prevented the secreting of the disease. It has proved a blessing to poor and deserving farmers, many of whom are entirely dependent upon their horses and mules for means of support, and to whom the payment of this indemnity is a boon, while the State is being relieved of a terrible scourge, dangerous alike to man and beast. Several persons have died of it in the past two years in this State, having contracted it in caring for afflicted animals. Eight hundred and thirty horses and mules have been destroyed by the live stock commission since November 30, 1886, to December 1, 1888. The amount of indemnity allowed for the same was $36,071.50, averaging $43.50 per head. These animals were destroyed in sixty-six counties, showing an immense amount of labor prosecuted in all seasons of the year, and it has only been by the most energetic efforts on the part of the board that such a result can be shown. The work is most satisfactory to the people of the State whose interests are directly connected therewith.

After asserting the energy and success of the Fish Commission and the building of a large, roomy, two-story house for a hatchery he outlined the situation as follows:

The fish car also provided for by the last legislature has been procured. It is a neat, substantially constructed car of the usual size, and furnished with the best facilities for distributing and handling fish. Its cost has not exceeded the sum appropriated for that purpose. The work of the distribution of fish to remote parts of the State has been greatly facilitated and with less cost than heretofore sustained by the old methods of transporting the young fish in cans by express and baggage cars, and express companies especially, in handling yearling trout and black bass; also a saving in expense, with the co-operation of the railway companies hauling the car and its attendants free of expense to the State. Large improvements have also been made at the state hatchery by the construction and improvements of the ponds, new apparatus, and improvements to the old apparatus. In the year 1889 the commission procured fish eggs, successfully hatched them, and also raised in the state ponds a larger number of different species of fish than at any former time, and successfully

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distributed them into the waters of the State. The total number of fish of all ages thus given to the water in that year was 15,221,610. In the year 1890, the total distribution of all ages amounted to 21,731,295. The introduction into our waters and cultivation of German carp has been attended with very gratifying results. This excellent food fish has hitherto been underestimated as to its intrinsic value. Its successful and profitable cultivation has been fully demonstrated. The fish hatchery is an establishment of great advantage to the people.

Of objects of interest, and not yet consummated, or of recent date, may be added, Banks, Trusts, Deep Water Harbor, Irresponsible Detectives, Boards of Pharmacy and Pardons, and Irrigation.

Recent occurrences have drawn attention to the condition of state banks and banking institutions. I respectfully recommend the enactment of legislation which shall provide for frequent examination of these institutions and which shall secure protection to depositors and stock-holders.

The governor advocated the continuance of the sugar bounty on the grounds that others might engage in the manufacture and then competition would prevent a monopoly.

Since the session of the last Legislature, and as a result of the liberal action of that body, there has been established in this State a most important industry. I refer to the making of sugar from sugar beets. It is my firm conviction that this will prove to be one of the great industries of the future in the West and in Nebraska especially. The Oxnards have put in a plant in Grand Island at a cost of nearly three quarters of a million dollars, and have during the last three months turned out about one million pounds of the very finest quality of sugar. The starting of the establishment at Grand Island was an experiment. The season has been an unfavorable one on account of the dryness. The business was new to the farmers. But the experiment has merged into a complete success, so much so that the Oxnards are now putting in a similar plant at Norfolk. In ten years you may expect to see Nebraska the leading sugar producing state of the Union. Other states will take hold of this new agricultural pursuit, and the West will supply the sugar of the country, and the price to the consumer will be reduced from twenty-five to thirty per cent. I earnestly

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advise against repealing the law granting a bounty on the manufacture of sugar. That bounty was given as an inducement to open up that industry in the State; to induce parties to come here and put in plants and encourage the manufacture of sugar. To repeal this law at this time would be an implication of bad faith. It would, in effect, be an act of repudiation. Let the bounty remain and other establishments will follow those already started.

Among other things of note we find the following concerning the report of the Commissioner of Labor:

A great deal of trouble existing between employer and employee would be avoided if an honest effort was made by the former to show that he had other than a monetary consideration of his welfare. It is to be regetted (sic) that there are very few employers compared to the number, who ever cross the threshold of their employees' homes, with a purpose of inquiring into their circumstances. Whenever this has been done it has been marked with good results. Chapter II. deals with the question of loan and building associations. Any process that will assist the man of limited means to secure a home should be supported and thoroughly advertised. Local loan and building associations have done very much in this respect. Statistics on this subject will interest the wage workers and others anxious to secure homes.

The following excerpts are of general interest:

   If wisdom and statesmanship can devise legislation which shall suppress and destroy a gigantic evil which has grown up in these latter days under the name of trusts, whereby the strong oppress and destroy the weak, I pray you to exercise that wisdom and statemanship (sic), and blot out the great wrong.
   The subject of a deep harbor on the Texas coast has recently received much attention in the trans-Mississippi region. The establishment of such a harbor into which ships of the heaviest draft could come without obstruction would remove the most serious obstacle to commercial traffic over the Gulf of Mexico, and would open a new and competitive route to the sea. I advise that you forward a memorial to Congress, asking it to lend a helping hand to the accomplishment of this important purpose.
   I recommend the enactment of a law prohibiting the introduction of a body of Pinkerton men, so called, into the

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State, or any other body of men not residents of the State, for the purpose of police and protection duty.
   The provisions of the law at the last session creating a Board of Pharmacy are now in successful operation and are proving to be a source of great benefit. The result is that we now have educated pharmacists. No one can serve as a druggist clerk unless he has had a thorough training in the druggist's profession and passed a thorough and successful examination. This is a matter which concerns the life arid health of all the people. The Board of Pharmacy is a most beneficial institution. There are now 1,509 educated pharmacists in Nebraska.
   It is within the bounds to say that the business of the executive department has doubled within the last four years. It is true in the department of the chief executive, as I can verify from. experience. One-fourth of the time at least, and probably one-third, is taken up in the consideration of applicants and appeals for pardons. The executive ought to be relieved of a large portion at least, of this labor. A board of pardons would reach this result, and the creation of such a board is recommended.
   Very general attention is being given to this subject of irrigation in the western part of the State, and I commend it to your favorable consideration. I would further respectfully recommend that a joint resolution and memorial be passed by the Legislature urging Congress in favor of the adoption of further necessary measures for irrigating the arid lands of the West.

To the list of benevolent and educational institutions in the State were added, or opened during the term of his incumbency, five in number, the first in order of time being the Institution for Feeble Minded Youth at Beatrice, Gage County, the cost of the building being $18,218.

The result of the work in the school rooms can be seen in detail by reference to the superintendent's report. Manual training, such as farm and house work, with sewing for the girls and brush making for the boys lately added, has been carried on as circumstances would allow. From a personal inspection of the children's work, I consider the industrial department worthy of full equipment. This work demonstrates the usefulness of such an institution, and that many of these persons can be made sulf (sic) sustaining, who, without a course of proper training, would be depend-

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ents, if not a dangerous element in society. There are on file at the institution 254 applications for admission, and on December 1st, 134 inmates, thus leaving many applicants unprovided for. The superintendent has knowledge of 843 feeble minded persons in Nebraska. The State has made less provisions for this class, in proportion to their number, than any other. These helpless children make an urgent appeal to the humanity of the State, and I recommend that your body make provision for their proper care and training. I commend the management of the institution as being painstaking and economical.

In the same year, 1887, the Norfolk Hospital for the Insane, costing $84,292, was opened for patients.

The main building of this hospital was erected in 1885, and in 1887 it was opened for patients. Since the meeting of the last Legislature two wings to the main building have been erected. The report of the superintendent shows that during the two years from December 1st, 1888, to November 30th, 1890, there were admitted as new cases, two hundred and nineteen, one hundred and thirty-seven males, and eighty-two females. Total under treatment for the two years, three hundred and forty. The percentage of recoveries, based on the total number under treatment for the last two years, has been over forty.

In 1888, the Home at Grand Island was completed for the reception of soldiers and sailors.

The report of the commandant of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home shows that there have been 238 members admitted to the Home during its existence. Of this number there are at present 150 members on the rolls of the Home roster. Of these forty-eight have been honorably discharged, twenty summarily, and four dishonorably discharged. Sixteen have died at the Home, There has been an average attendance for twenty-eight months, or since the Home was opened, of 68. Appreciating the hardship of separation of husband and wife, and actuated by a humane instinct, a provision was inserted in the law for the admission of the wives, and children under fifteen years of age, of the soldiers who were compelled by their straitened circumstances to seek homes within its walls. Seven double cottages were erected accommodating fourteen families. Congress enacted a law providing for the payment to each state which has a soldiers' home $100 a year for each in-

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mate of that Home. This will aid largely in payment of the running expenses of this institution.

By an act of the Legislature of 1887 a Nebraska Industrial Home was established, to be under the supervision of the "Women's Board of Associate Charities."

The institution was located and opened for the admission of inmates May 1, 1889. Whole number admitted to November 30, 1890, is fifty-nine, thirty-eight of whom were of American parentage and seventeen of foreign. The average number of adults present in each year is twenty-eight. Average number of children cared for in each year is twenty-three. Good homes have been found for. seventeen. There are now in the Home thirteen children. The object of the Home is to reclaim the fallen, to bring them under good, wholesome, Christian influences, and thus secure their reformation. I believe it is fully accomplishing the purpose for which it was created. It is in consonance with the spirit of true philanthropy and good will, and should be encouraged.

On account of the over-crowded condition of the asylums for the insane at Lincoln and Norfolk, and the policy of separating the incurable from the more hopeful, another building was prepared at a cost of $63,900 located at Hastings.

This institution was opened for the reception of patients August 1st, 1889, at which time were received forty-four patients from Lincoln; November 12th, 1899, fifty patients; and again April 26th, 1890, thirty-two patients, making a total of one hundred and twenty-six patients received from Lincoln. November 12th, 1889, there were received from Norfolk twenty-two patients. There have been received since August 1, 1889, from the different counties twenty-six patients, making a grand total of one hundred and seventy-four received. There are at present one hundred and sixty patients in the institution, one has been discharged as cured, one is out on parole, and one has escaped. Since August 1st, 1889, there has been eleven deaths.

To a Governor who feels himself the head of a great family, every member of which was entitled to his official and humane attentions, in case of unforeseen calamity, the drouth sufferers of 1890 appealed with painful demands. On the first intimation of

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privation and suffering he recommended the county commissioners of the stricken district to organize means of relief. By November he called upon the public to give heed to the Macedonian cry, "Come over and help us"; and in order to add to his knowledge and make it critical, sent two agents to traverse the counties. The result was his organization of a Relief Committee, with which the contiguous railroads co-operated by carrying supplies free of charge. In his message to the Legislature of 1891, he said:

It is safe to conclude from the information thus obtained that six thousand and eleven families will require fuel and provisions during the winter and spring, and nine thousand nine hundred and thirty-eight families will need grain and seed. Those people in the portions of the State in which crops have been blasted by hot winds and the drouth, have become the victims of misfortune from no fault of their own. They are worthy, honest, and industrious as any people in Nebraska or any other state in the Union. They are our own kith and kin--they are our own fellow citizens. This question of relief is of such a magnitude that it has become a state affair; Nebraska cannot afford to permit the report to go abroad that any one within its borders had died of cold and hunger. It is rich enough, it is able enough to take care of its own people. We want no help from abroad. I most earnestly recommend an appropriation with an emergency clause of two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000) for their relief. Further appropriations will be necessary. The necessities of those people require it; in the highest sense, Christian duty sanctions it; humanity dictates it, and God Almighty commands it. The injunction, "Remember the poor and the needy" is as binding now as when uttered by the Holy One two thousand years ago.

The subjoined recommendation closed an earnest appeal to the Legislature in behalf of the Columbian Exposition.

I recommend an appropriation of $150,000 with an emergency clause, for the purpose of inaugurating and maintaining our exhibits. Citizens of Nebraska who attended the Paris Exposition were humiliated by the small and insignificant exhibition of its products made there. I trust Nebraskans who shall attend the Chicago Exposition, and all should attend it, will not be subjected to a like humilia-

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tion. The display from this State should be such as will make every dweller within its borders more proud of it than ever before. The display should be such that every one can exclaim with exultant satisfaction: "That represents my State."

    Ordinarily, Governor Thayer would have been called upon for his retiring message as soon as the Legislature of January 6, 1891, was organized and ready in joint session, to receive it; which would have been followed by the inaugural of his successor. But, inasmuch as the speaker of the house, on account of a contest pending, on the part of J. H. Powers, Independent candidate for Governor, against James E. Boyd, refused to examine and proclaim the result of the election till such contest was settled, and only did it by virtue of a mandamus issued from the Supreme Court of Nebraska, and as the contest was not abandoned till the latter part of January, his message was not called for until the following day. Thus Governor Boyd delivered his inaugural just one month after the commencement of the Legislative session.
   In the meantime, on the 13th of January, John M. Thayer commenced proceedings, in the State Supreme Court, to oust Governor Boyd from office, charging that he was not a citizen of the United States when elected, having been born in Ireland, and never naturalized in the United States. The case having been argued March 12th, 1891, and the opinion of the court having been announced May 5th, reinstating Thayer and ousting Boyd, which was just one month after the adjournment of the Legislature, these officials changed places once more--Thayer to act as Governor till a successor should appear, "elected and qualified," and Boyd to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. After nine months, in the highest tribunal known to our laws, an opinion in favor of Governor Boyd was delivered by Chief Justice Fuller, reinstating him, and retiring Governor Thayer to private life.
   The contest waged by Governor Thayer against James E. Boyd, was upon the basis that if naturalized, the laws of the United States, in that behalf, had been the instrument by which he had

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attained to citizenship; and that he should be able to show court records establishing the fact. Admitting the correctness of this position the Supreme Court of Nebraska decided that James E. Boyd was not a citizen when elected Governor.
But the Supreme Court of the United States gave Mr. Boyd an equivalent for court naturalization, in "collective naturalization" by the admission of the State of Nebraska, and from the "legal presumption" that his father had been naturalized during the son's minority. If that mode of gaining citizenship had been previously amplified as the Supreme Court gave it prominence in this instance, it might be a question whether this action would ever have been filed, on the decision obtained from the Supreme Court of the State. Prior to this time the legal profession had never been furnished with so voluminous a digest of sporadic cases of naturalization. These are fully set forth in the statement of Governor Boyd's administration, in this volume.