No man has reached the Governor's chair of Nebraska with more real pioneer experience than James E. Boyd. Nine years a citizen of Buffalo county as farmer and ranchman, at a time when warring tribes of Pawnees and Sioux claimed the same region as individual hunting ground, and only had a coerced respect for the Wood River settlement, on account of its near location to Fort Kearney, inured him thoroughly to the privations of a new and undeveloped region, a capricious climate and frequency of Indian alarms. During the same period he superintended a store for a time, at Kearney, and as a railroad contractor graded three hundred miles of Union Pacific track. Before the frontier experience, from 1856 to 1859, he had resided in Omaha as a carpenter and contractor, and when he returned in 1868 he entered at once into city improvements, and organized the Northwestern railroad to Blair, building it and acting as its president. In the meantime he was engaged in cattle grazing on the plains of western Nebraska and subsequently in Wyoming. Since 1872 he has been banker and pork packer on a large scale, employing as high as 170 men. Before his election as governor his legislative training was in the state legislature and in two different constitutional conventions. He was member of the board of aldermen for the city of Omaha, while as a presiding officer twice mayor of Omaha and president of the city board of trade, be had become familiar with the duties of an executive ruler.
   Before the city of Omaha had outgrown her modest halls, he anticipated her coming wants with the beautiful and artistic Boyd opera house, and as soon as the flood tide of population demanded wider borders the "New Boyd" supplanted the old, as the beautiful edifice overshadows the cabin."
   At the time of his election as governor he was fifty-six years

JAS. E. BOYD.

of age, having been born in Tyrone, Ireland, in 1834, whence he came to Ohio in 1844, and thence to Nebraska in 1856. Of state governors, the arrival of General Thayer in 1854 ante-dates him by two years, while Governor Furnas also claims 1856 as his advent; Butler 1858; Garber 1870, and Nance and Dawes 1870. Thayer and Dawes are of New England ancestry, Butler and Garber of Virginia, Boyd of Irish, Furnas of South Carolina, and Nance of French parentage. Furnas, Garber, and Dawes were born in Ohio, Boyd in Ireland, Thayer in Massachusetts, Butler in Indiana and Nance in Illinois. At the time of election Nance was thirty years of age, Butler and Dawes thirty-seven each, Garber forty-one, Furnas forty-eight, Boyd fifty-six and Thayer sixty-six.
   In the campaign of 1890, the People's party or Independents, often called the Alliance, as most of them were members of the Farmer's Alliance, became a formidable rival of the old parties and elected a majority of the legislative members, while the democrats elected the governor and the Republicans the balance of the state officers. The Independents also elected two members to Congress and the Democrats one. As soon as the result of the 4th of November election was known, contests were commenced against the democratic candidate for governor and against the republican candidates for the other state offices. When the legislature convened on the 6th day of January, 1891, the Independents contended that no inauguration of officers should take place till contests were decided, and of course no canvass of votes in joint session and proclamation of the same be made before such final decision. After a conflict of authority between the newly elected speaker of the House, Hon. S. M. Elder, and the lieutenant governor, president of the senate, the chief justice of the supreme court caused a writ of mandamus to issue to Speaker Elder, commanding him to "open and publish the returns, and declare the persons shown by said returns to have the highest number of votes for each of said executive offices, duly elected." In this manner James E. Boyd was declared duly elected.
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   This mandate, of course, did not intend to annul the pending contest, but to place in power the "prima facie" elected officers subject to all future contingencies. Accordingly the 20th day of January, 1891, having been fixed for a joint meeting of both branches of the general assembly to count and declare the votes and election of officers, the contestees including Hon. James E. Boyd, the Hon. T. J. Majors, republican, elected as lieutenant governor, and the balance of the state officers, entered their protests against the legality of the joint assembly, in this, that the concurrent resolution ordering it was never presented to or signed by either the governor or lieutenant governor of the State. To settle the question of the legality of this joint convention, the supreme court was called upon to answer whether, when the governor and lieutenant governor were both contestees and, of course, personally interested in defeating the joint convention, was it necessary to ask their signatures to the resolution, to which the court gave an opinion that their signatures were necessary.
   This decision having been delivered seven days after the time of the intended joint convention, and other complications arising, the contests were fin ally abandoned and the Hon. J. E. Boyd, who had superseded Gen. John M. Thayer, delivered his inaugural address Feb. 6th, 1891, one month after the beginning of the legislative session.
   As this inaugural message was the first democratic utterance of the kind since state organization, it was subjected to close scrutiny and was warmly endorsed by the party and people generally, excepting those of his own party and others who were as honestly, intelligently and patriotically devoted to prohibition as he could be to its rejection. The characteristics of the message were directness, clearness and a critical examination of new themes and living issues. Brief in extent and breathing pure democracy, conciliatory in spirit and exceptional in style, to present it in fragments would do alike injustice to author and reader. But with positive assurance that the lavishly decorated vestibule is worthy of the beautiful structure it adorns, the

reader is introduced through the portal of the exordium, and left with a desire for the unabridged message.

   On the 20th day of March, 1891, house bill No. 12, "For an act to regulate railroads, to classify freights, to fix reasonable maximum rates to be charged for the transportation of freights upon each of the railroads in the State of Nebraska, and to increase the powers and further define the duties of the board of transportation, and to punish violations thereof," was put upon its passage in the state senate. A call of the senate being ordered, a deadlock ensued, which lasted for three days, while a motion could not be entertained for a "suspension of further proceedings under the call," although one senator (Taylor, of Loup county) was permanently absent. Of this state of affairs, after seventy-five hours of continuous session, Senator Stevens said:

   Pending this obstruction to business a self-constituted committee of democrats and republicans, twelve in number, offered a compromise to the independents who were pressing the bill. In the first place they claimed that the railroad bill was unconstitutional; to which it was replied, "If the railroads really thought it was invalid, it is strange that they should offer $5,000 apiece for senatorial votes to defeat it." They further asserted:

   To which sixteen Independent senators made reply,

   After three days of suspense and strife, the sergeant-at-arms. failing to find the absconding senator (Taylor), who had fled from the State, Mr. Shumway, a Republican, moved that further proceedings under the call be dispensed with, and explained his motion as follows:

   The motion prevailed and the bill passed.
   The belief that Taylor was bribed to leave the senate and the State, to defeat railroad legislation, produced the most intense excitement throughout the State, and even the house chaplain, the day after the senate deadlock was broken, emphasized the general feeling in his prayer before that body:

   When the railroad bill was presented to Governor Boyd for his signature he returned it with a veto message, in which he said:

   He strongly combated the idea that the railroads were making exorbitant profits at the present time:

   The interstate rates referred to above are those upon traffic between and beyond states, under laws of Congress, and not the business done within individual states, and governed by their local laws. The governor approved of the "rate on live stock in the eastern part of the State," land "attributed the best intentions and motives to the framers and supporters of the bill," and conceded "that the railroad corporations have, in many instances, exacted unjust tribute from the people," but believed the law lacked careful consideration, was unconstitutional, and would stop railroad construction, deter capital from entering the State for improvements, and in the reduction of wages and discharge from railroad services produce a dangerous competition in other branches of labor. On account of the condition of affairs in the State he also argued that the bill was inopportune:

   Remembering that each party platform demanded restrictive legislation, and that the retiring governor's message recommended it and his own inaugural address made it prominent, he knew full well that the temporary political consequences of his own official act were impending.

   Inasmuch as the majority in each house was not large enough to pass the bill over the veto, it failed to become a law, and since the Independent party had redeemed its pledges by passing it they returned to their constituents vindicated, while several other members had voted for it under protest.
   Two other acts were passed and signed by Governor Boyd, relative to railroads, the one providing for naming stations after the towns in which they may be located, and the other for securing the safety of operatives by requiring railroads, corporations and companies to equip engines and cars with proper, efficient and safe automatic couplers and brakes, so that brakemen shall not be required to go between cars, or on top of them, in the discharge of their duties.
   If the governor could not co-operate with the Independent party fully as to the details of railroad legislation, it must have given him pleasure to find the general recommendations of his

message upon suffrage so completely incorporated in the secret ballot law. If it secures the freedom of the voter, shields the poor man of talent and integrity against the competitor of mere wealth and assumptions, and results in purity of elections and the education of manly voters, and relegates bribes and bribery to the rear, all concerned in its establishment will have cause to rejoice in an honored citizenship and a dignified state.
   Having called the attention of the legislature to the fact that "the warehouse system now in vogue in the State of Nebraska is wholly in the hands of private parties and corporations, uncontrolled by and not responsible to any statute of the State, relative to public warehouses," the body took prompt action and gave form to a statute. The scope of the law required a license for keeping a warehouse, for reception, storage, and sale of grain, under penalty of a $10,000 bond and a fine of from one to five hundred dollars for every day's business transacted without such license, obtained from the State Board of Transportation. Owners of property were to have access to the same and all the books and records of the warehouse; receipts were made transferable by endorsement; the issue of fraudulent receipts made punishable with imprisonment for not more than ten years in the penitentiary, in addition to all other penalties, and provisions were made for a chief inspector, with all such safeguards and restrictions as the experience of other states bad found necessary and practicable from absolute test and experience. This act was followed by another giving new duties to the Board of Transportation, among which was the appointment of a committee of appeals for each city and town in which a warehouse was located, the members of which were placed under bonds of $5,000 each, having first taken the oath of office.
   The recommendation for cheaper school books was met by a law allowing the district boards to purchase a supply to be loaned to pupils of the school or sold at cost to patrons for the use of their children.
   Having signed a bill in aid of drouth sufferers of 1890 appropriating $100,000, before delivering his inaugural, he therein

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