Proceedings & Collections - NSHS - Vol. IV

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NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

GOVERNOR LORENZO CROUNSE.

1893-1895.

Governor Lorenzo Crounse delivered his inaugural January 13, 1893, in which he congratulated the legislature upon state prosperity, as contrasted with the drouth of two years before; affirmed the fact of Nebraskans being a plain, toiling people, averse to "extravagance which begets extravagance"; and expressed the positive opinion that "the appropriations made by the last legislature" were $750,000 too high, and that $50,000 more could be saved by the legislature dispensing with unnecessary employees; that the management of state institutions should be so thorough that guilty officials, if in existence, should be exposed; that "corporations not only have no right to unjustly take millions, but they should not be allowed to take an unjust dollar from the people," and yet "their property deserves the same consideration as that accorded to any other," and while the Populist party had control of the legislature and he would have preferred one in harmony with his own views, still it was their duty "to advance the welfare and glory of the State in which we all have such a just pride."
It was at this session of the legislature that Judge William V. Allen, Populist, was elected United States Senator for a term of six years.

MESSAGE, JANUARY 3, 1895.

Two years after the delivery of his inaugural, he was compelled to review a period of great financial depression and failure of crops in the western part of the State, causing him to revive the relief commission of 1891, and giving an opportunity of thanking the people of Oregon and others for substantial aid and the railroads for free transportation for donated supplies: Said he: "My idea is that the several counties should care for their own needy." He believed this would produce economy and

L. CROUNSE.

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honesty in distribution, and if the State would invest the permanent school fund in relief bonds of counties, it would be safer and cheaper than outright appropriations; besides the State indebtedness had reached the constitutional limit.

FINANCES.

   He declared the State's financial condition had, inasmuch as there were outstanding warrants of two classes, equal to $608,538, with only $28,503 with which to pay. He found the property of the State $1,275,685,514, assessed at less than 15 per cent of its value. He demanded better security for State funds deposited with banks; and gave ample evidence of a painstaking and intelligent care over the investments of the permanent. school fund. By securing obedience to the law requiring officers of state institutions to make semi-annual reports of receipts and disbursements, he was able to see order evolved from confusion and economy made the rule rather than the exception. While the monthly demand for coal at the Lincoln Insane Hospital under Thayer's administration for two terms was 546 tons, and under Boyd's 233 tons for one term, it was only 181 tons during the term of Mr. Crounse.
   It was his good fortune to have administered his term on $667,000 less of an appropriation than the allowance for the previous years.
   By allowing an officer of a prominent institution to retain position irrespective of politics, he honored the doctrine of promotion for merit, and said in his message: "Sound legislation should not be avoided for fear of the loss of some partisan advantage." In cases where malfeasance and embezzlement were suspected he promptly aided the officers of justice. In the matter of $236,364 he ordered suit to be brought upon a retired treasurer's bond. He was able to show a decided decline in insane hospital expenses in these words:

These three hospitals, located at Hastings, Lincoln, and Norfolk, under the superintendency of Drs. Johnston, Hay, and Little, respectively, have been ably managed, and I desire to testify to the hearty co-operation and sympathy of

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these gentlemen, and the stewards under them, in my efforts to reduce the expenses of these institutions to the minimum. A reference to the table furnished you will show that the annual per capita tax expense was reduced from $270.04 in the year 1892 to $152.65 in 1894 at Hastings, from $229.72 to $193.05 at Lincoln, and from $270.34 to $258.04 at Norfolk during the corresponding period--all excellent showings and about equally good considering the difference in population of each, which of course affects the result.

IRRIGATION.

In dealing with his immediate fellow-citizens and the outside world he was equally explicit and fair:

The fact that nearly or quite half of the lands within the State lie west of the line of humidity sufficient to insure an unbroken succession of crops, renders irrigation necessary to protect the people against disaster in unusually dry years. The partial failure from drouth in 1890-92-93, and the almost total failure of 1894, has awakened the people to the necessity of providing for watering the growing crops by artificial means. The soil of western Nebraska, where, to some extent, want now prevails, is as fertile as that of any portion of the United States, and in the years past has yielded abundant harvests in response to the efforts of industrious settlers.
RAILROADS AND BEET SUGAR.

Thoroughly impressed with the fact of the State's adaptation to the cultivation of the sugar beet and of the value of that great industry, he suggested a bounty where a specific price had been paid the cultivator of the beet, but which should stop as soon as the United States government gave the sugar industry protection. He declared the court decision "disappointing and unsatisfactory," in admitting the constitutional power to legislate upon freight rates, and then nullifying the law for want of adaptability and the financial ability of the railroads, and suggested an appeal to the court of last resort. During his administration he had specially received and turned into the state treasury $36,595.
With a carefully prepared and condensed message, and in a spirit of kindness he made his official bow.

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CONCLUSION. In relinquishing an office which came to me in a manner highly complimentary I do so with the consciousness of having tried to be of service to the people of the State who have so frequently honored me. How well I have succeeded they must decide. I shall carry with me pleasant recollections of the kindly relations which have existed between myself and those with whom I have associated or had to deal with in an official way.

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GOVERNOR SILAS A. HOLCOMB.

   Hon. Silas A. Holcomb was born in the State of Indiana in the year 1858, and is, consequently, 37 years of age, in this 1895. His early education was obtained in the common and Normal school before his 17th year, when he assumed the duty of teacher. During four years of teaching he was preparing for college; but his plans were seriously deranged on account of the death of his father in 1878. One year thereafter he arrived in Hamilton County, Nebraska, with his mother and younger brothers and sisters. Thoughtful, industrious and persevering, he accepted the first honorable opening for employment, work upon a farm, for one year, and in 1880 entered the law office of Thummel & Platt, at Grand Island, and came to the bar in 1882. In 1883 he removed to Broken Bow, and in 1891 was elected Judge of the 12th Judicial District.
   Though a populist and allied with the silver democrats, he was elected Governor in 1894, while the State went republican by pluralities of from twelve to twenty-five thousand.
   The election of Silas A. Holcomb, of the Populist party, in 1894, took place during the 40th year of our congressional representation (the limit of these sketches). He has been preceded by Burt of South Carolina, Izard of Arkansas, Richmond of Illinois, and Black of Pennsylvania, all democratic territorial governors, and Saunders, republican, from Iowa; also by elected governors of the State, Butler, Furnas, Garber, Nance, Dawes, Thayer and Crounse, republicans, and Boyd, democrat. Governor Crounse, his immediate predecessor, had been inaugurated by a populist legislature, while he was inducted into office by a republican one. In the great political upheaval of 1894 the populists lost the legislature and gained the Governor, while the republicans, losing the Governor, gained the legislature, and consequently the United States Senator, John M.

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Thurston. the canvass had been one of exceeding bitterness. Cleveland democrats had been charged with being allies of Wall Street bankers, bondholders and brokers; republicans, with being in the same boat, and pandering to capital by high protective tariffs; while populists were denounced by both of the old parties, as the destroyers of state credit, advocates of vagaries and extremists generally. Silly opponents fancied the inaugural of Governor Holcomb would give forth sulphur, be lurid in war paint and intimate scalpels and daggers. Populists, silver democrats and independent republicans, who had supported him, had no fears of the result and were delighted with the effort. Exceptional in taste, pure in style, and admirable in scope, dealing only in living issues, the production carried its own vindication. Almost the first subject treated was

DROUTH SUFFERERS. I regret the necessity demanding a careful consideration of the actual want of a great number of our people caused by the drouth of last year. Nature has bountifully blessed Nebraska. Her climate is unexcelled and her soil responds generously to the labor of the husbandman. For years prior to 1890 there was an uninterrupted era of good crops. Rapidly the domain of the rancher was encroached upon by the farmer. From various states came an energetic class of good citizens to make their homes in western Nebraska. Generally they were poor and depended upon the first season's crop to supply themselves and families with all the immediate necessities of life, and until 1890 they never relied in vain. Then came one season when the accustomed rains failed to fall and hot winds swept over the country, carrying devastation to the fields of growing grain. Since then there have been alternating good and poor crops culminating in the general drouth of 1894.
While this drouth extended practically over the entire country, it was particularly disastrous in the western portion of the State. Distressed by combats with previous partial crop failures, many farmers with only moderate means were wholly unprepared to meet the drouth. Many had been unable, on account of the short time of their residence, to store up grain sufficient to meet the exigencies of this extraordinary occasion. Some removed from the State, but the great majority, possessing the utmost faith in the country, remained, determined to hold on to their possessions

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in the drouth-stricken district. If patience and long-suffering make people deserving, the harvest of 1895 should be bountiful.
Our great State is able to take care of its own poor and many of the county boards have, with commendable energy, provided work with compensation for the able-bodied needy in their own counties, but there is still necessity for quick relief to be extended to many portions of the State, so that all her people may be comfortable during the present winter and have an opportunity to seed and work their ground for the coming harvest. I know some claim the legislative body has no right to make the people donate to the. needy and that such work should be left to individuals who are charitably inclined, but every government is in duty bound to provide at public expense the necessities to sustain life to its own needy inhabitants, and especially is this the case when the needy are without fault on their part.
IRRIGATION.

After dwelling upon the success of irrigation upon small scales, he broached the bold and comprehensive theory of National aid:

The great water ways in the State and on its borders have heretofore in early spring run bankful of water. In the early summer they have joined with the waters of the Mississippi and Ohio, and many seasons have spread devastation over the fertile bottoms of Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, while the vegetation of a portion of Nebraska was in many places withering and drying for want of water. The government has seen fit to expend millions of dollars in the construction and maintenance of great levees to protect the property and lives of the people residing along the rivers in the South. Would it not conserve a double purpose and be productive of inestimable good to both sections if the government would direct its efforts towards turning the waters of the western tributaries of the Mississippi River into great reservoirs and thence into irrigation ditches for the development of sections of the country which now produce very little?
A proper system of irrigation would doubtless make the fertile plains of Nebraska and similar states produce an inexhaustible supply of the sweetest vegetables and best cereals, and thus by spreading the water in the springtime would reclaim the great river bottoms of our southern neighbors and make them kings of corn and cotton countries.

SILAS A. HOLCOMB.

STATE GOVERNORS.

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RAILROADS.

Instead of denouncing railroads per se, or urging government control, he declared:

It is an erroneously conceived idea, and quite prevalent, that the interests of the railways and the people of the State are, inimical. In fact the success of each lies principally in the prosperity of the other.
I am of the opinion that if a constitutional amendment creating a board of railroad commissioners, with ample power in the premises, could be submitted to the people it would receive their approval by an overwhelming majority, and I believe this vexed question could be nearer settled satisfactorily in that than in any other manner.
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE.

But with temporary relief, and permanent aid for irrigation, with fair and ample facilities for transportation, he urged intelligent economy and the freest exercise of the elective franchise as the great conservator of human freedom:

   It is your duty to sacredly guard this right to your fellow electors and to reduce to the absolute minimum any infringement of it. Especially does it seem to me that the employees of the larger corporations should, by wise legislation, have such protecting care thrown about them that they may in the exercise of the right of suffrage act without any fear whatsoever from the displeasure of their employers, whose political convictions may be different from their own.
   It is undenied that the Australian ballot law was a needed reform and has done much toward purifying elections in Nebraska, but I am confident it would grant a privilege without mischief if the law should be amended by you so that the elector can designate, where it is possible, his choice of candidates and at the same time, express by his ballot his political convictions.
   I would respectfully suggest that each political party having a fair percentage of the vote in any district should have representation on the election board, and that not more than two judges should be selected from any one political party.
   There can be no more important subject for the careful consideration of lawmakers than the protection of the purity of the ballot, and I would most respectfully call your attention to our existing election laws and invite a
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comparison with those of other states, to the end that amendments may be made rendering bribery and undue influence of the voter more nearly impossible and facilitating the more rapid and accurate counting of votes.

If the legislature and he himself shall be so fortunate as to measure up to his standard of duty, his message two years hence will have joyful acceptance.

Although possessing various political beliefs we as legislators and executive should have but one great object in view--to discharge the duties incumbent upon us in a good businesslike manner for the common good of all. Each of you as a legislator has been elected as the advocate of the principles of some political party, but today you represent all the people of your district. In my capacity I shall earnestly endeavor to be the governor of all the people.