the use of railroad passes by officeholders, offerred (sic) by Edgar Howard of Platte county, but when he included newspaper passes the bobtail concession to reform was accepted.
   The republicans dodged this issue but righteously faced another more pressing. Joseph S. Bartley, state treasurer, 1893-1897, embezzled $555,790.66 of the state funds, for which he was sentenced to twenty years in the penitentiary and a fine of $303,768.90. Ezra P. Savage, lieutenant-governor, having succeeded Governor Dietrich when he became United States senator, paroled Bartley for sixty days. The republican state convention, August 28, 1901, by a vote of 998 to 165, demanded the recall of the parole which would have expired September 13th. Savage contended in the convention that Bartley, if let alone, would restore the amount for whose loss he was responsible, estimated at $325,000; and Charles 0. Whedon pleaded, in palliation, that when Bartley went out of office he left to his successor $1,042,000 and added large sums afterward, some on the day of his arrest. The convention hissed the delegates from Lancaster county when they voted against the resolution. Edward Rosewater and Addison E. Cady spoke strongly for it. Nevertheless, on the 21st of the following December, Savage commuted Bartley's sentence to five years, seven months, and eight days, thereby stirring up hot public indignation. There was and remains strong suspicion that over thirty thousand dollars was spent to procure this pardon. It is circumstantially related that Governor Poynter was corruptly approached for the same purpose. Governor Mickey declared in his annual message of 1907 that, "the people were robbed of this immense sum which had been exacted from them, to run the government, in times of financial distress." The liability of Bartley's bondsmen and others involved in his transactions was safely lost in the mazes of the court.
   The easy sailing for the republicans continued in 1904. Governor Mickey was reëlected governor, receiving 111,711 votes to 102,568 cast for George W. Berge, fusionist. The republican convention this year made an initiative step toward the voluntary submission of the choice of United States senators to the people, which was formally adopted by the so-called Oregon pledge law enacted by the legislature of 1909. Mr. Burkett's election was unanimously recommended by the convention of the year in question. This was the high tide year of republicanism. The opposition could not claim a single member of the senate elected that year, and in the house there were ninety-one republican members to nine fusionists. Of the forlorn band of fusionists two came from Richardson county, one from Platte, two from Butler, one from Polk, one from Holt, one from Custer and Logan. W. H. Jennings of Thayer was temporary president of the senate and George L. Rouse of Hall, speaker of the house. Theretofore conservative if not reactionist, the old party was fast catching the revolutionary reform spirit from President Roosevelt; and for the first time, in Nebraska, it set about resolutely to pass vital reform legislation, or to try to do so; but effective regeneration could not be assimilated at a single sitting, and so the real work was postponed to the following session of 1907. In their convention -- September 14, 1905 -- republicans declared in favor of primary elections for all public offices and that, "We believe that the giving of free transportation upon railways is detrimental to the interests of the people and recommend that a law be enacted by the legislature of this state to prohibit it." George L. Sheldon's positive stand for those reform measures brought him the governorship the next year. The democrats, at their convention, September 20th, also first definitively committed themselves to the vital reform measures. They declared in favor of a general primary election system, of the initiative and referendum, and demanded that members of the legislature and judges must give up all railroad passes. Judge William G. Hastings, whom the convention nominated for judge of the supreme court, introduced a resolution demanding the passing of a law making it a criminal offense to give or accept free transportation except in case of bona fide employees and genuine cases of charity, and it passed with one negative vote -- that of Glo-

ver of Hamilton county, who thought the inhibition an infringement on individual rights. This declaration -- Mr. Bryan's contribution -- was passed without dissent: "We denounce the acceptance of the Rockefeller gift by the regents of the university, and demand the withdrawal and the return to Mr. Rockefeller of any money that may have been received from him." But public opinion remained too sordid to appreciate or appraise the moral value of this sentiment. The money -- $66,000 -- was accepted and the building stands as a monument to the still lurking Machiavellianism of public moral sentiment, namely, that the end justifies the means. Perhaps the University, in its great need for better housing, has been a material gainer by accepting this gift from funds which the people, owners and sponsors of the institution, hotly declared had been taken from them by the most piratical and unlawful methods. The least that can be said about this bewildering puzzle in ethics is that thousands of the staunchest friends and enforced supporters of the University have been stung to the quick by this, as it seems to them, venal lapse from common moral principle and will go on believing that the University is a loser by such methods in both the material and spiritual aspect.

   There were only fifty delegates from twenty-three counties in the populist convention this year, and the democrats conceded them only one candidate -- for regent -- upon the state ticket. Charles B. Letton, republican, was elected judge of the supreme court over his fusion competitor, William G. Hastings, by a vote of 96,167 to 72,949, and the two republican candidates for regent of the University were elected by approximately the same majority.
   The contrast between what was said and what was not said by the republican convention of 1904 and its declarations of the next year are comical if taken seriously at all. In 1904 the vital state questions were not referred to, while the convention sorrowed over the loss of "another gifted and beloved leader, Senator Marcus A. Hanna"; and it recommended John L. Webster, who continues to pride himself on his arch-standpatism, as a candidate for vice president. A florid puff for the insurgent President Roosevelt added variety to the peculiar mixture. The culmination and positive expression of anti-pass sentiment in 1905 precipitated an epidemic of reform hysteria among the politicians. The more susceptible of the state officials vied with one another, not only in giving up the until now cherished tokens of railroad favor but in doing it in the most ostentatious manner. Those of us who had witnessed the periodical religious revivals in our earlier country settlements were struck with the similarity of the emotional manifestation. In the height of the excitement in those revival meetings, women would not infrequently tear brooches from their breasts. and rings from their ears and disdainfully throw them upon the floor -- usually, however, to be restored on the restoration of normal temper. But the sacrifices of the religious neophytes were at least sincere.
   The new awakening naturally culminated -- at a convention held in Lincoln, August 22, 1906 -- in the nomination by the republicans of George L. Sheldon of Cass county, for governor on the second ballot, the several standpat aspirants receiving but slender support. The declarations of the platform were consistent with the well known views of the candidate and were direct and unequivocal. They censured the Burlington & Missouri and Union Pacific railroads for having refused to accept the valuation of their property by the state board of equalization; demanded that the next legislature should enact a direct primary law for the nomination of all state, county, and district officers, including United States senators and members of the lower house of the federal Congress, favoring in the meantime the nomination of United States senators by state conventions; demanded an amendment of the federal constitution providing for the popular election of United States senators; demanded the passage of a stringent anti-pass law by the next legislature; favored and approved the proposed amendment for an elective railroad commission and declared that if it should not be adopted at the

election the legislature must pass laws to give the state the same advantages as Congress had already given the nation under the "railroad rate bill"; declared in favor of the taxation of railroad property within cities and villages the same as other property for municipal purposes; and favored the passage of an equitable compensation act for employees of corporations. The convention praised the fight by state officers against conspiring trusts -- the net result of which was to promote Attorney-General Norris Brown to a United States senatorship.

   The dramatic feature of this convention was the appearance and defeat of Edward Rosewater for the United States senatorship to which he had long aspired. On the first ballot the vote was 401 for Norris Brown of Buffalo; 273 1/2 for Rosewater. The remaining 153 1/2 were divided among four other candidates, 46 1/2 going to Joseph H. Millard, the outgoing senator. Brown was nominated on the sixth ballot with 433 votes against 291Y2 for Rosewater. Mr. Rosewater's highest vote was 306 1/2 -- on the fifth ballot. The whilom doughty editor's speech at the close of the contest impressed the listeners as a premonitory farewell. He died suddenly in the Bee building August 30th, but a week and a day after the curtain had been drawn in the convention over his political aspirations. Mr. Rosewater may fairly be called the Joseph Pulitzer of Nebraska journalism, though the New Yorker was distinguished by genius in his profession where the Nebraskan was limited to great talent. They were alike in the characteristics of independence, progressiveness, and relentless pursuit of their journalistic quarry, to slight extent respecters of persons. While the Bee did very effective constructive work in the building of Nebraska, its most important field of influence, perhaps, was unhorsing political grafters and exposing administrative corruption and other abuses. To have established a dominant newspaper, such as the Bee, upon original and persistent insurgency, anticipated full thirty years, was a great achievement.
   The democratic convention nominated Ashton C. Shallenberger of Harlan county for governor upon the first ballot, George W. Berge of Lancaster county being his principal competitor. The resolutions adopted by the convention promised that if the democrats should get into power they would enact a stringent anti-pass law; taunted republicans upon their neglect to enforce the law of 1897 which in effect prohibited the issue of railroad passes to officeholders and delegates to conventions; denounced the last republican legislature for defeating the anti-pass law; and declared themselves in favor of enacting a maximum two-cent passenger bill.
   The discriminating public, however, was inclined to look backwards a few years to the neglect of the fusionists themselves, when they were in power, to keep their positive and implied pledges for reform. Now that the republicans had manifested complete conversion to a progressive program, they reaped the advantage of their normal majority in the state. Sheldon, for governor, received 97,858 votes to 84,885 cast for Ashton C. Shallenberger, democrat, who was the nominee of the people's independent party as well as of his own. Harry T. Sutton, prohibitionist, received 5,106 votes, and Elisha Taylor, socialist, 2,999. The preferential vote for candidates for the United States senatorship was taken in earnest this year, Norris Brown, republican, receiving 98,374 votes to 83,851 for William H. Thompson, his democratic opponent. The republican candidates for member of Congress were successful in five of the six districts; Gilbert M. Hitchcock of the second district being the only successful fusion aspirant. Ernest M. Pollard was elected in the first district, J. F. Boyd in the third, Edmund H. Hinshaw in the fourth, George W. Norris in the fifth, and Moses P. Kinkaid in the sixth. The proposed amendment providing for an elective railway commission was carried by the overwhelming vote of 147,472 to 8,896, and three republican railroad commissioners were chosen at the same election.
   The republican candidates for membership of the legislature were also overwhelmingly successful. The senate contained twenty-eight republicans, three people's independent

and two democrats; the house, sixty-nine republicans, twenty-six people's independent and five democrats. The legislature kept the platform pledges of the party with remarkable fidelity. Among the progressive laws which it enacted are a railroad employers' liability act; a general primary election law; an act revising the pure food law; an anti-lobbying law; a sweeping anti-pass law; a law fixing two cents as the maximum rate for passenger travel; a law providing for the issue of railroad mileage books and a terminal railroad taxation law. This unique body in its reform enthusiasm kept the pledge of the democrats also in the passage of the most radical, if not the most important measure of the session, the two-cent rate bill.
   The liquor question, which had been almost dormant, politically, for many years, was probably precipitated by an act prohibiting brewers from holding any interest in saloons. It passed the senate by a vote of 25 to 4 and the house by 67 to 21. The two-cent passenger rate bill passed the house without opposition, receiving 90 affirmative votes, and the senate by 27 to 4. Burns of Lancaster county, Glover of Custer, Gould of Greeley, and Hanna of Cherry, all republicans, were the four opponents of this measure. A bill was also passed making a flat reduction of fifteen per cent in freight rates. Both the passenger and freight enactments are still in force although their validity is being tested in the courts.
   The first general primary election in the state was held September 3, 1907. At this election Manoah B. Reese, republican, of Lancaster county, was nominated for judge of the supreme court, receiving 30,111 votes against 22,757 cast for his competitor, Samuel H. Sedgwick of York county. George L. Loomis of Dodge county received the democratic and people's independent nomination for the judgeship. The republicans elected their ticket, which included, also, a railroad commissioner and two regents of the University. Judge Reese received 102,387 votes; Judge Loomis, 77,981. Under the new primary act state conventions of the several parties were authorized to be held in Lincoln, on the fourth Tuesday of September of each year, for the purpose of adopting platforms and for conducting the business of the party organizations. These conventions were first held September 24, 1907. The democratic convention of 1908 for choosing delegates to the national convention instructed the delegates to vote for the nomination of William J. Bryan for president; and the people's independent convention was a side-show in this respect. The republican convention was friendly to the nomination of Taft but the delegates were not instructed. At the election of 1908 there was a friendly feeling toward the candidacy of Mr. Bryan and he carried the state, receiving a very complimentary majority. The maximum vote for democratic electors was 131,099; for republican electors, 126,997. The highest vote for a prohibition candidate was 5,179; for a socialist candidate, 3,524.
   Three influences contributed to the election of Shallenberger over Sheldon and by a larger majority than that received by Mr. Bryan, The state ticket was the beneficiary of the friendliness toward the home candidate for the presidency; Governor Shallenberger was an exceedingly virile and taking campaigner, greatly excelling his competitor in this respect; and the liquor interests apparently favored somewhat the democratic state ticket. Shallenberger received 132,960 votes against 125,976 for Sheldon; and W. H. Cowgill, democrat, was elected railroad commissioner over J. A. Williams, the republican incumbent; John A. Maguire, democratic candidate for member of Congress in the first district, defeated Ernest M. Pollard, the republican incumbent; Gilbert Al. Hitchcock, democrat, was reëlected in the second district; James F. Latta, democrat, was elected in the third district, The republican candidates were successful in the other three districts, though in the fourth district, C. F. Gilbert, democrat, was defeated by Hinshaw, the republican incumbent, by the narrow margin of 21,819 to 22,674 and F. W. Ashton was defeated by George W. Norris in the fifth district by the still narrower margin of 20,627 to 20,649.The two amend-

ments to the constitution increasing the number of judges of the supreme court from three to seven and their salaries from $2,500 to, $4,500; and enlarging the field for the investment of state educational funds so as to include registered school district bonds of this state and "such other securities as the legislature may from time to time direct," were both adopted -- the first by 214,218 to 16,271; the second by 213,000 to 14,395. The democrats also controlled the legislature; having nineteen members of the senate against thirteen republicans and one people's independent, and sixty-five members of the house against thirty-one republicans, two people's independents, and two fusionists. Though the republicans apparently left the democrats nothing to conquer in the world of reform they discovered and appropriated several important measures. The twenty-third legislature met in the thirty-first session, the twenty-first regular session, January 5, 1909, and finally adjourned April 1st of that year-the sixty-fifth day. George W. Tibbets, democrat, of Adams county, was elected temporary president of the senate, and Charles W. Pool, democrat, of Johnson county, speaker of the house.
   The most notable enactment of the session was that requiring all saloons in the state to be closed from eight o'clock in the evening until seven in the morning. This was the first amendment of great importance to the Slocumb license law, which had been in force ever since 1881; and it broke like a thunderbolt upon the saloon interests. It grew out of a comparatively unimportant and innocent bill (S. F. 283), introduced by Senator Wiltse, republican, which merely required the closing of saloons on primary election days.
   Other notable enactments of the session were a bank guaranty law, patterned after that which had become notorious in Oklahoma; a corporation occupation tax; an amendment of the closed primary law permitting voters to receive and cast ballots at the primary elections without requiring from them any declaration as to their party affiliations, past, present, or future, commonly known as the open primary; a fire commission, a supplement to fire insurance; a law providing that judicial and educational officers should be elected without any partisan distinction, Unfortunately the supreme court found it necessary to annul this very desirable measure because of a technical defect in its form. As has already been shown, the people had found the way to virtually choose United States senators by their own popular vote, but this legislature put the new departure into better form by passing what is known as the Oregon pledge law, which permits candidates at the primaries for membership in the legislature to pledge the public that in case they shall be elected they will vote for that candidate for the United States senatorship who receives the highest vote for that office at the general election next preceding the election by the legislature.
   In the campaign of 1910 all normal calculations were upset by the injection of the prohibition question and the invasion of the democratic ticket by large numbers of republicans, through the opportunity offered by the open primary law which had been passed at the late session of the legislature. While Governor Shallenberger had incurred the bitter hostility of the extreme liquor interests by signing the eight o'clock closing law and, naturally, in the circumstances, had not recouped from the strong partisans of prohibition or county option, yet his administration had been so virile and his personality in general so taking, that his renomination and reëlection were generally conceded by politicians. But the aggressive pro-saloon republicans, to the number of about 15,000, voted for James C. Dahlman, the democratic mayor of Omaha, and he was nominated over Shallenberger by the narrow margin of 27,591 to 27,287. If the governor had stood firmly on his well-known opposition to county option, he would have been renominated. His announcement to the democratic convention that he would sign a county option bill, if one should be passed, was bad politics as well as bad statesmanship. Chester H. Aldrich, a radical partisan of county option, was nominated by the republicans. At the same primary Elmer J. Burkett was nominated by the republicans to succeed

himself as United States senator, and Gilbert M. Hitchcock of Douglas county, was nominated by the democrats.
   The conventions of the democratic and republican parties for 1910, held according to the primary election law on the 26th of July, were unusually exciting, the temporary perturbation of the democrats amounting to turbulence. Their convention was held at Grand Island, and W. J. Bryan started the trouble by an aggressive advocacy of a county option plank as follows: "We favor county option as the best method of dealing with the liquor question." The extreme or Dahlman element offered the following plank: "We favor local option as now provided by law but are opposed to county option." The Bryan plank was rejected by the overwhelming vote of 647 to 198 and the Dahlman plank by 638 to 202. The plank proposed by the majority of the resolutions committee was adopted without division: "We oppose county option and making any other plan of dealing with the liquor traffic a question of party creed. We favor strict enforcement of the present law, and any change therein should be made only by direct vote. We do not believe that good government and good morals are best subserved by dividing the people into hostile camps on strictly moral questions." This was a palpable evasion of a question upon which the public mind had sharply divided, and it was verbose at that. A plank endorsing the eight o'clock closing law was adopted by a vote of 710 to 163. Bryan invited another defeat by seeking to amend a motion by Gilbert M. Hitchcock providing that amendments to the platform should only be considered through the media of majority or minority reports. The proposed amendment was defeated by 465 to 394. This was the first defeat that Mr. Bryan had suffered in a democratic convention in Nebraska since his spectacular fight against the gold democrats in the convention of 1893.
   Republicans saw in wooing the increasing prohibition sentiment the only opportunity of defeating Governor Shallenberger, whose renomination was expected as a matter of course; and so at their convention, held in Lincoln, they adopted a county option plank. The minority of the resolutions committee, led by John L. Webster of Omaha, sought to evade the issue by declaring that a question within the purview of the police power had no place in a political platform, but the flat declaration for county option was preferred to this compromise by a vote of 558 to 276. This convention was thoroughly insurgent in spirit and action. Even the long scorned "populistic" initiative and referendum, though rejected by the resolutions committee, was taken up by the convention and adopted by the decisive vote of 524 to 289. A resolution offered from the floor by Congressman George W. Norris, denouncing Cannonism and approving the insurgent movement in and out of Congress, was also carried by a decisive majority. Thus democrats and republicans vied with one another in espousing radically progressive measures while each party was sharply divided on the prohibition question.
   There was much bad logic wasted in both conventions in attempting to differentiate prohibition, which for the time was called county option, as a moral question. Mr. Bryan, especially, emphasized this contention in a specious declaration that the question being moral was therefore one of right or wrong and therefore he must be for prohibition because that was right and nobody could afford to be wrong. Many thoughtful and disinterested people regard the question of license or prohibition as one of expediency to be decided upon one's best judgment as to which plan would more satisfactorily deal with the admitted evils of the liquor traffice (sic). The oppression of the trusts and of the beneficiaries of the tariff is no less immoral than the evils growing out of the liquor traffic; and, by a like facile assumption that they are moral issues, they, too, might be taken out of their proper arena of politics.
   Mr. Bryan declared that "The people of Lincoln are so well pleased with having closed its saloons that they will not be terrified into opening them again by threats of the removal of the state capital." Nevertheless,

within a few months, the people of Lincoln, confronted by a removalist legislature, were so terrified at the menace, that the procurement of liquor was facilitated to the uttermost, and on the very heels of the terror -- which abated only with final adjournment of the legislature -- they voted saloons in again by a decisive majority.
   The result of the election indicated a preponderance of public opinion in the state against prohibition -- particularly spreading prohibition through the medium of county option in contradistinction to the usual plan of municipal option. The attitude of James C. Dahlman toward the liquor question was so fantastically unmoral as to make him an unavailable candidate, and his defeat was therefore inevitable. Aldrich, republican county optionist, received 123,070 votes; Dahlman, 107,760. The rest of the republican state ticket was also elected, though by much smaller majorities than that of Aldrich. Charles W. Pool, democratic candidate for secretary of state, for example, received 111,137 votes against 111,229 cast for his competitor, Addison Wait. Gilbert M. Hitchcock, democratic candidate for United States senator, received 122,517 votes against 102,861 cast for Burkett, republican. The democrats gained both houses of the legislature, having fifty-four members of the house to forty-five republicans and one people's independent; and nineteen senators against fourteen republican. The republicans, in the circumstances, had everything to gain, temporarily, and nothing to lose by risking their chances upon the throw of the prohibition die. Mr. Bryan won nothing in the contest except the defeat of Dahlman, his long time friend and party lieutenant; and since there was no increasing menace of the saloon interests, while on the contrary they had received in the shape of the eight o'clock closing law in the very last legislature, their most damaging blow since the passage of the Slocumb law in 1881, there was no plausible call for a sudden or radical change of attitude toward them. It seems that Mr. Bryan's sudden hostility may be attributed to complex impulses: to a mistake in local political diagnosis; to resentment against the liquor interests which he thought had opposed his candidacy in 1908 and whom he hoped, by a virtual alliance with the republicans, to punish by the infliction of county option -- near prohibition; and to a feeling that his relations toward the democratic party would now permit him to pursue a natural temperamental bent or predilection.
   Mr. Bryan is, preëminently, an evangelist. His greatest work, in the political, and the more extended sociological field, has been done in the role of an exhorter of the religiously moral type. It is likely, therefore, that he has long felt that the saloon as an institution is fundamentally a wrong which ought to be outlawed as a matter of course. So long as he was the titular leader, or strove to be the real leader of a great national party, it would have been disastrous, alike to himself and the party, for him to espouse prohibition. So long as that relationship endured true statesmanship forbade such a course on his part. Had his personal bent become paramount in 1910, as against party leadership, or did he believe that national party success lay in prohibition? While for many years Dahlman had been very useful to Bryan, his own influence and patronage had given this favorite the principal basis for his political distinction and the prestige which put him into the important office of mayor of Omaha. Republican enthusiasm for the paramount "moral" issue of county option was so rushing and so gushing that it spent its force within a single year, and by discreetly dropping it the backslid converts were able to win a normal victory at the election of 1911.
   The twenty-fourth legislature met in the thirty-second session -- the twenty-second regular session -- January 3, 1911, and finally adjourned April 6th of that year -- the sixty-seventh day. The house of representatives comprised fifty-five democrats and populists and forty-five republicans. Only one member, Frank Dolezal of Saunders county, registered as "people's independent," but seven registered as democrats and independents -- a distinction now without an appreciable difference. There were forty-seven "admitted" democrats in that body. John Kuhl, democrat, of Pierce county, was speaker. The sen-

ate comprised nineteen democrats and fourteen republicans. John H. Morehead of Richardson county, democrat, was temporary president.
   In point of economy the public is a great gainer by the present method of virtually choosing United States senators at the polls, leaving to the legislature the formal constitutional duty of ratifying the popular choice. In the senate all of the democrats and all of the republicans but one voted for Gilbert M. Hitchcock according to the decsion (sic) of the people at the general election of 1910. In the house the vote was not so nearly unanimous, though Hitchcock received 87 votes to 10 cast for Elmer J. Burkett, his republican opponent at the election. Two questions, the one largely growing out of the other, excited and kept up a lively interest during this session until they were settled. A county option license bill (H. R. 392) was defeated in the house by a vote of 50 to 48 -- not a constitutional majority. The fifty affirmative votes were cast by forty republicans and ten democrats; the forty-eight negative votes by forty-two democrats, one people's independent, five republicans. A similar bill introduced in the senate (S. F. 118) was defeated by the close vote of 16 to 17. Of the sixteen senators voting aye thirteen were republican and three were democrats. All those voting nay were democrats except one -- Bartling, of Otoe county.
   The great activity of republican leaders in Lancaster county in favor of county option, coupled with the fact that Lincoln had voted to abolish saloons, aroused the hostility throughout the state of the positive partisans of the saloons, and the people of various localities took advantage of this animosity to build up a formidable sentiment in favor of removing the capital from Lincoln. A bill (H. R. 246) providing for the removal of the capital was ordered to be engrossed for third reading in committee of the whole, but it failed of final passage in the house by a vote of 38 to 58. Another bill of the same nature (H. R. 382) was amended in the committee of the whole so as to provide that any city or village might become an aspirant for the capital at an election to remove it, under regulations prescribed by the bill. This change defeated the scheme of the removalists whose hope was based upon first carrying a simple proposition to remove the capital, thus excluding Lincoln from the resulting contest between the aspirants. A motion to not concur in the report of the committee of the whole was defeated by a vote of 18 to 58. The bill was abandoned at this stage, thus ending what in the earlier part of the session appeared to be a formidable movement.
   This legislature was also fairly entitled to be called progressive, as shown by a considerable number of enactments along lines of modern growth. After a long contest stock yards were placed under the control of the state railway commission with power to regulate the service and charges of all kinds, a notable advance along the line of corporation control. A bill was passed authorizing all cities with a population of 5,000 or upwards to adopt the commission plan of government. The form prescribed is similar to the so-called Des Moines plan. This plan is not the best of its class, but a proposed amendment to the constitution permitting municipalities with a population of 5,000 to make their own charters will give a proper opportunity for the adoption of the most approved forms. One of the most important acts of the session was the passage of a joint resolution submitting an amendment to the constitution giving the people power to enact laws directly and to reject objectionable acts of the legislature. The rules under which the power may be invoked are calculated to check the excessive and inconsiderate use of the initiative and referendum which has resulted in other states where the principle has been adopted.
   In the election of 1910 Chester H. Aldrich was elected governor over James Dahlman. Mr. Aldrich had been a member of the famous legislative session of 1907 and identified with many reform measures, but the democrats had a majority in both houses of the legislature of 1911. Mr. Aldrich was therefore restrained from placing a progressive republican program before the people. However, the session was distinguished by two

bills in particular; one, as mentioned on the preceding page, placed the stockyards under the control of the railway commission. This was largely due to the fine brand of generalship displayed by Senator J. A. Ollis of Valley county. The senate was closely divided on the "wet" and "dry" issue; Senator Ollis, with two or three "dry" democratic colleagues, joined the "dry" republicans and succeeded in gaining some control in the senate. The second measure of unusual importance was a one-mill levy for the extension of the University which, through a period of successful years, had outgrown its quarters and progressive extension became important. The question of the removal of the University from the city to the farm campus was submitted to the people through a referendum and lost.
   In the campaign of 1912 the republican party was badly shattered by the stand of Theodore Roosevelt against the regular party nominee of the Chicago convention. Mr. Roosevelt had been instrumental in securing the election of William Howard Taft to the presidency, but on account of his conservatism turned against him for reëelection (sic). When the national convention renominated Mr. Taft, Mr. Roosevelt withdrew from the convention and formed the progressive or "Bull Moose" party. Mr. Roosevelt, by securing the nomination by the new party for the presidency, compassed the defeat of the republican party.
   In the state election of 1912 Mr. Aldrich was defeated for reëlection by John H. Morehead, who succeeded in holding his place through two elections. When Mr. Morehead became a candidate he announced himself as a one-term governor, but his leadership was so acceptable to his party that he was induced to run for a second term. There was much talk of a third term, but it did not materialize.
   In the campaign of 1914 the split in the republican ranks made easy work for the democrats. Mr. R. Beecher Howell of Omaha was nominated for governor on the republican ticket, and Mr. Morehead on the democratic. The democrats elected their entire ticket with two exceptions. Mr. Fred Beckman (republican) succeeded himself as land commissioner, and Mr. A. O. Thomas (republican) was elected state superintendent of public instruction.
   The state election of 1916 was influenced in large part by the national issues and partly by the submission of the amendment to the constitution prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicants within the state. The democratic party, under the leadership of Woodrow Wilson, accepted the progressive attitude and championed the peace policy. In the initial campaign, the democratic party within the state was torn asunder, but was able to recover. This trouble came about through the espousal of the temperance issue by the Bryan following. Mr. Bryan had resigned from the cabinet under President Wilson and had become a free lance. He immediately took up the crusade for a "dry" Nebraska and his brother, Charles Bryan, became a candidate for governor on the democratic ticket, accepting prohibition as a plank of his platform. The republicans nominated Abraham L. Sutton of Omaha for governor. Mr. Bryan lost in the primaries to Keith Neville. The democrats elected their entire ticket by majorities ranging from 1,300 for state superintendent to 41,000 for president. The constitutional amendment carried by a majority of 30,000.
   The chief interest of the legislature of 1917 centered about the making of a "bone dry" law to enforce the provisions of the constitutional amendment. There is no doubt that the legislature came in with good intentions, but it was up to the liquor interests to make their last stand. The house of representatives passed the measure in good form, perhaps strengthened by national legislation, but the senate could not see its way clear to pass. the measure until the close of the prolonged session. This session was marked by the number of farmers who were seated. Much progressive legislation was attempted and some excellent laws were enacted. Among the measures deserving special notice are the "bone dry" law, a limited suffrage law, state hail insurance, a law for the redistricting of the county for school purposes, and a law placing state and county superintendents on a non-partisan basis. The term of county superintendents was extended from two years to four years.