ACTING GOVERNOR W. H. JAMES.

1871-1873.

William H. James was a native of Marion County, Ohio, and received his early education in the common schools of the State and from the Marion Academy. He was alternately farmer, clerk, and mechanic, and finally student at law, having entered a law office in 1853.

The date of his settlement in Nebraska was in 1857, three years after the territorial organization. From this time until his election as secretary of state in 1870, he had given some attention to legal practice, surveying, and the duties of register of a land office for five years under appointment of President Lincoln. His term of acting governor commenced with the impeachment of Governor Butler, March 4th, 1871, and continued till January 10th, 1873. The legislature convening but once every two years, he delivered his only message January 10th, 1873, and three days thereafter was superseded by Governor Furnas.

Among the subjects presented for consideration we find the admonition that prison discipline should seek the protection of society, and not attempt "vindictive punishment," greater unity of action between the regents and faculty of the state university demanded, special attention to be given the insane, idiots, and imbeciles, pardoning power to be exercised with great care, laws enacted to protect capital coming to the State for investment, and usury laws repealed since "capital is timid."

There remained in the state treasury January 18th, 1871, $37,547; receipts to December 31, 1872, $1,183,074; total $1,220,621. Disbursements, $1,022,233; balance in treasury to credit of the several funds $98,387.

Inasmuch as the exercise of "doubtful and dangerous authority" had given him an administration, "of few days and full of

trouble," he deemed it well to go upon record as to the care of public funds.

While it is true that public money should be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of authority, it is equally true that the executive officer of the State should not be urged to a stretch of legal or constitutional authority by reason of insufficient provisions, to meet any demands on the State, growing out of the proper administration of the laws. A violation of the law growing out of a public want, may furnish a precedent under which a private need may be met. And I feel that I can not too strongly urge upon your attention the importance of a careful examination into the wants of the state government and the making of such specific appropriations as will remove all necessity or excuse for the exercise of doubtful and dangerous authority.

After the acting governor's intelligent disquisition upon the scrupulous care to be observed in the use of public money, and "the impolicy of resorting to doubtful and dangerous authority," it is a little astonishing that the state senate felt called upon to ask what disposition had been made of a particular fund, in charge of the governor, of which the auditor and treasurer had no report; and further that a senate committee had to report that he admitted that he had not done right in retaining a certain $6,300-and would pay it over on the order of the legis lature, and though he promised to make a written statement to the committee in the course of the same day, had failed to do so.

In those early days of crude laws and new and unexpected demands, it was attempted to palliate delinquencies and indiscre tions from the demands of public wants, though there was great danger of establishing precedents in favor of "private needs."

GOVERNOR ROBERT W. FURNAS.

1873-1875.

Born in 1824, an orphan at eight, a printer's apprentice at seventeen years of age, and editor of a Miami County, Ohio, paper in his twenty-third year, the subject of this sketch began life courageously and in earnest. During forty-five years exGovernor R. W. Furnas has been a very active and intelligent worker for the interests of Nemaha county and the State of Nebraska. The town of Brownville knew him as a Fourth of July orator in 1856, and subsequently as member of the town. council and the board of education, as a trustee of church property, leading member of the Masonic order, and a practical florist and landscape gardner from the beauty of his home surroundings. The county had the benefit of him as editor of its first paper, president of her agricultural society, a cultivator of nursery stock for orchard and grove, and dealer in choice livestock of all descriptions, and member of the legislature and constitutional convention. The State had his services as president of her agricultural association, and of her horticultural, pomological, and historical societies, and as regent of her university and governor. Early in her history he was active in placing her fruit on exhibition in Boston, Philadelphia, and Richmond, Virginia, and in securing premiums. In 1885 Governor Dawes said, in a message relating to a state display at the New Orleans exposition:

With his characteristic energy and enthusiasm Mr. Furnas entered upon the work placed in his hands; and the result of his work, so untiringly and industriously performed, is witnessed in the magnificent display of the various resources of Nebraska now upon exhibition in New Orleans; a display that has called forth encomiums from the press of the country, attracting general attention and eliciting from those who have not visited Nebraska expressions of wonder and astonishment at the great extent and variety of her resources.