to cause the perpetrators of crime to be ascertained and arrested, makes me believe that rewards for unknown parties are rather harmful than helpful in reaching the end desired. Since I made the ruling referred to, the section has been revised and re-enacted, and the governor's authority extended in the matter of offering rewards, but no change was made in the particular to which I have referred, and the language of the section still authorizes a reward to be offered only for a person or persons charged with crime. I look upon this action of the legislature as a vindication of the interpretation I have put upon the statute, although the statute itself is so clear, to my mind, that I have had no doubt as to the correctness of that interpretation. If further legislation in this respect is desired, it would be better to authorize the employment by state or local authorities of detectives for the purpose of ascertaining who the criminals

are.

CRIME

The number of convictions for the year that ended October 31, 1896, was 1,225, and for the eleven months terminating with September last, about 1,200. The court costs for the year first mentioned amounted to $421,816.15, and the sum paid county attorneys was $83,428.17 besides. The fines imposed were $82,889.05, and those collected $37,629.73. The number of convictions is happily less than reported for several years prior.

JOINT RESOLUTIONS

The code provides that the general assembly "shall, by statute or joint resolution, designate the amount to be

expended for general state purposes during the biennial period next ensuing." Section 152 of the code enacts that "every officer, board, court or commissioner may control the official apartments assigned to them by the executive council, but shall have no right to employ any janitor, clerk, or person except as authorized by joint resolution." This legislation, if it remains, and I do not think it objec tionable, needs supplementing. There should be some statutory definition of what constitutes a "joint resolution" and how it should be passed, the constitution being entirely silent on the subject. That instrument makes provision only for the enactment of laws, even providing what shall be the enacting clause. In this respect it is quite unlike the federal constitution, which distinctly provides that "every order, resolution, or vote" to which the concurrence of the two houses may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be "subject to the rules and regulations prescribed in the case of a bill." The practice has prevailed in this state of passing upon joint resolutions precisely as bills, except that, as I am advised, the rules of the houses have not always required that each joint resolution receive a majority vote of the members of both houses on its passage. They have ordinarily, however, perhaps always, been presented to the governor for his signature. During the regular session of the Twenty-sixth General Assembly I signed a few that were presented to me that were in the shape of memorials to congress, although then in doubt as to the propriety of so doing. More mature deliberation satisfied me that if a "joint resolution" had weight at all under the constitution and laws of the state it

was just as valid without my signature as with it or even if disapproved by me. Hence, I declined to act on those that were presented in the latter part of the regular session and altogether on those passed at the called session. In this I find that I am in accord with at least one of my predecessors. I recommend that the legislature define by positive enactment the process which joint resolutions shall go through in order to give them validity. I deem this especially important in view of the provision cited in regard to designating the amount of revenue to be expended during the biennial period.

CONCLUSION

I should do injustice to my own feelings if I should refrain in this message from expressing my thanks to my associates in the executive council, and to my other associates in public office, for the many kindnesses shown me and for their valuable aid in conducting the administration of the state's affairs.

Fellow citizens: it is with confidence that the legislative body will not be wanting in devising liberal things in the interest of all the people, in avoiding anything like extravagance in expenditure, while also avoiding that semblance of economy that is only parsimony, and remembering the truth of the scripture which says: "There is that scattereth yet

Confi

increaseth and there is that withholdeth more than is meet yet it tendeth to poverty," that I close this paper. dent I am that all the interests of our state are safe in your keeping; that you will labor for the greatest good, not "of the greatest number" but of all. Those interests are all very dear to me. Here has been my only home from early

childhood, since before the time that there was an "Iowa" on the map. I have seen all its growth and participated in it; its handful of people grow into millions; its vast stretch of bleak and forbidding prairie made the most productive fields on earth; and the embryo commonwealth become the tenth state in the Union in point of population, foremost in agricultural productions, and in the van of educational effort. Here, too, when I lay aside the burden of earth-life, I intend my mortal remains shall rest. In the record of Iowa as the home of one of the most enlightened bodies of people on earth; as the land whence went forth at the country's call myriads of men to save that country to themselves and their posterity, of whom I am thankful I was permitted to be one; and in all her luminous past, I rejoice. In her future of glowing promise I have an abiding trust.

In surrendering the office with which the people honored me, it is a matter of profound gratification to me to know that one comes to take my place who is worthy of the best traditions of the state, one in whom the people have confidence that he will discharge the duties he assumes with a determination to serve well the commonwealth.

F. M. DRAKE

EXTRA SESSION MESSAGE

JANUARY 19, 1897

From the Journal of the Senate, p. 8

To the General Assembly of the State of Iowa:

The span of years allotted to a generation has passed away since last the General Assembly of Iowa was called together in extraordinary session. Fortunately, no questions so momentous and all-pervading as those which confronted the people and their representatives at that session, and the called session of the year preceding, are now dominant in the public mind. Then the life of the Nation was in peril. Multiplied thousands of Iowa's brave men were absent from their homes contending for the life and the integrity of the republic. Members and people were alike oppressed with anxiety for both country and loved ones; for the later session was held at the darkest hour of the conflict.

Now, in a time of peace, with the fearful struggle of those days long since closed and closed aright, you are assembled to pass in review the statutes of the commonwealth, and to put in concise form the laws which are to begin to have force substantially with the commencement of the state's second half century.

A learned and industrious commission has prepared a revision of existing statutes, and put them, with such changes and modifications as to the commission seemed