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the same to the executive council for confirmation, under such provisions for hearing and appeal as may be deemed wise in the premises.

Iowa is not possessed of a surplus of water surface, and all the ponds and lakes capable thereof ought to be preserved, and the commission should designate these in its report. All others should be made arable as speedily as practicable, and our educational institutions may be, I think, wisely made the beneficiaries of the fund available therefrom. I have no very accurate information of the extent of these lands, but from estimates, more or less reliable, I am of the opinion they will yield several hundred thousand dollars in the near future.

It should be made the duty of the attorney-general to prosecute or defend any suits necessary to the enjoyment of the grant by these institutions, for it must be borne in mind that the counties wherein the same are situated occasionally make claim thereto; in other instances title is predicated on quitclaims; and squatters claim some under the homestead acts; while adjacent land-owners in yet other instances claim them as accretions. A test case can be made to determine all these questions, and at nominal expense.

PARDONS.

It has been the custom for some years to release convicts, confined in our penitentiaries, upon parole, conditioned that they scrupulously absent themselves from saloons and places where intoxicating liquors are kept or sold, and in all respects demean themselves as worthy citizens. If the party violates these conditions, he is rearrested and returned to the penitentiary to serve the balance of his term. In the last ten years 664 suspensions of sentence for felony have been granted, and 269 for minor offenses. Of these only fifty-three have been revoked. Doubtless some more of the released convicts have resumed vicious practices without having been detected. A large percentage, however, have been restored to lives of usefulness, and the dignity of the law has in no measure suffered violence. I think the plan should be encouraged by express statutory provision, and I recommend, in case the offender violates the terms of his parole, that he be made to forfeit the good time he may have earned prior to his release.

Not only is exercise essential to life and happiness, but labor as distinguished from exercise is likewise necessary. Confined idleness tends strongly to insanity, as the records of all penitentiaries clearly prove. For the state to deny to the incarcerated the benefits and inspiration of cheerful, invigorating, productive labor, of some kind, is actually cruel. This being conceded, the problem becomes perplexing. Few, if indeed any, will favor placing the product of convict labor in competition with free labor. If, therefore, a system of parole can be safely inaugurated, and the released convict compelled to go to work at some respectable calling and continue thereat, and be required also to save some of his earnings, or give satisfactory reason for failure so to do, and to make regular reports of his doings, the amount of wages earned, and his expenditures thereof, and how he has invested his savings, the expense of his maintenance in the penitentiary will be saved to the state, the wealth of the world will be increased by the added product of his toil, and, better than all, the actual reformation of the convict will be effected. There is no safeguard against vicious practices equal to industrious and economical habits. When satisfactory evidence of merit is furnished by a record of honorable conduct, a full pardon should be granted, and the convict be restored to citizenship. There is a large number of inmates of the penitentiaries to-day, who can be safely paroled under such a system; and convictions are had every month of young men, who have heretofore borne favorable reputations, but who through idleness have drifted into bad company and evil habits. The arrest, the indictment, the trial, the shame, and the disgrace incident to conviction are frequently sufficient to effect a reformation, but under the present system a term in the penitentiary seems unavoidable. A suspension of sentence by the governor upon the recommendation of the trial judge, under conditions above indicated, should, I think, be authorized, and actual incarceration in many cases thereby averted. The most dreaded ordeal of the repentant convict must of necessity be the actual entrance within the walls of the penitentiary. The suspension of this can but be a great incentive to reform. In addition, it would afford public recognition that honorable surroundings and virtuous antecedents are worth something, even to a prisoner at the bar, and that previous good character will receive favorable. consideration from the same bench that pronounces sentence. There however, are classes of crimes, especially larceny, robbery,

and burglary, the deliberate and habitual perpetrator of which should be kept in prolonged if not perpetual confinement. I see no reason why the maximum punishment in this class of cases should not be materially increased, and the limit universally imposed for second offenses, subject always to parole, and the constitutional exercise of executive clemency, upon satisfactory evidence of merit. Such a policy would present the alternative of permanent reformation or constant incarceration. In other words, the system of indeterminate sentence, as practiced in some states, impresses me as favorable and advantageThe statute should not attempt to cover every detail of the parole conditions, but should leave much to the sound discretion of the chief executive, and subject to such modifications from time to time as experience might suggest.

ous.

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS.

In this connection, I recommend that the governor be authorized to release at his discretion, and upon the recommendation of the board of control, any inmate of either of the industrial schools, and that all persons confined in these institutions, male or female, be discharged upon attaining their majority.

MILITARY.

On the 25th day of April, 1898, the president of the United States made a requisition on Iowa for three regiments of infantry, and two light batteries of artillery, for service in the Spanish war. This order was subsequently modified to include four regiments of infantry, and the call for artillery was revoked. Afterwards a second requisition was made to increase the regiments from 834 to 1,336 enlisted men, and two light batteries of artillery were again included. Under these several calls, four organizations, numbered consecutively the Forty-ninth, Fiftieth, Fifty-first, and Fifty-second regiments of Iowa volunteer infantry, consisting of 216 commissioned officers and 3,120 enlisted men, and two light batteries of artillery, consisting of six commissioned officers and 220 enlisted men, were mustered into the service of the United States. The two batteries were subsequently discharged before leaving the state. The Forty-ninth regiment was sent first to Jacksonville, Fla., and thereafter to Cuba, where it did service during the winter of 1898-9, and was discharged at Savannah, Ga., on the 13th day of May, 1899. The Fiftieth

regiment was first ordered to Jacksonville, Fla., where it remained in camp for several months, when it was returned and mustered out at Camp McKinley, Des Moines, on the 30th day of November, 1898. The Fifty-first regiment was ordered into camp at San Francisco, Cal., where it remained some months. It was then conveyed to the Philippine Islands, where it rendered active service in suppressing Aguinaldo's insurrection, and was returned to San Francisco, Cal., and there discharged on the 2d day of November, 1899. The Fiftysecond regiment was sent to Chickamauga, and there remained in camp until the 28th day of August, 1898, when it was returned to Camp McKinley, Des Moines, and discharged on the 30th day of October, 1898. The losses by death sustained by these regiments were as follows: The Forty-ninth regiment lost 54 men; the Fiftieth regiment lost 32 men; the Fifty-first regiment lost 41 men; and the Fifty-second regiment lost 36 men; total loss by death, 163. Words of highest praise of the troops furnished by our state have been heard from many sources. Brigade and corps commanders have spoken of the regiments and of their officers in most commendatory terms, and the conduct of the men, both in camp and on the firing line, was ever gentlemanly, soldierlike, and heroic. Iowa's military record, of which she has been and is so justly proud, has not suffered by reason of anything that has occurred in connection with the service of the men who volunteered at the call of the president of the United States in 1898.

In anticipation of the declaration of war against Spain, the Twenty-seventh General Assembly, shortly before its adjournment, appropriated five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000), to be paid on the requisition of the governor "in the defense of the state and in aid of the national government in case of war." Of this sum, $149,484.01 was used in equipping and furnishing the troops hereinbefore referred to; in caring for the sick in hospitals at home and in distant camps; and in supplying comforts for the men while in the service. A detailed statement of these expenditures will be found in the report of the adjutant-general, to which your attention is respectfully directed.

In the expenditure of this money, a liberal construction was given to the language employed in the appropriation, and no request for supplies of any kind by officer or enlisted man, either in camp at Des Moines or while in the service, was ever

denied. In addition, the several colonels were authorized to make expenditures, in the interest of the men of their commands, at any time and to any amount, provided only that the same should be indorsed and recommended by the surgeon of the regiment, and properly approved vouchers filed therefor. In this connection it is proper to say that several organizations of women within the state, notably the Red Cross and the Iowa Sanitary Commission, rendered very valuable services in caring for the sick. The government opened a hospital at Des Moines, which was operated jointly under its management and that of the state. To expedite matters and insure prompt and ample services on the part of nurses and physicians, the state primarily paid the bills connected therewith, first seeing that they were approved and indorsed by the federal officer in charge. Of the $149,484.01 expended by the state, $91,483.78 has been refunded by the general government. The balance is now pending as a claim before the department, but it will require additional congressional legislation to authorize the payment of some considerable number of the items.

Under the terms of the act of congress authorizing the organization of an army for service in the Spanish war, the Fifty-first Iowa was entitled to discharge upon the exchange of ratifications of the treaty of peace between Spain and the United States, which occurred on the 11th day of April, 1899. But at that time their services were needed in the Philippine islands, and both officers and men, with commendable patriotism, asked not to be discharged, as was their right, but continued voluntarily in the service until congress had made provision therefor, and a new army had been organized to take their place. In recognition of this service, a plan was devised to bring the members of this regiment from San Francisco, Cal., where they were discharged, to their homes, primarily at private expense, but in the expectation that the state would reimburse. In pursuance of this plan, an opportunity was tendered the banks of Iowa to contribute to the cause, and in this way the requisite amount, $38,655.92, was secured, and transportation home was furnished each officer and enlisted man of the regiment. Vouchers for these expenditures, together with a list and schedule of the banks and private individuals who contributed the funds, are on file in the executive office, and may be there examined, or copies will be furnished, if it

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