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At the conclusion of the address, the PRESIDENT of the Senate will then announce that the Hon. Charles A. Smith, Lieutenant Governor-elect, is present and ready to qualify.

Whereupon, the Lieutenant Governor-elect and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court will advance, as in the case of the Governorelect, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court will administer the oath of office to the Lieutenant Governor-elect. When the Lieutenant Governor-elect shall have made such acknowledgment as he may be pleased to make, he will announce: "The purpose for which the Joint Assembly has convened being accomplished, the Joint Assembly is dissolved."

The Senate will return to its chamber.

Respectfully submitted,

Received as information.

LEWIS APPELT,

J. A. BANKS,

Committee on the Part of the Senate.
GEORGE R. REMBERT,

W. H. NICHOLSON,

C. W. WYCHE,

Committee on the Part of the House.

COMMUNICATION OF SENATOR TILLMAN.

The Senate received a communication from United States Senator Tillman replying to certain matters mentioned in Special Message No. 4, from His Excellency, the Governor.

After discussion by Messrs CARLISLE, MCLAURIN, LANEY and APPELT,

On motion of Mr. APPELT, further consideration of the communication was postponed until Thursday, the pending question being the motion of the Senator from Edgefield that the communication be received as information and printed in the Journal

MESSAGE FROM THE HOUSE.

In the House of Representatives,
Columbia, S. C., January 21, 1913.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Senate:

The House respectfully informs your Honorable body that it has appointed Messrs. Rembert, Nicholson and C. C. Wyche as mem

bers of the Joint Committee to arrange for the inaugural of Governor and Lieutenant Governor.

Very respectfully,

MENDEL L. SMITH,

Speaker of the House.

Received as information.

JOINT ASSEMBLY.

At 12 m., the Senate attended in the House of Representatives to participate in the inaugural exercises. The oath of office was duly administered to the Governor-elect and the Lieutenant Governorelect.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF GOVERNOR COLE. L. BLEASE. Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Gentlemen of the House of Representatives and State Senate, Ladies and Gentlemen:

God Almighty has never given to any man truer or more devoted friends than he has given to me, and no man loves his friends better than I love mine. Hanging on the wall in the office of the Chief Executive of South Carolina is a motto which reads: "Of what shall a man be proud if he is not proud of his friends?" Sometimes the question is asked me why it is or how it is that I can get hold of certain information which seems to be a secret between man and man or sometimes between a man and his God. It is because my friends are true; they are zealous and always on the alert to protect me and my interests wherever or whenever the occasion may arise. I hold in my hand the Bible upon which I have taken the oath of office as Governor of South Carolina for the second time. It was my father's Bible. In it I read, "Thy friends and thy father's friends forsake not." If I never obeyed any other injunction in it I have tried to obey that one, and, by the help of God, I shall continue so to do. I read another passage: "And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." I hope that the ministers of the Gospel who prayed for my defeat last summer feel within their hearts that they believed when they were praying; and, if so, they should be happy. Those who prayed for the best man to win should certainly be delighted, for, from that passage of Scripture, they certainly believed when they prayed, and I have the honor of addressing this General Assembly, by the voice of nearly seventy-five thousand of the white people of South Carolina. We were told that some ladies prayed in that campaign. I am satisfied

they believed when they prayed. God answered their prayer, and I thank them for praying for the best man to win. I thank them that I am here.

Gentlemen of the General Assembly, I desire to say to you that I regret the fact that there is a fight between two of your State colleges--one that I think should be investigated by you and one that I think should be investigated in a serious manner. If I am correctly informed, the Peabody Fund being distributed throughout these United States has as one of the members of its trustees the Hon. Martin F. Ansel, of South Carolina. If I am correctly informed, the trustees of this fund had agreed to give Winthrop College about $90,000. The president of the South Carolina College went North and I am told that Mr. Ansel has in his possession a statement signed by the president of the South Carolina College that if the Peabody Fund trustees would give to the South Carolina College a certain amount of that money, that he, as president of the South Carolina College, would agree and consent for the remainder of that money to go to the education of free negroes. I have tried to get a copy of that report, and have not succeeded; but I have the word of Prof. D. B. Johnson, the able and distinguished president of Winthrop, that that is true. And, if it is true, certainly the presi dent of the South Carolina College has no place in the educational department of South Carolina. If he would rather take that money to educate negroes than to give it to the white girls of South Carolina, he certainly has no place during my administration in any department of the government, or, particularly, the educational department of the State. You can get the information if you will ask Mr. August Kohn, who, I understand, was somewhat familiar with the transaction; or possibly if you will ask the State Superintendent of Education, the Hon. John E. Swearingen, or if you will summon before your committee Dr. D. B. Johnson, the president of Winthrop College.

Now, gentlemen, if the two colleges are to fight one another-if Winthrop is to fight the University, let Winthrop fight the University like a man; or, if the University is to fight Winthrop, let the University fight Winthrop like a man; but, for God's sake, don't let them use such methods as I have received this information of; don't let one of them say, after it has received its measly pittance, that it is willing that the balance should go to educate free negroes in South Carolina.

That is a matter for you to investigate, and it is a serious matter. If they had let Winthrop alone, I am informed, she would have got $90,000, and possibly considerably more, but by this underhanded fight she was cut down very considerably in that appropriation, and you will be called upon this year, as a result, to make a larger appropriation than you would have had to make if Winthrop had received that money. I tried to get the facts plainer to lay them before you; I wanted to get them in writing; but I am satisfied that if you will send for Prof. Johnson he will tell you what he told me, and when he does tell you, I am satisfied that you will find (if you will excuse a common expression) a pretty dirty transaction on the part of somebody.

That is plain talk, but that is exactly what I came up here for.

Now, gentlemen of the General Assembly, I want to call your attention to another matter. I want to ask you, when these colleges present their estimates, and the appropriation bill is drawn, that you require that the items be separated. Some of you have been elected on a platform of economy; some of you promised on the stump to try to help reduce taxes. I stand to join you in that fight, whatever may be the consequences. And, my friends, don't let the South Carolina College come in here and say, for the South Carolina College $218,000; don't let Winthrop say, for Winthrop $118,000; don't let Citadel say, for the Citadel $33,500. If you do, don't be surprised if I apply the veto, for, in that event, I expect to do so, even if it shuts up the colleges for the balance of this year; I am going to do it; I am going to put the matter squarely up to you, because I promised the people, by the help of God, that I would do what I could to reduce taxes, and I am going to do my part. The 72,043 people who voted for me shall never say I did not carry out every promise I made them, if God gives me the strength and lets me live. But they will come in and say, "Oh, if you sustain that veto you will shut up the college." Then put it this way: For maintenance, so many thousands; for new buildings, so many thousands. Then if an item for new buildings is vetoed, yon can kill it without hurting the college; if an item for any other particular purpose is included, that can be vetoed, and you can sustain that veto without hurting the college. But, gentlemen, if you allow the bill to pass your House and Senate making an appropriation in bulk sum for such and such college so much money, then, when the veto is applied, the appeal will be made to you upon this floor and over yonder that if you sustain this veto you will shut up the college. Gentlemen

of the Ways and Means Committee and of the Finance Committee, I beg you, in behalf of the constituency whom you first begged and then pleaded with last summer, to stand here like men and help me reduce taxes in South Carolina. You may think the people are not watching, but I think if you would wire this morning to some of the members of the last Legislature they would wire back, "Yes, the people are watching, because we are at home."

Now, gentlemen, there is a man I want to warn you against—I have had experience in this House and yonder both-and that is Mr. Professional Lobbyist. Sometimes he is a lawyer and paid lobbyist; sometimes a doctor; sometimes he is a man who has forsaken the Lord's vineyard-a preacher, who has forsaken the Lord's vineyard and gone into the field of the professional lobbyist, and is hanging around the Legislature, hired by somebody. When a man pulls you off and begins to talk so much you should not pass this bill, or should not pass that bill, ask him what railroad company is paying him to be here; ask what corporation is paying him to be here; ask him the question, my friends: Are you here for the people of South Carolina, or are you paid to come here and lobby me on this bill? That is the question to put to him, and when you put it, just watch your man, and you will see that he is being paid by a corporation, and is not working for the interests of the people. How many farmers do you see around here begging you to do something for them? How many fellows do you see around here begging you to do something for the people directly? Oh, they beg you not to pass the two-cent rate "it will ruin the railroads." They beg you not to cut the legal rate of interest to six per cent. Look at the skyscrapers up street. Who built them? Why, the people who paid extravagant interest and built this town. All over South Carolina you will find it. Therefore, when a man comes to you lobbying for a bill, if he is a fellow member, all right; he has a constituency, just as you have; but if he is an outsider, say, "What is your name? Why are you here lobbying for this thing?" I am warning you new members. Some of these old ones have had experience, and they had to beg mighty hard last summer to get over that experience.

Now, my friends, I understand there is going to be a bill introduced along a line to which I want to call particular attention. It is a bill to prevent magistrates from using the criminal courts to collect debts. It is a serious matter. A negro goes out here and works on your farm. Some little agent comes along and wants to sell him a clock, or a Bible, or something else-possibly a sewing

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