made for the beginning of this institution, and, if possible, the sum of $250,000.00 appropriated therefor.

The ravages of tuberculosis are daily brought home to our people by the untimely death of friends and kin. I bespeak for the proposition to found and equip an institution for its prevention and cure, the serious consideration its great importance deserves.

STATE PRISON.

The population in both the State Prison and the State Reformatory has increased to such extent as to tax both institutions beyond their normal capacity. In the State Prison 260 prisoners are compelled to sleep two in a cell. Both sanitary and disciplinary considerations preclude this. The cells are built for one prisoner, not for two. It is important, therefore, that an addition to the north cell house in the State Prison be provided at the earlist possible moment. This will relieve the crowded condition of both institutions, as under the law transfers can be made by the Executive, from the reformatory to the prison. I commend the report of the board of trustees to your kindly consideration.

STATE REFORMATORY.

A fire in the State Reformatory, completely destroying the foundry building, occurred since the close of the last fiscal year, making idle nearly 300 inmates. The emergency seemed to demand the immediate reconstruction of this building. I, therefore, directed the board of trustees to proceed at once with its reconstruction, and authorized the payment of a sum not exceeding $15,000.00, out of the Governor's Emergency Contingent Fund therefor. Whatever additional sum is required for the completion of the foundry should be promptly appropriated and made immediately available. The Governor's Emergency Contingent Fund for the present fiscal year should be increased $15,000.00 to replace the expenditure therefrom on account of the sum expended for this building, as emergencies during the year may arise requiring a greater sum to meet them than that

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remaining in the fund after this expenditure is made. great work is being done in the institution. It deserves your solicitous care. Its needs are fully set out in the reports filed by its trustees.

NEW PENAL INSTITUTION.

I submit for your consideration the propriety of an act authorizing the purchase of a site for the location of an additional penal institution, and the appointment of a commission to purchase the same, and make a report to the next General Assembly of plans for the construction thereof and the probable cost of the same. In ten years the number of prisoners in the State Prison has increased from 782 to 1,192, an increase of 410, or 52.42%. The number of prisoners in the State Reformatory has increased in ten years from 941 to 1,250, an increase of 309, or 33%. The combined population of the two institutions has increased in ten years from 1,723 to 2,442, an increase of 719, or 41.72%. At this rate of increase both the prison and the reformatory will be, within ten years, utterly inadequate to care for the boys and men committed to them. The increase in population is not due in any considerable degree to an increase in crime, as the actual number of commitments have not greatly increased. The increase is not due so much to the greater number of commitments as it is to the indeterminate sentence and parole law. The operation of this law has lengthened the average term of service. The habitual criminal is retained longer than under the old definite time law, a result much to be desired. I quote Superintendent Whittaker on the the proposition here advanced, with unreserved approval: "The new institution should be a special institution, not known as a reformatory or prison; it should be constructed in some agricultural community upon not less than 2,000 acres of land. To it every confirmed criminal, insane criminal, epileptic and degenerate should be transferred from the State Prison and Reformatory, and there, under humane treatment, should be kept for the full time of their maximum sentence. * * * Forty to fifty per

cent. of all boys and men who are today convicted and sent to the Reformatory or State Prison are abnormal and can no more be benefitted or made to become good citizens than the dwarfed and crooked bush can be trained and cultivated into a straight tree. Subjects that are abnormal are to be pitied and should be properly cared for by the State, but should not be allowed to mingle and be classed with the fifty per cent. who are normal and who can be benefitted by proper discipline, school, trade or manual instruction. * * * Something must be done to relieve our crowded condition. This system would care for our criminal population for fifty years and at all times permit of the greatest good in methods of reformation in our State Prison and Reformatory."

The inmates of the new institution on such a farm could produce all vegetables for their own consumption and could cultivate crops for the use of other State penal institutions and be employed in the manufacture of road material and the making of roads, and in this way become self-sustaining without their labor coming into competition with that of free men. I know of no greater business in which the State can engage than that of saving men and especially boys. With the perfect classification made possible by the new institution, thousands of dollars now wasted, and hundreds of boys and men now lost, could be saved.

SUSPENDED SENTENCE LAW.

By an act of the Sixty-fifth General Assembly, circuit and criminal courts were clothed with discretion to suspend sentence in certain criminal cases of first offense. This has been done in the last two years in many instances. The operation of the law in its present form is not satisfactory. Sentence is suspended. The offender is permitted to go. He does not report to either the superintendent of the Reformatory or the warden of the Prison. Neither of these officers is advised of the action of the court. The defendant is left without supervision. The court loses knowledge of him. He violates his parole but remains unapprehended. The purpose of the law is an excellent one, but it should

be so amended as to require the clerk of every circuit or criminal court within five days after the suspension of sentence in any case, to advise the superintendent of the Reformatory or the warden of the Prison, as the age of the defendant shall indicate, of the fact of conviction, the name of the defendant and the terms of the parole, so that the Reformatory or Prison authorities may have some opportunity of visitation and supervision. This will make the law effective and will save many first offenders from subsequent terms in prison cells.

INHERITANCE TAX LAW.

I commend to your consideration the enactment of a law which shall provide for the taxation of the devolution or succession of property by device or inheritance.

The enactment of such a law was recommended to the Sixty-fifth General Assembly. Such a measure was introduced, passed the House, but failed in the Senate. I cannot now do better than to submit to you the recommendation then made:

"Such a tax is levied but once, and that at the time of the succession or devolution of property inherited or bequeathed. It is levied at a time when it can be paid without hardship. It is an eminently just form of taxation. It can be administered with small expense and collected with little friction. In the apt words of another, 'It is collected with ease and paid with contentment.' It in no way disturbes commercial activities. It levies tribute upon no business or industry. It enables the State to reach much intangible property which has been long sequestered. It is a tax which the beneficiary of the inheritance cannot shift from his shoulders to the backs of others. Indeed, the tax is paid before he receives the inheritance. The right to inherit property or to dispose of it by device exists only by grace of the State. It is wholly an artificial right, resting solely upon the authority and consent of the State. In collecting it the State simply stops the inheritance in transmission long enough to take from it a fair and just contri[4-19977]

bution in exchange for value already had and received by him who accumulated it, and then passes it on to the beneficiary. Indeed, its validity and fairness are quite generally admitted. No great fortune is the sole product of the man who organizes and directs its accumulation. It is to some extent the product of the social process to which many persons contribute. Every honest toiler contributes something to it whatever the field of his labor. The mechanic, the farmer, the teacher, the merchant, the physician, the lawyer, the minister and the statesman or the administrator of public affairs whose work makes for the progress of society or for the maintenance of the peace and order of the State, has some share in its production. The State itself is but society organized, and when the owner of a great estate dies, and in the transmission of his fortune the State takes toll out of it, it takes only what is its own. And in the taking of it, it makes for the wider diffusion of wealth and for the unity and solidarity of society. Inheritance tax laws have a place in the revenue laws of most modern states. They are found in the law of Great Britain, Germany, France, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Italy, Russia, Australia and Canada. They are imposed by the laws of thirty-two States of the Federal Union. The rate should be progressive, increasing with the value of the inheritance, and as to collateral heirs, it should run from 5 to 25 per cent. In the following States the rate is progressive and is as indicated: California, 12 to 5 per cent.; Colorado, 3 to 6 per cent.; Illinois, 2 to 6 per cent.; Iowa, 5 to 20 per cent.; Nebraska, 2 to 6 per cent.; North Carolina, 11⁄2 to 15 per cent.; South Dakota, 2 to 4 per cent.; Washington, 3 to 12 per cent.; West Virginia, 21⁄2 to 71⁄2 per cent; Wisconsin, 11⁄2 to 5 per cent. In the following States the rate is 5 per cent. or more: Arkansas, Delaware, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming. In Louisiana it is 10 per cent. Seventeen States include inheritances to direct heirs at a rate running from 1 to 5 per cent.,