my resignation as a member of the Trustees of the University of South Carolina, which I have been proud to hold.

Yours truly,

(Signed) JULIUS H. WALKER.

State of South Carolina,

Gentlemen of the General Assembly:

Executive Department.

I respectfully beg leave to call to your attention the following mistakes in the Acts of 1912, and ask that you order the same corrected in your Journals, and in the Acts of 1913:

It appears in the Acts of 1912 that Act No. 418, page 738, "was not returned to the House in which it originated within three days." By reference to your House Journal, page 1116, Message No. 46, you will see that I returned this Act to your House with my veto; that the said veto Message was referred to the Ways and Means Committee, and that the Act was afterwards taken up and passed over my veto.

You will find, in the Acts of 1912, that Act No. 425, page 751, "and was not returned by him to the House in which it originated within three days." By reference to your House Journal, 1912, page 1276, you will find Message No. 50, wherein I vetoed this Act and gave my reasons therefor, and you will find this Act was also passed over my veto.

I call your attention, also, to Act No. 460, page 841, Acts of 1912, "An Act to prevent the establishment of ill-shaped counties." In the Acts of 1912 it is stated, "This Act was presented to the Governor the 18th day of February, A. D. 1912, and was not returned by him to the House in which it originated within three days, the General Assembly being in session." As matter of fact, this Act was passed at the session of 1911, and was held over by me until the session of 1912, when it was sent in to your House, with a special Message see page 21, House Journal, 1912, Message No. 2-in which I stated: "I have decided to allow this Act to become a law without my signature to the same, and if the constitutionality thereof (of which I have serious doubt) is questioned, the Courts are open, to those interested, for the determination of that issue."

See, also, Acts of 1912, Appropriations Act, Section 34, Item 18, under the head of "Miscellaneous," page 982, "John Keuker, refund, $1,652.94." If you will see House Journal, 1912, page 1254, you will note that I disapproved of Item 18, Section 34, "because," it is

9—S. J.-(500)

there stated, "I think this is a matter which should be settled in the Courts," etc. On the question of passing the Item over my veto, the yeas and nays were demanded, resulting, yeas, 14; nays, 74. In House Journal, page 1255, it is stated: "Having failed to receive the necessary two-thirds vote of this House, the objections of His Excellency, the Governor, were sustained, and the Item failed to pass." It appears in the General Appropriation Bill that this Item was passed and the refund ordered, and I am informed that the refund has been made. If this be true, the officers paying the money should have been guided by the original Act, and, not having been so guided, they or their bonds are responsible to the State for this amount of money; and I recommend that you instruct the Attorney General to proceed to collect the same, the veto of this appropriation having been sustained by an almost unanimous vote instead of only the necessary two-thirds. The State is entitled to have this money back, and Mr. Keuker is not entitled to have it in his pocket. Of course, this was a mistake, but somebody is responsible, and the taxpayers are not, and this money should go back into the treasury.

'In this connection, I beg to call to your attention, without meaning any reflection upon anybody, that a careful study of the Acts of 1912 will reveal many mistakes. I call attention to the few which I have noted above, because they directly interest me, and I do not propose, when I go before the people again, to be presented with a false record, making it appear that I signed Acts or allowed to become law without my signature Acts which I vetoed, causing me to have to explain by saying, "This record is incorrect;" but I call it to your attention now, in order to show how careless (I will not say inefficient) some of the officials your last General Assembly elected have proven to be.

I beg, further, to call to your attention that if you will take the Code of Laws of 1912, Volumes 1 and 2, and give them a very careful perusal, you may be struck with the fact that somebody has failed to do his duty, either for the want of proper knowledge and experience or as the result of haste. I hope this will not cause the State or any of its citizens any particular inconvenience, but if taken advantage of in the Courts, it may avail some criminal lawyer very much in some particulars.

There are other mistakes of the last General Assembly which I might call to your attention, but, as the people have called attention

to them by retiring so many of its members, I do not deem it necessary now, for my present purposes, to review this past record.

Very respectfully,

COLE. L. BLEASE.

Governor.

Columbia, S. C., January 17, 1913.

On motion of Mr. APPELT, the Message was referred to the Committee on Judiciary.

REPORTS PRESENTED.

Mr. JOHNSTONE presented the following, which was referred to the Committee on Finance:

REPORT OF WATER SUPPLY COMMISSION.

The General Assembly of 1912 passed a Concurrent Resolution, as follows: "That a commission composed of three members be appointed-one by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, one by the President of the Senate, and one by the Mayor of the city of Columbia; the duty of such commission shall be to investigate all contracts between the city of Columbia and the State of South Carolina with reference to the furnishing to the State by the city of water, the amount of water now furnished, the cost of same, and to recommend to the next General Assembly a method by which an equitable contract may be entered into between the city of Columbia with reference to the supply of water." See House Journal, p. 1087, and Reports and Resolutions, p. 1177.

Pursuant to this resolution Senator Alan Johnstone was appointed. by the President of the Senate, Representative Lowndes J. Browning was appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Mr. R. W. Shand was appointed by the Mayor of the city of Columbia, as the members of the commission created by this Concurrent Resolution.

The commission so appointed met October 29, 1912, and organized by the election of the Hon. Alan Johnstone as Chairman. They have inquired into the matters with which they were charged, and respectfully submit to the General Assembly the result of their investigations and their conclusions therefrom.

The first Act of the Legislature relating to this matter was in 1818 (Stat., p. 103). This statute authorized the town of Columbia. to borrow not exceeding $25,000 for the purpose of supplying water to the town. It further authorized the Commissioners of the town

of Columbia to convey to the corporation a square of four acres, bounded by Pickens, Lady, Henderson and Washington streets, and so much of the last named three streets as were contiguous to this square block-approximately seven acres in the eastern portion of the town, overlooking what is now known as LaMotte's bottoms. This conveyance was unconditional.

This Act further directed the Comptroller General to draw his warrant on the State Treasury in favor of the town when the water works are constructed and water introduced into the town, and "in case the said town shall take the said draft and receive the said money the colleges and all of the buildings connected therewith, the public academies, court house, gaol, State house, and other buildings which the State may hereafter erect in said town, in consideration thereof shall be forever exempted from all charge for supplies of water, which may be at the expense of the Trustees of the said colleges and academies, and of the State, conveyed from the said waterworks, or distributing pipes thereof, to the said colleges, academies and other public buildings."

The waterworks were never erected on the land given by the State under this Act to the city, but no further light is thrown upon this location by the statutes. We assume, however, the correctness of the statement made by Prof. Means Davis in his "Century of Columbia," and more particularly of Colonel Blanding's contemporary, Judge O'Neall, that Columbia is mainly indebted to Colonel Abraham Blanding for her first waterworks, and that they were erected in that part of the town which was later known as Sidney Park, now the property of the Seaboard Air Line Railway. The statement by Judge O'Neall is as follows:

"In 1824 he commenced and after years of toil and experience he successfully completed the waterworks for the town of Columbia at an expense from his private funds of $75,000. This proved an unfortunate investment for him, but a great blessing to the town. After many years (in 1835) he sold out to the town council for less than one-third of the original cost, $24,000 in stock, bearing interest at five per cent., redeemable at the pleasure of the town council."

Mr. E. J. Scott, in his "Random Recollections," makes substantially the same statement.

By the Acts of 1855 and 1856 (12 Stat., pp. 404 and 589 of first publication, and pp. 353 and 505 of second edition) the city of Columbia was authorized to borrow $100,000 for the construction

of new waterworks and to purchase land and buildings for the State Agricultural Society of South Carolina, and $10,000 was given the State under each one of these Acts. Section 3 of the Act of 1855 reads as follows:

"III. That as soon as satisfactory evidence shall be furnished to the Comptroller General that the said new waterworks are completed, and the upper or distributing reservoir thereby supplied with water, the said Comptroller General shall draw his warrant in favor of the said Mayor and Aldermen, on the Treasurer of the State, for the sum of ten thousand dollars. And in case said Mayor and Aldermen shall accept and receive the said sum of money, then, and in that event, the college and all buildings connected therewith, the State House, Lunatic Asylum, Arsenal, Courthouse, Jail, Public Academies, and other public buildings within the city of Columbia, and all other public buildings which the State may hereafter erect within the corporate limits of said city, shall, in consideration of said sum of money, be forever exempted from all charges for supplies of water, which may, at the expense of the Trustees of such colleges and academies, and of the State, be conveyed from said waterworks, or the distributing pipes thereof, to the said colleges, academies and other public buildings."

Section 1 of the Act of 1856 was substantially the same.

It will be noticed that by the terms of Section 3 of the Act of 1855, and Section 1 of the Act of 1856, the exemption of the State from charges for water supplied by the city of Columbia applied only to water "from the said waterworks, or the distributing pipes thereof," which said waterworks no longer exist. But by Section 2 of the Act of 1856 the city was further "obliged to provide at all times and under all circumstances, in all future time, a full and adequate supply of water to all of the buildings referred to in the first section of this Act. *** That is to say, the colleges and all buildings connected therewith, the State House, Lunatic Asylum, Arsenal, Courthouse, Jail, Public Academies, and other public buildings within the city of Columbia, and all other public buildings which the State may hereafter erect within the corporate limits of the said city."

In 1857 the engine and pumping station were moved nearer to the river, the water from the openings in Sidney Park, together with springs at the new location, being there received into a basin and pumped up to the distributing reservoir on Laurel street, between Assembly and Gates streets.