WISCONSIN. 



775 



men, who have the confidence of all for the receiv- 

 ing and dispatching of supplies. They have organ- 

 ized a system of sub-depots contiguous to the burned 

 regions, and steamboats and wagons are being sent 

 out with supplies. Let us uphold their hands in the 

 good work, and see that their depots be kept filled 

 to overflowing. It is fortunate that we live in a 

 wealthy and prosperous State, blessed with pros- 

 perity in business and overflowing harvests, and 

 that thus we are by a wise Providence endowed with 

 means to help our less fortunate neighbors. 



I am urged by public-spirited citizens of the State 

 to call an immediate extra session of the Legislature, 

 to provide for this calamity. I have given serious 

 attention to this suggestion, and have concluded nob 

 to do so, for the reason that the expense of such a 

 session would be likely to equal the amount which 

 the State would be asked to contribute. Believing, 

 therefore, that the people and the Legislature will 

 indorse my action in this emergency, I have, in con- 

 junction with the State Treasurer, decided to ad- 

 vance such a moderate sum of money^ as seems to be 

 appropriate, in addition to that contributed. 



LUCIUS FAIKCHILD, 

 Governor of State of Wisconsin. 



His appeal to the citizens was promptly re- 

 sponded to from all parts of the State, and 

 liberal contributions in money, clothing, and 

 provisions for the sufferers, were sent. The 

 people also of some of the other States, and 

 of British America and Europe, contributed 

 large amounts of money, clothes, and supplies 

 for the sufferers through the Governor, and 

 through the Milwaukee and Green Bay Eelief 

 Committees. The money received for that 

 purpose at the Executive office alone, until the 

 end of the year 1871, amounted to $166,789.- 

 96; of which sum $111,397.23 still remained 

 unexpended at that date. 



As to the loss of property, especially in 

 timber, saw-mills, and farm-products, con- 

 sumed by this conflagration, it was reported 

 as follows : 



A medium estimate of damage to pine-lands in the 

 Green Bay region is $400,000. The damage on the 

 Wolf is figured at $300,000. There is abundance of 

 hard wood left in places ; the damage to individuals 

 may amount to $300,000. The loss of the fifteen 

 saw-mills burned is put at $225,000. The loss of 

 cord-wood, ties, hemlock-bark, etc., is set at $200,- 

 000. The losses of fences, buildings, wagons, cat- 

 tle, crops, among the six hundred farmers, cannot be 

 less than $600,000 making a total aggregate of more 

 than $3,000,000, aside from those at Peshtigo. 



The country through from Brown County^ north to 

 Big Sturgeon Bay, for 400 square miles, is utterly 

 devastated. At least 400 farms in this tornado sec- 

 tion alone are left desolate, stripped of every im- 

 provement. Fences, barns, dwellings, implements, 

 furniture, wagons, harness, and crops, all went up in 

 a " whirlwind of fire." It will take thirty years in 

 that cold, hard soil for their timber to grow again. 

 In the aggregate, their losses must foot up t to $1,000 

 a family. "Farmers here have saved half of their 

 teams that were let loose in the woods, and a third 

 of their stock. But they have no hay, straw, grain, 

 .or feed of any sort not even the poor chance to 

 browse in the woods. Nearly all, with large fami- 

 lies, have lost their last cow and pig. 



The Legislature of Wisconsin adjourned sine 

 die on the 25th of March, 1871, which closed 

 the session of the year. During its continuance, 

 a very large amount of work was done, and 

 much of it is of considerable importance. Of 



1,067 bills introduced and acted upon, 169 

 general laws and 501 private and special laws 

 were passed,besides fourteen memorials to Con- 

 gress agreed upon, and two joint resolutions 

 concurred in out of nearly 200 in both kinds 

 presented. 



The Democratic party of Wisconsin met in 

 State Convention at the capital on the 23d of 

 August, and adopted the following platform : 



The representatives of the Democratic party of 

 Wisconsin, in State Convention assembled, hereby 

 affirm : 



1. That we point with pride to the economical ad- 

 ministration and limited amount of taxation that 

 prevailed in the State under Democratic rule as con- 

 trasted with the enormous body of taxation and prof- 

 ligate expenditures of the succeeding Kepublican 

 State administration ; and that the Democratic par- 

 ty, if restored to power, will observe economy, re- 

 trenchment, and reform, in every department of the 

 State government. 



2. That the wise restriction enacted in the tenth 

 amendment to the national Constitution, reserving 

 to the States respectively, and to the people, all 

 powers not delegated to the United States, is one of 

 the strongest safeguards of popular freedom ; that 

 the acts of Congress and of the Federal Administra- 

 tion, usurping powers not delegated in the Constitu- 

 tion, and breaking down the distinctions between the 

 powers of the State governments and those of the 

 General Government, are destructive to constitution- 

 al liberty and threaten the overthrow of our existing 

 form of local and Federal Government, and tend to 

 the establishment of a permanent centralized despot- 

 ism in Congress and the national Executive ; and that 

 we denounce, as a vicious offshoot of the centralizing 

 tendencies of the General Government, the frequent 

 attempts of the agents of the Federal Administration 

 to interfere in local political affairs. 



3. That we are in favor of a tariff for revenue 

 only ; that under the pretext of raising a revenue, 

 within the past ten years, the national Congress has? 

 established and continues that enormous robbery of 

 the masses for the enrichment of the few, known as 

 the protective tariff system, which has swept our 

 commerce from the seas, and fettered and oppressed 

 every agricultural pursuit ; a system of which the 

 conventions of the Kepublican party equivocally and 

 haltingly speak in their platforms, but which that 

 party perpetuates in Congress, and from which the 

 people may hope for no relief but by the restoration 

 of Democratic rule. 



4. That, by corruption and profligacy, the present 

 Administration have squandered large portions of the 

 national domain and enormous sums from the na- 

 tional Treasury ; that it is no answer to this com- 

 plaint that they have paid some portion of the na- 

 tional debt ; for, by a wise and economical use of 

 the immense revenue which an unprecedented taxa- 

 tion has raised, a much greater reduction in the 

 debt should have been accomplished ; but that the 

 Democratic party opposes oppressive taxation for 

 the mere sake of a speedy payment of the debt, be- 

 lieving that by wisdom and justice in the adjustment 

 of taxes, and economy in the expenditure, the na- 

 tional debt may be paid with sufficient rapidity with 

 but a light burden upon the industry and resources 

 of the people ; and that we are opposed to all forms 

 of national repudiation either of the debt or the pen- 

 sions and bounties due the soldiers. 



5. That, as the late amendments to the Constitu- 

 tion have been declared by the properly constituted 

 authorities to be a part of the fundamental law of 

 the land, they are binding upon the people ; that the 

 Democratic p'arty now as'in the past know no higher 

 law than the Constitution ; that the time-honored 

 principle of strict construction applied by its framerSj 

 and accepted by the wisest statesmen and jurists ot 



