ARKANSAS 773 



contributed to the injury. No contract of indemnity constitutes a bar to action for damages 

 but any sum contributed for insurance, relief benefit or indemnity by the employer may be 

 set off in trial of such an action. Contributory negligence of a person injured by a railway 

 train is not to be considered if the railway fails to have proper lookout, the burden of proof 

 devolving on the railway. The state law requiring full train crews has been declared valid 

 by the Federal Supreme Court (31 S. C. R. 275). 



Finance. The state debt is $1,250,500 in 3% thirty year bonds, maturing in 1929, 

 held by permanent school fund and University of Arkansas endowment funds. The total 

 receipts for the two years ending September 30, 1912 were $6,902,386; disbursements 

 $6,812,486 (principally for general expenses, common schools and Confederate soldiers' 

 pensions). The balance in the treasury on September 30, 1912 was $800,771. 



Education. The legislature of 1911 created a state board of education and provided for 

 state aid to high schools and for compulsory attendance at school for one-half the school 

 year of children between 8 and 16 (unless the family is destitute) and of children between 

 1 6 and 20, if they are not regularly employed but this applies to only half the counties of 

 the state. The Medical Department of Arkansas Industrial University in Little Rock was 

 made part of the state university. A proposed constitutional amendment providing for 

 uniform text books was defeated in September 19/2 by 64,898 votes to 73,701. A commis- 

 sion of twenty, appointed by the governor, and with the state superintendent of public 

 instruction as chairman, works with funds from the Southern Education Board; it made its 

 first report in 191 K . In 1912 work began on an educational building at the state university, 

 for which the Peabody Board gave 40,000. Four district agricultural schools, at Jonesboro, 

 Russellyille, Magnolia and Monticello, created by an act of 1910, were opened in 1912. 

 Of the total population 10 years old and more 12.6% was illiterate in 1910 (20.4% in 1900). 

 Of whites over lo, 7% was illiterate (11.5% in 1900); of negroes 26.4% (43% in 1900). 



In the year ending June 30, 1912 the total school population was 603,226; the enroll- 

 ment, 409,746; the average daily attendance, 261,747; the average length of school year, 

 117.9 days; the number of teachers employed, 10,175; the total number of school houses, 

 6,338 (282 erected during the year); and the total value of school property, $10,131,828. 

 The balance on hand at the beginning of the year was $1,398,699, the income during the year, 

 $3,876,954, and the expenditures, $3,837,549, leaving a balance of $1,438,104. 



Charities and Corrections. rThe legislature of 1911 established juvenile courts in the 

 several counties of the state. Governor Donaghey's recommendation in his call for a special 

 session that the convict labour system be abolished and that provision be made for the proper 

 management and control of the state penitentiary had no legislative result. On December 

 17, 1912, Governor Donaghey, as a protest against the lease system, pardoned 360 convicts. 



History. Governor George W. Donaghey (b. 1856), re-elected by the Democrats 

 for 1910-11 (by 101,646 votes to 39,570 for the Republican candidate) did not secure a 

 renomination in IQI2, 1 his successor in 1913 being Joseph Taylor Robinson 2 (b. 1872), 

 Democratic member of the Federal House of Representatives from 1903 to 1 9 13 , elected 

 on the 9th of September 1912. The people at this state election voted against state- 

 wide prohibition of the liquor traffic (85,358 to 69,390) and against the " grandfather " 

 clause, or negro disfranchising amendment to the state constitution (74,950 to 51,334), 

 but adopted the "recall" 3 of elective officers (71,234 to 57,860) and limited sessions of 

 the state legislature to 60 days (103,246 to 33,397). In November the state was carried 

 for Woodrow Wilson (68,838 votes; Roosevelt 21,673; Taft 24,467; Debs 8,153, in 

 1908, 5,842); and seven Democratic congressmen were elected the complete delega- 

 tion, as the number was not increased by the new apportionment. The election practical- 

 ly eliminated from the control of Federal patronage in the state Powell Clayton (b. 

 I 833), governor in 1868-71, United States senator in 1871-77, and long member from 

 Arkansas of the Republican National Committee. 



The new legislature is strongly Democratic (the only Republicans are four in the 

 lower house) ; it chose (January 29, 1913) Joseph Taylor Robinson, the newly elected 

 governor, who had been inaugurated on the i4th, to succeed U. S. senator Jeff Davis 

 (b. 1862; governor 1901-07), who died January 3, 1913 and who had been opposed by 



1 The issue in the Democratic primaries was state-wide prohibition of the sale of intoxicat- 

 ing liquors. Donaghey favoured prohibition; Robinson, local option. 



2 Upon Robinson's entering the U. S. Senate the lieutenant-governor, W. C. Rodgers, be- 

 came governor in March. 



3 A circuit judge has ruled that the recall amendment 'was not adopted because it did not 

 receive a majority of the votes cast for state officers at the same election; and that it was 

 illegally proposed, being the fifth amendment submitted, whereas only three amendments 

 may be submitted at a time. 



