NEBRASKA 8 53 



any day. Acts were passed to protect workmen on buildings, and for the sanitation of fac- 

 tories where eight or more workmen are employed; and employers who do not comply with 

 these acts are held to strict liability for injuries or death of employees. 



All schools are required to observe the first Friday in November as State Fire Day, and 

 teachers must give at least 30 minutes in each school month to instruction in the danger of 

 fire. A hotel commission insures the comfort and protection of guests, and the law provides 

 for individual towels for all guests, for bed sheets 99 inches long, etc. The food, drug and 

 dairy commission was reorganised. It was made unlawful for minors under 18 to smoke 

 tobacco in any form. Houses of ill fame are declared a nuisance, and the act provides for the 

 abatement thereof; on a permanent injunction for maintaining such a nuisance a tax of 8300 

 is assessed on the building and on the ground. Pandering is made punishable by imprison- 

 ment in the county jail from six months to a year, by a fine of 1,000 or less, or by both; and 

 a .second offense by imprisonment from three to ten years in the penitentiary. A wife's 

 testimony is competent against her husband and marriage is not a defence. 



Cities of 5,000 or more, under a constitutional amendment (adopted November 5, 1912 

 by 164,579 to 32,041) may frame their own charters. They may, by statute, adopt com- 

 mission form of government. A special election is to be called on the petition of 25 % of the 

 voters, but, if the commission plan is not adopted at this election, the proposal may not 

 be re-submitted within two years. Omaha adopted commission government on September 

 2, 1911 (5,477 to 2,291 votes out of a voting population of nearly 25,000); the first election 

 was held May 7, 1912 and the commissioners took office on May I4th. Commission govern- 

 ment was adopted by Beatrice, October 4, 1911, in effect April 8, 1912; Nebraska City, 

 January 16, 1912, in effect April 8, 1912; and Lincoln, April 19, 1912 (1,982 votes to 1,911), 

 in effect May 1913. Grand Island voted against it, March 19, 1912. 



Finance. The state banking law was amended in 1911. The occupation tax for corpora- 

 tions was revised, the tax to be $5 a year if the capital stock is $10,000 or less, and $200 if 

 $2,000,000 or more. The organisation of trust companies in the state was authorised; the 

 requisite capital is scaled to the population of the city in which, the company is to do busi- 

 ness; and specified security deposits must be made with the state auditor. On December 

 I, 1910 there was a balance of $601,290. The total receipts for the two years ending Novem- 

 ber 30, 1912 were $10,862, 1 42 and the expenditures $10, 890,122, leavinga balance of $573,310. 



ILducation. In 1911 the legislature appropriated $75,000 to enable all districts levying a 

 maximum school tax to have a five-month school term. The method of instruction in the 

 State School for the Deaf was changed to the oral or lip-reading method. A new school of 

 agriculture was established and in 191 1-12 was built at Curtis, Frontier county. So that the 

 course in the medical college may be given entirely at Omaha (instead of two years at Lincoln 

 and two years at Omaha) an appropriation of $100,000 was made for a laboratory building 

 in Omaha. The legislature created a legislative reference bureau, including a special depart- 

 ment on municipal affairs, to be affiliated with the department of political science and sociol- 

 ogy, and with the college of law of the State University. It is to give instruction and furnish 

 facilities for training in legislative reference to students of the university. 



In illiteracy, in 1910, of the population 10 years and over the percentage was 1. 9 (2.3 in 1900), 

 ranking the state third from the lowest (Iowa, 1.7 %; Oregon, 1.89 %). 



For the year ending July 1912 the school population was 381,194; the enrollment, 285,220; 

 the average daily attendance, 213,488; the average school year, 146 days; receipts for schools, 

 $10,461,720, and expenditures, $8,757,288. 



Charitable and Penal Institutions. The juvenile court law was amended in 1911 and a 

 board of control for dependent and neglected children was created. A law for an indeter- 

 minate sentence gives paroles to the charge of the state prison board. The 2nd of September, 

 the birthday of John Howard, is made a legal holiday in all penal and reformatory institu- 

 tions, and is to be called " Howard 's Day." A state hospital for the indigent tuberculous was 

 opened at Kearney in January 1912. In the state penitentiary a deputy warden was killed 

 by a convict on February II, 1912, and on March I4th the warden, a deputy and an usher 

 were murdered by three escaping convicts, two of whom were killed resisting capture. In- 

 vestigation showed that appropriations had been small, that the office of warden had been a 

 political gift, that prisoners' credits had been exchanged for cash, and that there had been a 

 regular trade in liquor, drugs, etc. 1 



History. In 1911-12 the state had a Democratic legislature, "but the governor, 

 Chester H. Aldrich, and administrative officers were Republican. On January 17, 191 1, 

 as United States senator to succeed Elmer Jacob Burkett (b. 1867; Republican; repre- 

 sentative in Congress, 1899-1905; U. S. senator, 1905-11), the legislature elected Gilbert 

 Monell Hitchcock (b. 1859; Democrat; editor Omaha World-Herald; representative in 

 Congress 1903-05, 1907-11), whose father Phineas W. Hitchcock (1831-81) was senator 

 from Nebraska in 1871-77; he was chosen by primary vote (Nov. 1910) and some 

 Republican legislators voted for him who were pledged to follow the primary choice. 



1 See a paper by Judge Lincoln Frost in the March 19, 1912 Nebraska State Journal. 



