500 



IOWA. 



the cases transferred from the State to the 

 Federal courts, and these cases are still unde- 

 cided. Under these embarrassments those es- 

 pecially interesting themselves in enforcing the 

 law have relaxed their efforts, waiting for the 

 decision of the courts. The opponents of the 

 law, of course, take advantage of this oppor- 

 tunity, and endeavor to force a conclusion upon 

 the public mind that the law is a failure. The 

 law has not yet proved a failure, nor has it 

 proved an entire success." 



Political. The Greenback State Convention 

 met in Des Moines on July 7. It put forth a 

 platform and adopted the following : 



Resolved, That it is the sense of this convention that 

 the convention nominate only a candidate for Lieu- 

 tenant-Governor and Superintendent of Public In- 

 struction ; that if the Democratic Convention indorse 

 our nominees and further nominate a candidate for 

 Governor and Supreme Judge who are publicly known 

 to be unflinching anti-monopolists, then in that case 

 our State Central Committee are instructed to place 

 said names upon our ticket, and we pledge them our 

 hearty support, otherwise the Central Committee is 

 instructed to fill our ticket with straight Green- 

 backers. 



E. H. Gillette was nominated for Lieutenant- 

 Governor, and F. W. Moore for Superintendent 

 of Public Instruction. 



The Democratic State Convention was held 

 at Cedar Rapids on Aug. 19. Charles E. 

 Whiting was nominated for Governor, and W. 

 F. Brannan for Justice of the Supreme Court. 

 The Greenback candidates were approved. The 

 platform contained the following : 



We declare in favor of the repeal of the prohibitory 

 liquor law of the State of Iowa as unjust and hostile 

 to temperance. 



We pledge ourselves to favor and use our best ef- 

 forts for the enactment of a license law of $250, with 

 power to increase the same from $250 to $1,000 as may 

 bc deemed best for the public interest in the various 

 localities of the State, as expressed by the legally con- 

 stituted authorities of such locations. 



We pledge ourselves to favor and use our best ef- 

 forts for the enactment of a law which shall punish as 

 criminal the manufacture and sale of all adulterated 

 liquors, such adulteration being the direct cause of 

 intemperance, and destructive to the health of the 

 people. 



The Republican State Convention convened 

 at Des Moines on Aug. 26. The following tick- 

 et was nominated : For Governor, William Lar- 

 rabee ; Lieutenant - Governor, J. A. T. Hall ; 

 Supreme Judge, J. M. Beck ; Superintendent of 

 Public Instruction, John W. Akers. The plat- 

 form protests against the suppression of the 

 colored vote in the South, favors a protective 

 tariff, and advocates civil -service reform and 

 the regulation of railroads by law. It contains 

 the following : 



We demand that ample provision shall be made by 

 law for the protection of fabor and capital and their 

 varied interests, and such laws should provide for a 

 State Board of Arbitration, for the adjustment and 

 settlement of disputes between labor and capital, in- 

 cluding the questions of screening coal and others pe- 

 culiar to the mining interests of the State, in order 

 tjiat the miners may be dssured pay for all work done 

 by them, and labor should have its just proportion of 



representation on such board. And we further de- 

 clare that provision should be made by law whereby 

 convict -labor shall not be brought into competition 

 with the other labor within the State. 



The Republican party of Iowa, while a steady up- 

 holder of the right and duty of the State to regulate 

 the traffic in liquor by such methods as will suppress 

 the most of its evils, has never made the support of 

 prohibition a test of party fealty. It pledged its hon- 

 or to enact, and afterward did enact, a law which the 

 people of Iowa, at a non-partisan election fairly held, 

 had ordered by an unquestioned majority that came 

 alike from the votes of Republicans and 'Democrats. 

 We declare now for a fair and thorough trial of that 

 law, that it may have time to demonstrate its efficien- 

 cy* or P rove i fcs inefficiency, before it is repealed to give 

 way to some other honest and earnest method in the 

 line of finding the true and successful system of deal- 

 ing with the liquor traffic. We arraign and condemn 

 the Democratic party of Iowa tor its action in declar- 

 ing for a $250-license, compulsory on every communi- 

 ty regardless of local opinion, for legalizing aam in 

 Iowa the sale of whisky and all other alcoholic liquors, 

 and for removing all restrictions from the saloons, 

 giving a freedom in the liquor traffic that has not ex- 

 isted in Iowa for thirty years. 



The Straight Greenbackers and Prohibition- 

 ists also nominated candidates for the State 

 offices. At the election on Nov. 3 the Re- 

 publican ticket was successful. The following 

 was the vote for Governor : William Larra- 

 bee, Republican, 175,504 ; Charles E. Whiting, 

 Fusionist, 168,525 ; Elias Doty, Greenbacker, 

 302; James Mickel wait, Prohibitionist, 1,405; 

 scattering, 46. 



The Legislature of 1886 consists of 31 Re- 

 publicans and 19 Fusionists in the Senate, and 

 (50 Republicans, 39 Fusionists, and 1 Independ- 

 ent in the House. 



Coal-mining. The total product of coal in 

 1881 was 3,500,000 tons ; 1882, 3,127,700 ; 

 1883,3,881,300; 1884,3,903,438; 1885,3,585,- 

 737. There is great difficulty in getting the 

 small mines to report. For 1885 returns were 

 made from only 417 out of the 489 mines oper- 

 ated in the State. The falling off in the out- 

 put between 1884 and 1885, which was 317,- 

 701 tons, is attributed to several causes, one 

 of which was the protracted strikes at What 

 Cheer and at Angus. 



Railroads. The commissioners estimate the 

 capital stock of the roads in the State, comput- 

 ing the proportion for lines only partly within 

 the State limits, to be : broad-gauge, $133,484,- 

 621, or $18,604.46 a mile; the narrow-gauge 

 roads, $1,267,575, or $7,826.58 a mile. 



The total number of miles of railroad re- 

 ported as in operation June 10, 1885, was 

 7,478.43. 



The total amount of railroad stock t 

 owned by persons who are living in the State 

 is $7,956,650. 



The total debt of the roads in Iowa is : Broad- 

 gauge, $137,282,526.72, or $19,133.80 per mile 

 of this amount $133,203,562.02 is funded debt, 

 $4,078,964.70 is unfunded or floating debt 

 Narrow-gauge roads, $1,119,200.80 funded debt, 



$86,373.42 floating debt. 



The entire earnings of the roads in Iowa i 

 reported as follows : 



