COLORADO. 



177 



< OI.CK \I>M. > \Ve.tern State, mlit.it lr,| to 

 ni.iii An- I. JH70;area. 103,925 square 

 Tin- population, according to tin- de- 

 mi:i! census, was |'.i|.::-.'7 ,n ISMI. and IKM'.'s 



I'ital, Deincr. 



<.n\ eminent. The following were the State 

 during lli'' vcar: Governor, John L. 

 utl. Republican : Lieutenant-Governor, Will- 

 Secretary of State, Kdwin .1. Katon ; 

 . rer. .laiurs N.Carlile: Auditor, John M. 

 Ilcnder-.'ii : Attorney-General, Joseph M. Mau- 

 iu; Superintendent of Public Instruction, Na- 

 il. Coy: Kail road Commissioner, William 

 llaiinll : Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 

 ph C. Helm; Associate , lust ices, Charles D. 

 \t and Victor A. Elliot; Court of Appeals 

 itablishcd this year by act of the Legislature), 

 're-idin- Jud-e. (ieor-e Q. Richmond; Judges, 

 (Jillx-rt I'.. I!' . d and Julius B. Bissell. Messrs. 

 Carlile. Maupin,' and Coy are Democrats; the 

 ier ollicials are Republicans. 

 Finances. The State debt on Nov. 30, 1890, 

 follows: Outstanding warrants, bearing G 

 nt. interest, $1,393,854.47; outstanding 

 ates of indebtedness, bearing 6 percent. 

 interest, $80,890.49; outstanding loco-weed cer- 

 tificates, no interest, $16,910.24 ; Capitol-building 

 bunds, hearing :.' per cent, interest and held by 

 the Public-School Investment fund. $150,000'; 

 total. $ ! ,($47,155.20. To offset this amount there 

 was $232,938.57 to the credit of the general rev- 

 enue fund on Nov. 30, 1890, leaving as the prin- 

 cipal of the outstanding indebtedness $1,414,- 

 Jli;.<i3. Of the $1.393,354.47 outstanding war- 

 its, the State holds $948,034.67 in the several 

 ient funds. These warrants have been 

 dually accumulating since the admission of 

 State to the Union. Successive Legislatures 

 >v violated the State Constitution by making 

 'propriations in excess of the revenue availa- 

 ble to pay them, and the Auditor has issued his 

 warrant j.gainst all appropriations. A decision 

 of the State Supreme Court in 1889 put an end 

 to this practice by declaring all appropriations 

 in excess of the revenue available to pay them 

 to I),, void. As this decision cast doubt upon 

 the validity of the outstanding warrants so far 

 a< they were drawn to pay appropriations made 

 in excess of revenue, the Legislature this year 

 undertook to revive such Warrants by providing 

 that they should be paid out of any unappro- 

 priated money at any time in the State treas- 

 ury. But as such payment can be made out of 

 the revenue of any year only after the appropri- 

 ations and fixed charges for that year are paid, 

 it is likelv to be many years before they are en- 

 tirely redeemed. Various special funds in the 

 Stati- treasury contain large sums of money, 

 hut these are unavailable to pay these warrants. 

 The Slate is therefore paying 6 per cent, inter- 

 est on them, while she has' about $800,000 locked 

 up in the treasury in special funds which can 

 not In- used. 



The Constitution limits the State tax to 4 

 mills on the dollar, which is the rate annually 

 levied. Of this, about 2JA mills is levied for 

 the general revenue fund, the remainder for 

 special object s. 



Valuations. The total assessed valuation of 

 property in the State for 1890 was $220,544,064.- 

 i'-. an increase over the figures for 1889 of $27,- 



IVOL. xxxi. 12 A 



'T.'J-l. Included in the nssesfmient'are 11.- 



i;|i;..~>l'.i a, -re> ,,f hind, valued at *:!s.r,O.V><;:,.70 : 



Improvement* on lands, valued at *?.'JO!t.'.!*L'.4H ; 



town and city lot-, valued at %T.l.MM.W2 ; ruin- 

 ing property, valued at $5,727,657; railroads and 

 railroad property, valued at $31.411,921.22: 189,- 

 724 horses, valued at $5,550.410: 11.419 mulea. 

 valued at $409.000; 769.823 cattle, valued at 

 *;. '.-,3,370.70; 657,546 sheep, valued at $758.- 

 584; 29,239 swine, valued at $?:: 



Legislative Session. The eighth General 

 Assembly met at Denver on Jan. 7. and adjourned 

 on April 7. In its early days the session was 

 marred by disorderly struggles for supremacy 

 between rival factions in the Lower House. The 

 Speaker of that body, elected on th<- opening 

 day. was James W. llanna, who in the Repub- 

 lican caucus had been unanimously selected for 

 that honor after a single ballot. He had no 

 sooner been elected, however, than charges were 

 made that bribery had been practiced in his in- 

 terest, that he intended to make up the House- 

 committees unfairly, and that he was not fit for 

 the place. A faction of 14 Republicans, aided 

 by the Democratic members, thereupon under- 

 took to deprive him of the right of appointing 

 committees. 



The coalition thus formed controlled a major- 

 ity of the House, but the Speaker and his adher- 

 ents stoutly resisted their efforts to abridge his 

 prerogatives, and on Jan. 9 he announced a list 

 of committees selected by him. Disorder reigned 

 during this session, in the midst of which the 

 Speaker declared the House adjourned. On Jan. 

 12 the contest was renewed. During the debate 

 of this day distinct charges of bribery were 

 made so openly that an investigating committee 

 was at once appointed. Finally, on Jan. 14, the 

 Speaker ruled that the House journal of Jan. 9. 

 containing his appointment of committees and 

 the record of adjournment, stood approved, and 

 refused to entertain an appeal or motion reopen- 

 ing the question. A member of the coalition there- 

 upon moved that the office of Speaker be declared 

 vacant, another member put the motion to vote 

 and declared it carried by a vote of 28 to 21. and 

 the coalition then proceeded to elect Jesse White 

 as Speaker. Speaker Hanna and his supporters 

 refused to surrender the chair, and the anomaly 

 was presented of two rival Houses attempting 

 to do business in the same hall. Thereafter 

 each House held daily sessions, and when the 

 day arrived for choosing a United States Sena- 

 tor, each- House went through the fonn of vot- 

 ing. The law requires that the Senate and the 

 House, after voting separately, shall meet on the 

 next day in joint session to announce the result 

 of the ballot taken on the day preceding, and if 

 no choice has been made by both branches, to 

 continue balloting in one body. The question 

 at once arose as to which of the two rival 1 1 

 should be recognized as legally constituted and 

 should meet with the Senate in joint session. 

 By agreement of the factions a member of the 

 House, other than the two rival Speakers, was 

 selected to preside over the joint session, in con- 

 junction with the President of the Senate; and 

 when the quest ion arose respecting the vote of 

 the House on the preceding day. it was ruled 

 after some discussion that no choice had been 

 made by that body. The joint session then pro- 



