INDUSTRIAL MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION. 



IOWA. 



389 



authorizing the Legislature to prescribe quali- 

 fications for admission to the bar. 



The Fee and Salary Laws. The laws on 

 these subjects passed in 1891 and 1895 were held 

 to be constitutional by the Supreme Court in 

 June in a suit brought to recover fees from a 

 county recorder, who claimed that the laws were 

 invalid and that he was entitled to the fees under 

 the law of 1879. A bill prepared by the County 

 Officers' Association to revise the law was de- 

 feated in the Legislature. 



INDUSTRIAL MISSIONARY ASSOCIA- 

 TION OF ALABAMA. This society was in- 

 corporated at Selma, Ala., in October, 1888, to 

 operate in the black belt of that and other States. 

 Its first and most important objects of labor 

 were plantation negroes. Like all freedmen, these 

 had lost by emancipation the accustomed care 

 of their masters, and in rural isolation and de- 

 pendence that loss fell upon them most damag- 

 ingly. They were free, indeed, but terribly im- 

 poverished and untrained. Great masses of them 

 used their freedom simply for license and degra- 

 dation. Judge Tourgee says the average head 

 gear of the Northern people was a richer pos- 

 session than the dowry which this race received 

 with their freedom after two and a half centuries 

 of bondage. Their home was a one-room cabin 

 without glass or plaster, lighted by the open door 

 or yawning crack and chink; their daily fare 

 chiefly " po'k and co'n cake," with an occasional 

 chicken whose antecedents would best not be 

 too closely questioned ; their* attire a tatterde- 

 malion rig of cast-offs and misfits; and their 

 business chance the advance-mortgage system, 

 working probably as w r ell in the South as it would 

 anywhere, and, indeed, the only chance possible 

 immediately after the war for either planter or 

 tenant, yet with the net outcome in most cases 

 of making the planter a schemer and the tenant 

 a hand-to-mouth toiler, with the wolf always at 

 the door. Such was the situation in the black 

 belt. As for education, the South did gener- 

 ously according to her means. The statutes pro- 

 vided for the black boy his full share of a fund 

 that was almost wholly paid by the white boy's 

 father. But funds were low at best, black schools 

 had to be short and far apart, and teachers were 

 a wonder for incapacity. Hence for actual edu- 

 cation the country school was a practical nullity. 



The Rev. Charles B. Curtis and his wife, labor- 

 ing ten years at Selma, were deeply impressed 

 with these conditions, and, after studying the 

 problem all those years, they finally organized 

 the above-named society. The commissioners 

 Charles B. Curtis, George M. Elliott, and Asher 

 W. Curtis filed a declaration providing for 

 $10,000 in capital stock at $10 a share, no profits 

 or dividends ever to be declared to stockholders. 

 Later, in April, 1890, the authorized capital was 

 increased to $1,000,000. 



The association aims to give plantation people 

 a business chance with a fair account, duly en- 

 forced responsibility, and practical daily teaching. 

 Gratuity is expressly avoided. The planter's lien, 

 taken for advances and rent, is duly enforced if 

 need be. Patient but firm is the ideal. The renter 

 has a true friend in authority, but the rent must 

 be paid. This lesson needs to be learned not 

 only by the black-belt negro tenant, but by a 

 large share of tenants of every kind in every 

 section. 



The association began with 400 acres at Be- 

 loit, Ala., 10 miles from Selma. This has been 

 increased to 4,000 acres. In October, 1899, there 

 were on the lands actually renting 65 families, 

 with many others in the vicinity under mission- 



ary care. The secured debt has been reduced 

 from $30,000 to about half that sum. For sev- 

 eral years the business profits from lands, store, 

 and mills have sustained the teaching, preaching, 

 visitation, and superintendence in homes and in- 

 dustries. Some of the renters are beginning to 

 purchase lands on small payments. Sharehold- 

 ers are widely scattered throughout the country, 

 and financial assistance has come from 39 Ameri- 

 can States and 5 foreign countries. 



The Northern office of the association is at 

 Oberlin, Ohio, where the Plantation Missionary 

 and other publications are issued. The princi- 

 ples in force at Beloit have worked so well and 

 are so thoroughly in accord with the recent con- 

 clusions of improved charity that the association 

 has definitely entered upon the advocacy of its 

 views and principles as a means for uplifting the 

 unfortunate in every section. 



The officers are as follow: President and Gen- 

 eral Manager, Rev. Charles B. Curtis, Beloit, Ala. ; 

 Vice-President, Rev. S. Kingston, Selma, Ala. ; 

 Secretary, Miss S. A. Calhoun, Beloit, Ala.; 

 Treasurer, Mrs. M. V. Curtis, Ithaca, N. Y.; 

 Northern secretary and editor of the Plantation 

 Missionary, Rev. Chauncey N. Pond, Oberlin, 

 Ohio. The directors are C. B. Curtis, M. V. Cur- 

 tis, S. Kingston, D. Echols, S. A. Calhoun, R. J. 

 Mclsaac, C. N. Pond, Mrs. H. B. Sullivan, and 

 Prof. C. L. Fisher, centering at Selma, Ala. The 

 Prudential Committee is a purely advisory body, 

 as follows: Rev. H. M. Tenney, D. D., and Rev. 

 C. N. Pond, Oberlin, Ohio; President Charles F. 

 Thwing, D. D., and Rev. H. C. Haydn, D. D., 

 Cleveland, Ohio; Rev. W. F. Gunsaulus, D. D., 

 Chicago, 111.; Rev. R. T. Hall, D. D., New Britain, 

 Conn. 



The scope of the society is not mainly in the 

 people who will, as generations pass, be personally 

 benefited, but in the extension of the principles 

 involved. The philanthropic use of capital in 

 actual business, with a profit therefrom devoted 

 to practical, everyday teaching, and with a corol- 

 lary favoring the considerate treatment of ten- 

 ants and laborers everywhere, constitutes the real 

 scope of the association. 



IOWA, a Western State, admitted to the 

 Union Dec. 28, 1846; area, 56,025 square miles. 

 The population, according to each decennial cen- 

 sus since admission, was 192,214 in 1850; 674,193 

 in 1860; 1,194,020 in 1870; 1,624,615 in 1880; 

 1,911,896 in 1890. By the State census of 1895 it 

 was 2,058,069. Capital, Des Moines. 



Government. The following were the State 

 officers during the year: Governor, Leslie M. 

 Shaw; Lieutenant Governor, J. C. Milliman; 

 Secretary of State, George L. Dobson; Treasurer, 

 John Herriott; Auditor, Frank F. Merriam; At- 

 torney-General, Milton Remley; Superintendent 

 of Instruction, R. C. Barrett; Adjutant General, 

 M. H. Byers ; Railroad Commissioners, E. A. Daw- 

 son, Welcome Mowry, David J. Palmer; Labor 

 Commissioner, W. E. O'Bleness; Librarian, John- 

 son Brigham; Board of Control for State Insti- 

 tutions, William Larrabee, L. G. Kinne, John 

 Cownie; Fish Commissioner, George E. Delevan; 

 Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, G. S. Robin- 

 son; Associate Justices, Scott M. Ladd, C. T. 

 Granger, Josiah Given, C. M. Waterman, H. E. 

 Deemer; Clerk, C. T. Jones all Republicans. 



Finances. At the beginning of the last fiscal 

 biennial period there was a deficit in the treasury 

 of $412,000. At its close, July 1, 1899, there was 

 a balance on hand of $445,002.37, besides $51,000 

 due from the Government. The following state- 

 ment is from an address by the Treasurer in Octo- 

 ber: "During the two years ending July 1, 1899, 



