IOWA 



3038 



IOWA 



Iowa has few outstanding political institu- 

 tions and provisions that differ from those of 

 other states. Direct primaries are provided for 

 by statute, and measures dating from 1913 call 

 for the nonpartisan nomination and election of 

 judges and provide for the initiative and refer- 

 endum (see INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM). 

 There is in the constitution a clause which for- 

 bids the state, except in times of war, to incur a 

 debt greater than $250,000, nor may any debt 

 be incurred without the vote of the people. 



At various times prohibition laws have been 

 passed in Iowa, and from 1884 there dates a 

 statute actually prohibiting the manufacture 

 and sale of intoxicating liquors; but this was 

 not well enforced, and was practically suc- 

 ceeded by the so-called "Mulct Law" which 

 made possible the sale of liquor on the petition 

 of a certain proportion of the voters of each 

 county. On January 1, 1916, a new state-wids 

 and effective prohibitory law went into effect. 



The executive officials, the governor, lieu- 

 tenant-governor, secretary of state, auditor, 

 treasurer, attorney-general and superintendent 

 of public instruction, are elected for terms of 

 two years each. The governor, secretary of 

 state, auditor and treasurer compose an execu- 

 tive council which has special powers, such as 

 directing the taking of the census, auditing the 

 accounts of the state departments, providing 

 for the incidental expenses of the state officials, 

 and canvassing election returns. 



The legislative department consists of the 

 usual two houses, a senate of fifty members and 

 a house of representatives restricted to 108 

 members. Representatives are elected for two 

 years and senators for four years; the terms of 

 one-half the senators expire every two years. 

 Sessions are biennial, and a majority of all the 

 members elected to each house is necessary to 

 the passing of a bill. The house of representa- 

 tives alone has power to bring impeachment 

 proceedings, the senate constituting a court 

 before which such a trial is brought. 



At the head of the judicial department is a 

 supreme court consisting of a chief justice and 

 six associate justices, each elected for a term 

 of six years. Below this there are twenty-one 

 district courts, each with from one to five 

 judges elected for four years, and a number of 

 superior courts, each with one judge chosen for 

 four years. Such a court may be organized in 

 any city having more than 4,000 inhabitants. 



Charitable and Penal Institutions. At the 

 head of these there is a Board of Control of 

 State Institutions, which so far as possible is 



kept nonpartisan, and which has the power to 

 investigate and to criticize all institutions, 

 whether they be under state or -private control. 

 Special features of the correctional system are 

 the indeterminate sentence, the nonpartisan 

 board of parole and the possible suspension of 

 first sentences in non-serious cases. A statute 

 was passed providing for the sterilization by 

 surgeons of the criminals, idiots, epileptics and 

 drug fiends in state institutions, but the courts 

 in 1914 pronounced this unconstitutional. 



There are four hospitals for the insane, at 

 Cherokee, Clarinda, Independence and Mount 

 Pleasant; a hospital for inebriates at Knox- 

 ville and for feeble-minded children at Glen- 

 wood, and a school for the deaf at Council 

 Bluffs. Charitable institutions for those not 

 defective include the Soldiers' Orphans' Home 

 at Davenport and the Soldiers' Home at Mar- 

 shalltown, while the penal institutions are the 

 state penitentiary at Fort Madison, a reforma- 

 tory at Anamosa, an industrial school for boys 

 at Eldora and one for girls at Mitchellville. 

 At Oakdale there is a state sanatorium for the 

 treatment of tuberculosis. 



Brief History of Iowa. The state is sur- 

 prisingly young for so thoroughly developed a 

 commonwealth much younger than its neigh- 

 bors across the great river. The Indians from 

 whom it takes its name lived in it but tem- 

 porarily, and were driven out by the Sacs and 

 Foxes, but it was the Iowa who were there 

 at the time of the coming of the first white 

 men, Marquette and Joliet, who in 1673 stopped 

 in their voyage down the Mississippi long 

 enough to land on Iowa soil near the mouth 

 of the Des Moines River and take possession in 

 the name of France. In 1680 came another 

 Frenchman, Father Hennepin, but he made 

 little attempt at exploration. Julien Dubuque, 

 a French-Canadian, entering the state in 1788, 

 obtained from the Sac and Fox Indians who 

 had replaced the Iowa a grant of land at the 

 present site of Dubuque; there he built a fort 

 and trading-post, and opened up lead mines. 

 When he died in 1810 the site was abandoned 

 temporarily. 



Meanwhile, in 1803, the whole region of Iowa 

 as part of the Louisiana Purchase (which see) 

 came into the possession of the United States, 

 and was identified governmentally with the 

 Territory of Louisiana. Gradually the Indians 

 were induced to cede their rights to the land, 

 and Iowa passed through its early years with 

 fewer Indian troubles than beset Illinois or 

 Indiana. 



