History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/George M. Titus
[G. M. Titus]
GEORGE M. TITUS is a native of Cayuga County, New York, where he was born May 19, 1855. His education was acquired in the public schools of New York and Michigan, concluding with a course at the Wilton (Iowa) Collegiate Institute. At the age of sixteen he began teaching school in Michigan. Removing to Cedar County, Iowa, he began the study of law in 1876 and was admitted to the bar in 1880, since which time he has been engaged in practice at Muscatine. He was elected to the State Senate in 1897 on the Republican ticket for the district of Muscatine and Louisa counties, serving in the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth General Assemblies. He was the author of an amendment to the Constitution of the State providing for biennial, instead of annual elections. The “Titus Amendment” received the approval of two successive General Assemblies and was adopted by the people at the election by the largest majority given, any measure ever submitted to a vote of the citizens of the State. But in a case taken to the Supreme Court a decision was rendered holding it void on the ground that the clerk of the House failed to spread it upon the journal in the form required by law. The same amendment was again adopted by the Twenty-ninth General Assembly and will be brought before the Thirtieth. Senator Titus was the author of the bill establishing the State Library Commission. He was also the author of a bill requiring all amendments proposed to the Constitution, or other public measures to be submitted to a vote of the people, to be on a separate ballot.