relating to appeals; it appears in the bill of rights and reads as
follows: “The right to be heard in all civil cases in the court of last
resort, by appeal, error or otherwise, shall not be denied.” Regardless
of this provision, however, the civil code denies the right of an
appeal from an inferior court in cases that have been tried by a jury,
and in which the amount claimed does not exceed $20, and the courts
have decided that this denial is not in conflict with the constitution;
but in at least one instance an appeal was allowed because of the
constitutional guaranty, and that guaranty has doubtless had much
influence on judicial legislation.
County government exists under both the district-commissioner system and the township supervisor system, the latter being rare. Cities are governed in classes according to population.
Except in Omaha there is no great field for social economic legislation; but the record of the state has been normally good in this respect. Railways have given rise to the most notable laws. Regulation has been a burning political question since 1876, the constitution making it the duty of the legislature to “correct abuses and prevent unjust discriminations and extortions in all charges of express, telegraph and railroad companies” within the state. The influence of the railways has been very great, and a constant drag on just taxation and other legislative reforms. In 1885, 1887 and 1897 the legislature created a Board of Transportation consisting of existing state executive officers or their secretaries, but this could do little except gather statistics, investigate alleged abuses, and advise the legislature, upon which the regulation of rates remained mandatory by the constitution. The Board was eventually declared unconstitutional by the state supreme court. In 1893 a maximum freight-rate Act was passed, but the rates thus fixed were declared by the United States Supreme Court to conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment, being “unreasonable.” The right of the state to fix “reasonable” rates remained unquestioned, but American experience has not found such laws efficacious. In 1906 all political parties conducted campaigns on promises of radical legislation on railway rates, passenger and freight; and a constitutional amendment creating a railway commission was adopted in the manner above described. A result of this campaign was a remarkable series of enactments in 1907 for the regulation of railways. The legislature framed a stringent anti-pass law, reduced passenger fares and express and freight charges, provided for equitable local taxation of railway terminals, regulated railway labour in the interest of safe travel, fixed upon railways the responsibility for the death or injury of their employes, and gave to the newly-created railway commission complete jurisdiction over all steam-railways in the state, over the street railways of the cities, and over express companies, telegraph companies, telephone companies and all other common carriers. In 1909 provision was made for an annual corporation licence tax and for the physical valuation of railways. In the same year, following the example of Oklahoma, Nebraska passed a law guaranteeing bank deposits from a fund created by an assessment on the basis of total deposits. Useful child-labour and pure-food laws were enacted in 1907. Prohibition of the liquor traffic had been established in the Territory in 1855, but liquor licences were introduced in 1858; in 1909 the licence fee was fixed at $1000. A law enacted in 1907 made it illegal for breweries to own retail liquor houses, and one of 1909 required all saloons to close from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. A homestead law exempts from judgment liens and forced sale a homestead not exceeding $2000 in value and consisting either of a farm not exceeding 160 acres or of property not exceeding two lots in a city or village; the exemption, however, does not extend to mechanics’, labourers’ or vendors’ liens upon said homestead or to a mortgage upon it that has been signed by both husband and wife or by an unmarried claimant. A woman’s rights to her property are not affected by marriage, except that it becomes liable for payment of debts contracted for necessaries to the family when a judgment against the husband for the payment of the same cannot be satisfied. The rights of dower and courtesy have been abolished, and husband and wife have instead equal rights to inherit property from the other; but the portion of the property of a deceased spouse that descends to the survivor varies from one-fourth to all according to whose and how many are the children concerned. The grounds for a divorce are adultery, incompetency at the time of marriage, sentence to imprisonment for a term of three years or more, abandonment without just cause for two years, habitual drunkenness, extreme cruelty, and refusal or neglect of the husband to provide a suitable maintenance for his wife. The period of residence in the state required to secure a divorce was formerly six months, but in 1909 it was made two years.
Finance.—The constitution limited the debt that the state might contract to meet casual deficits to $100,000, unless in time of war, and required taxes to be laid to maintain interest on such debt (bonds). These provisions were construed to mean that not more than $100,000 of debt could be contracted in addition to appropriations made by the legislature. There was from the beginning a constant issue of state “warrants” on the general fund, dependent on taxation. These warrants when issued and presented for payment were paid by the state treasurer, were sold to the permanent school fund, and drew 4% interest until cancelled from the general fund. The floating debt of warrants was practically cancelled in 1909, after a one-mill levy for four years for this purpose. Since 1900 there has been no bonded debt whatever. The constitution also prohibited state aid to railways and other corporations, leaving this to cities and counties under limitations. In 1903 the assessed valuation of property was $188,458,379; in 1905, $304,470,961; in 1906, $313,060,301; in 1907, $328,757,578, and in 1908, $391,529,673. The increase was due largely to a new revenue law of 1903 ordering property to be assessed at one-fifth of its actual value. The average tax-rate in the year 1904 was 623 mills; in 1905, 1906 and 1907, 7 mills; and in 1908, 614 mills;.
Education.—The public schools have been endowed by the United States, beginning in 1854, and by the state; in 1909 the permanent school funds derived from the sale of educational lands amounted to $8,450,557, invested in state securities, county, school district and municipal bonds. The percentage of illiterate population (i.e. population unable to write) above 10 years of age was in 1880 and 1890 smaller than that in any other state in the Union, and in 1900, when it was 2·3% (for native whites, foreign whites and negroes respectively 0·8, 6·8 and 11·8), was smaller than that in any other state except Iowa (whose percentage was also 2·3); the percentage for males of voting age (2·5%) being the least in the Union. There are four state normal schools—one at Peru (opened 1867), one at Kearney (1905), one at Wayne (originally private; purchased by the state in 1909) and one, provided for by the legislature of 1909, situated in the north-western part of the state. The university of Nebraska at Lincoln was established in 1869 by an act of the state legislature, and was opened in 1871. The university is governed by a board of six regents, elected by the electors of the state at large, each for six years, two going out of office each year. The revenue of the university is from the income of Congressional land grants under the Morrill Acts and from a one mill per one dollar tax on the current assessment roll of the state.[1] Connected with it and governed by the same regents are the State College of Agriculture (including the School of Agriculture) and the Agricultural Experiment Station, on the university farm of 320 acres, 212 m. E. of the university, which receive support from the United States government, and an experimental sub-station at North Platte. The botanical and geological surveys of the state are carried on by the university; the former has been largely under the supervision of Charles Edwin Bessey (b. 1845), professor of botany. The university as reorganized in 1909 embraces a college of arts and sciences, a graduate college, a college of agriculture, a college of engineering, a teachers’ college (1908), a college of law (1891), a college of medicine, a school of pharmacy, a school of fine arts, an affiliated school of music, and a summer session. The medical school is in Omaha. The university has no preparatory department. Its library in 1909 had about 85,000 volumes. In 1908–1909 the university had an enrolment of 3611 students (2077 men and 1534 women). The granting of university degrees is conditioned by a “credit-hour” system; 125 credit hours are required for a bachelor’s degree. Elisha Benjamin Andrews[2] (b. 1844) became chancellor of the university in 1900; in 1909 he was succeeded by Samuel Avery (b. 1865). Most of the educational institutions of the state are coeducational. Among the private educational institutions of the state are: Nebraska Wesleyan University (1888, Methodist Episcopal), at University Place, a suburb of Lincoln; Union College (1891, Adventist), at College View, suburb of Lincoln; Creighton University (1879, Roman Catholic), at Omaha; York College (1890, United Baptist), at York; Cotner University (1889; legally “The Nebraska Christian University”), at Bethany, a suburb of Lincoln; Grand Island College (1892, Baptist), at Grand Island; Doane College (1872, Congregational), at Crete; Hastings College (1882, Presbyterian), at Hastings; and Bellevue College (1883, Presbyterian), at Bellevue. State penal and charitable institutions include soldiers’ and sailors’ homes at Grand Island and Milford, an Institute for the Blind at Nebraska City (1875), an Institute for the Deaf and Dumb at Omaha (1867), an Institute for Feeble Minded Youth at Beatrice (1885), an Industrial School for juvenile Delinquents (boys) at Kearney (1879), a Girls Industrial School at Geneva (1881), an Industrial Home at Milford (1887) for unfortunate and homeless girls guilty of a first offence, asylums or hospitals for the insane at Lincoln (1869), Norfolk (1886) and Hastings (1887), an Orthopedic Hospital (1905) for crippled, ruptured and deformed children and a state penitentiary (1867), both at Lincoln. A Home for the Friendless, at Lincoln, incorporated in 1876, was taken over by the state in 1897; admission was restricted to children, and in 1909 its name was changed to the State Public School.
- ↑ In 1909 the state legislature refused to accept for the university the Carnegie education pensions.
- ↑ He was born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, on the 10th of January 1844; served in the Union army during the Civil War; graduated at Brown University in 1870 and at Newton Theological Institution in 1874; taught homiletics at Newton in 1879–1882, history and economics at Brown in 1882–1888, and political economy and finance at Cornell in 1888–1889; and was president of Brown University in 1889–1898. He was an ardent bi-metallist, and in 1892 was a member of the International Monetary Conference at Brussels. He wrote on the currency question, and published a History of the United States in our Own Times (1904) and other works on American history and economics.
