Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/113

 CHAPTER VI HEN Hayes became President, George W. McCrary of Iowa, who was the author of the plan adopted by Congress for the peaceful settlement of the contested election for President, was invited into the Cabinet and became Secretary of War. John A. Kasson of Iowa, was appointed Minister to Austria-Hungary.

The financial conditions of the State of Iowa at the end of the year 1877 was not satisfactory. The appropriations of the Sixteenth General Assembly had been so large that there were outstanding warrants to the amount of $267,776.31, making a floating debt of $340,826 or $90,000 in excess of the constitutional limit. Besides, there was a funded debt of $543,065.15. The total amount of taxes was $10,699,762.39. The amount of interest collected and apportioned among the schools for the two years was $559,981.59.

The Home for Soldiers’ Orphans at Cedar Falls was closed in June, 1876, and the children transferred to the home at Davenport where there were now one hundred thirty-nine inmates.

The canal which had been in course of construction by the General Government around the rapids of the Mississippi above Keokuk was formally opened in August, 1877. It was seven and a half miles in length, three hundred feet wide and had three locks each three hundred fifty feet long. It cost $4,281,000 and it was estimated that $100,000 additional would be required to complete it.

During Governor Kirkwood’s third term an important decision was rendered upon an act of his, by the State Supreme Court. A convict in the penitentiary by