Page:Kansas A Cyclopedia of State History vol 1.djvu/83

 cent. on their par value by the most prudent investors. In fact, it is difficult to find holders willing to part with them, when sought as an investment by the state, at the highest quoted price.”

He then carefully reviewed the condition of the state's public institutions; called attention to the ambiguity of the law inflicting the death penalty; devoted some attention to the Price Raid claims, and recommended a “house of correction” for youthful offenders. On this subject he said: “Humanity and the public good unite in demanding a place of confinement, other than the penitentiary, for youthful offenders. So revolting is it to the judgment and conscience of men to consign erring youth, for its first proven crime, to the society and ineffaceable disgrace of a penitentiary, that judges and jurors cannot be found to convict when they can evade it.”

As an economical means of providing a place of confinement of this nature for juvenile transgressors, he recommended a separate building and yard on the grounds of the penitentiary, but under the same management.

About the time that Gov. Anthony came into office, complaint was made in several of the western states that the railroads were not giving the people fair treatment in many respects. His utterances on this question evinced the fact that he had given it close attention. Said he: “There is, whether just or not, a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction with the railroad corporations of the state, on account of alleged unfulfilled obligations on their part. It is claimed that these corporations received valuable franchise privileges, most of them sharing in the division of a half-million acres of state internal improvement lands, and receiving large contributions of local aid upon their lines in county, township and city bonds; that these valuable rights and franchises were bestowed on condition, and in consideration, on the part of the state and people, that companies so chartered and aided should build upon the lines and operate their roads, in good faith, between the terminal points named in their respective charters. . . . Some of these companies, it is asserted, have not built upon the lines, nor caused their roads to connect and be operated between and to the points stipulated. . . . In order to settle all controverted points now in dispute as to the chartered obligations of these companies, I urge the passage of a law which shall clearly and fully embody a demand upon these companies for a recognition of the obligation held by you to be due from them to the state, with adequate provision for its enforcement by the state authorities.”

For some reason the legislature did not see fit to act upon this recommendation of the governor, but instead passed several acts authorizing counties, cities and townships to issue bonds to aid in the construction of additional lines of railroad. (See Railroads.)

By an act of Congress, approved July 3, 1876, the secretary of war authorized the issue to certain western states of 1,000 stands of arms each, Kansas being one of such states, but the governors of these states