Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/642

INDIANA. College, Crawfordsville; Hanover College (Presbyterian); and Franklin College (Baptist). Vincennes University, at Vincennes, and Rose Polytechnic Institute, at Terre Haute, are non-sectarian.

Indiana has only recently begun a serious study of correctional and charitable problems. Formerly the township trustees distributed alms without let or hindrance, the burden of which was borne by the county. At present the township bears the expense of caring for its own poor, outdoor relief is discouraged, and uniform and detailed reports are made to county and State officers. Judges of the Circuit Court are now authorized to appoint boards of county charity, whose members are unsalaried. The State has pursued a policy of placing children in families rather than retaining them in institutions, and all children not defectives have been removed from the poor asylums. In 1900 the number of children in orphans' homes was 1682. The former prison at Jeffersonville has been transformed into a reformatory for first-offense cases, and is conducted very much on the ‘Elmira’ plan. The State has a parole law. There is a State board of charities appointed by the Governor, which has the power to investigate and supervise the charitable and correctional institutions of the State. These institutions are as follows: Hospitals for the insane at Richmond, Logansport, Evansville, and Indianapolis; a State Soldiers' Home, at Lafayette; School for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind, at Indianapolis; School for Feeble-Minded Youths, at Fort Wayne; Soldiers' Orphans' Home, at Knightstown; Girls' Reform School, at Indianapolis; Boys' Reform School, at Plainfield; Woman's Prison, at Indianapolis; State prison, at Michigan City; and the State Reformatory, at Jeffersonville. Of these, all but the State prison are under the control of non-partisan boards. The expenditure incurred by these institutions in 1900 was $1,648,455, of which $1,290,790 was for maintenance. The earnings of the institutions for the same year amounted to $132,489. The expenditure for outdoor relief for the year ending in October, 1900, was $209,956, or only one-third as great as it was in 1895. The number of inmates (3096 in 1900) in the county poor asylums decreased relative to the total population during the same period. In 1900 the expenditure for gross maintenance of county poor asylums amounted to $345,496.

French trappers and fur-traders appeared within the present limits of Indiana as early probably as 1679. It is certain that La Salle, on his way to the Illinois Indians, crossed the northwestern part of the State by way of the Kankakee in 1680. The Miamis and Ouabachi (or Wabash) Indians then occupied the region, and welcomed the French, who built Fort Ouatanon, on the Wabash, in 1720, and Fort Vincennes in 1727. The first permanent settlement was founded in 1734-35, by a number of families who made their home in the neighborhood of Fort Vincennes. The population increased slowly; but, owing to the richness of the soil, the inhabitants (French entirely, together with negro and Indian slaves) enjoyed ease and great plenty. The territory came into the possession of England in 1763, but the English occupation was too brief to effect any change in the people or the laws. In 1778-79 (q.v.),

with a handful of men, wrested the country from Great Britain. Hostilities with the Indians, continuing from 1781 to 1795, when a peace was conquered by General Wayne, brought great distress upon the settlers at Vincennes. In May, 1800, the Indiana Territory was organized, comprising all that portion of the Northwest Territory lying west and north of Ohio. Michigan and Illinois were subsequently set off, reducing Indiana to its present extent. The capital was moved from Vincennes to Corydon in 1813 and to Indianapolis in 1825. In 1811 Gen. (q.v.), at the head of a force of regulars and militia, crushed the Indian tribes under the brother of Tecumseh at the (q.v.). When the war with England broke out the Indians renewed hostilities, but they were speedily subdued, and never more troubled the settlers. As in the case of Illinois, a large proportion of the immigrants into Indiana came from the South, and before 1816 repeated attempts were made to legalize slavery in the Territory, in spite of the ordinance of 1787. In 1816, the year of the State's admission into the Union, the question was definitely settled against slavery by the first constitutional convention, though a law prohibiting negroes and mulattoes from immigrating into the State remained in force till after the Civil War. The growth of the State in wealth and population was accelerated greatly by the construction of the National Road and the Wabash and Erie canals. Wild speculation in lands and railroads led to a general bankruptcy in 1837; but after 1846, when a compromise with the public creditors was effected, the economic and financial condition of the State improved steadily. Its prosperity since the Civil War has been due in great measure to the discovery of extensive coal, iron, and gas fields, and valuable deposits of building-stone, in different parts of the State. Conditions have been monotonously peaceful, except for spasmodic eruptions of mob violence, notably in the years 1869 and 1888, and the disorders around Hammond attending the great railway strike of 1894, when strikers and Federal troops came into conflict. As a result of the strike, a board of labor commissioners was created in 1897, to act as a permanent tribunal of arbitration. In the same year an anti-trust law and a factory-inspection law were passed, and primary education was made compulsory. For more than twenty years after 1878 the State balanced almost perfectly between the two great political parties, vacillating, in State elections especially, from side to side by minute majorities in a total vote of several hundred thousand. The opportunity for political manipulation was correspondingly great, and in national elections every device known to practical politics was brought into play to gain the electoral vote of the State. Law-making was carried on frequently in a partisan spirit, and it was a favorite manœuvre with the minority in the Legislature, Republican or Democrat, whenever it was hopelessly outnumbered on an important question, to resign in a body, so as to prevent a quorum and thus block legislation. In national elections the State was Democratic up to 1860, excepting in the years 1836 and 1840, when it cast its vote for William H. Harrison, the Whig candidate. It was Republican from 1860 to 1872, Democratic in 1876, 1884, and 1892, and Republican again in 1880, 1888, 1896, and