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ter (I was then in Jefferson City) saying that he would be glad to accept the Judgeship of the Pike Circuit made vacant by the promotion of Judge Fagg. Upon receipt of the letter, I at once went to the office of the Governor and asked him to appoint Judge Porter to the vacancy. After some little hesitation upon his part, he ordered the Secretary of State to issue a commission in accordance with my request. I had the great pleasure of sending the commission by return mail. He served that judicial district for more than twenty years, successively elected three times without opposition.

In the Senate of which I was secretary, there were many very able men; William P. Harrison of Marion, W. B. Adams of Montgomery, Frederick Muench of Warren, John B. Clark, sen., of Dadel, Samuel W. Headlee of Green, John S. Cavender of St. Louis, Filler of Lawrence, Reed of Randolph, Ridgely and Rhea of St. Louis, and others. Many important laws were enacted during the two sessions of that legislature.

Filler of Lawrence was much interested in the passage of a bill that he had introduced, prohibiting the driving of Texas cattle through the State. He claimed that the "Texas fever" was communicated to local herds by those coming into the State from Texas. Section three of the bill provided that it should be the duty of the sheriff to notify the owners of the Texas cattle to take them back out of the State over the road that they had been travelled. If the owner refused to obey the sheriff was to summon a posse and kill the cattle, etc. The bill was being considered

section by section; the third section was agreed to and the remaining parts were taken up in their order.

Senator Adams of Montgomery, who was the recognized wag of the Senate, arose when the fifth section was being considered and offered an amendment to the third section, saying it was only done to perfect the sense of the same. His amendment was "insert after the word cattle in the last line, the words and drivers." Filler, a slow plodding senator, accepted the amendment. The secretary was then asked to read the section as amended, when he read, "It shall be the duty of the posse to kill the cattle and the drivers." Great hilarity was indulged in at the expense of Senator Filler. It was some time before the tangle could be straightened out.

It was during the winter of 1866 and 1867 that the first appropriation by the State to the University was made.

VIII

STATE AND NATIONAL AFFAIRS

Higher Education in Missouri-Major Rollins and The State University - Price-McClurg Anecdote Elected to the 41st Congress - My Appointees to The U. S. Military Academy and to Annapolis — Missouri's First Railroad-"Liberalizing" the State Constitution

I have alluded elsewhere to the limited facilities offered and the meager opportunities furnished the children of my day in the State for even an ordinary education. The best that could then be expected was "reading, writing and arithmetic" and the child was fortunate to get even these. The State had failed to provide a fund of any consequence for the support of public schools, and the small salaries paid the teachers enabled these to be opened for about three months in the year only. The months utilized were most generally the winter ones, the rest of the year the younger children being kept idle and the older ones made to work on farms.

The first step taken by the State legislature looking to the establishing of a University was on the 11th of March, 1839 (the year after I was born), but actual instruction in the Academic Department of the University, commonly called "The State University," did

not begin until April 1841, the year my father came to the State. To the Academic Department has since been added Normal 1867, College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts and School of Mines 1870, Law 1872, Medical 1873, Engineering 1877, Graduate School 1896. For these facts I am indebted to the work of Professor Snow.

Lands for the support of a seminary, or seminaries, of learning were granted by Congress and these lands were sold for $78,000. I quote from Professor Snow: "When the question of location arose in 1839, the citizens of Boone County offered $117,000 to have the University in Columbia." Out of this money was erected the first building, of which the corner stone was laid July 4th, 1841. No recognition of the University was made in the State Constitution of 1865this because of the hostility of members of that comvention, headed by Drake, to Boone County on account of the opposition of a majority of its citizens toward the National Government in the war of the rebellion.

Short-sighted action in that regard, coupled with many severe proscriptive features contained in the instrument itself, were the causes that led to the political revolution in the State in 1870. The State had never up to 1867, made any direct appropriation of money to the support of the University.

In the election in November 1866, I was an unsuccessful candidate for the legislature in the County of Pike. However, when the legislature met in December of that year, I was elected Secretary of the State Senate, the duties of which required my constant attendance at the State Capital during sessions

of the legislature. In that year, 1866, the much beloved President Lathrop died. He was succeeded by Daniel Reed of Wisconsin University. At that time the certain income of the Missouri University from all sources was very small, not exceeding seven thousand dollars.

During the 1866-7 session of the legislature it was visited by President Reed. He was accompanied by Honorable James S. Rollins, the father of the University and its most faithful friend. They came to ask the legislature to make an appropriation for the support of the University. The membership of the Senate and House was largely republican and the feeling against Boone County, on account of the hostility of a large majority of its people to the Federal Government in the Civil War, was considerable. To get a bill through the two houses making an appropriation for the University while this feeling of hostility existed, was of course very great. President Reed was a republican as had been his predecessor, the lamented Lathrop. Rollins had been a Union man all through the years of the Civil War but had not affiliated with the republican party and had opposed the adoption of what was called "the Drake Constitution."

A joint session of the two houses convened in the House one evening to hear Major Rollins and President Reed upon the proposed appropriation. The presentation by Major Rollins was forceful and beautifully eloquent, but it did not seem to touch or remove the existing prejudice against Boone County. The appearance of President Reed was most impressive. He was a man about seventy years of age, six

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