Whether Governor Pillsbury could have been nominated for a fourth term may be questioned, but when he publicly declined a fortnight before the Republican convention, it was evident that among the aspirants to the succession the favorite was the gallant colonel of the Fifth Minnesota, General Lucius F. Hubbard. The nomination was his on the first ballot. He brought to the office a ripe experience in legislation and public affairs and a worthy ambition to promote the public welfare. He was easily accorded a reËlection in 1882, and, by reason of a change made in the official year of the state, remained in office a fifth year. It was a period of marked prosperity, not greatly diminished by the commercial depression of 1883-84. The population of the state rose from 780,773 in 1880 to 1,117,798 in 1885, an increase of forty-three per cent. The urban communities had an excessive increase of nearly eighty per cent.; Minneapolis increased from 46,887 to 129,200. Twelve hundred and sixty-nine miles of railroad were added.

Governor Hubbard’s interest in organizations and institutions for promoting the public health, improving the administration of the penal and charitable institutions, and the relief of superannuated soldiers was deep and continuous. With his hearty approval the legislature of 1883 enlarged the powers of the state board of health, which had been in existence for ten years with powers and resources much too limited. The executive secretary of the board for nearly the first quarter century was Dr. Charles N. Hewitt, whose conception of the state’s interest and duty in preserving the health and increasing the physical efficiency of its members was in advance of his time.

It had been the policy of the state to intrust the care of her penal and charitable institutions to separate boards of citizens serving without pay. To secure uniformity of administration and to enable these separate bodies to profit from one another’s experiences, a state board of charities and corrections was authorized by law in 1883. To the working secretary of this board for fourteen years, Mr. Henry H. Hart, must be accorded high praise for such unstinted and intelligent devotion to his duties that Minnesota’s institutions of charities and corrections were accorded a place in the front rank. The state lost one of her most valuable servants by his deserved promotion beyond her borders.

Following Governor Hubbard’s earnest advice, the legislature of 1885 established “The State Public School” for neglected children, which under wise management by different officials has rescued from lives of crime or dependence many hundreds of homeless waifs. The reformatory for youthful delinquents and the Soldiers’ Home, commended by him to the legislature, were established under the succeeding administration. His repeated recommendation that all moneys coming into county treasuries should be “covered in” through the county auditor’s office fell on deaf ears, and that needed reform in our public accounting still remains to be wrought.

The sanction of the granger laws by the Supreme Court of the United States had established the principle that states have the constitutional right to regulate railroads; but Minnesota had not exercised the right in any vigorous or comprehensive way, partly because the companies had of their own motion moderated charges, improved their administration, and shown a disposition to treat the public with some respect. Still, complaints of extortion, unjust discrimination, and insolence were frequent, and by many believed to be well founded. Governor Hubbard in his first two messages urged the legislatures to take up these complaints and endeavor to frame a comprehensive statute which should secure to the companies their just rights and immunities, and at the same time protect the people in theirs. The result was the railroad law of 1885, chapter 188 of the session laws of that year. This act, judiciously drawn, met the purpose of its framers so fully that amendment has been necessary only in points of detail. The historian at some far-off day will marvel that in the closing years of the nineteenth century it was necessary to compel common carriers by law not merely to serve the public at just and equal charges published in advance, but to provide common decencies and accommodations in the way of platforms, waiting-rooms, fire-extinguishers, and toilet-rooms.

Another measure successfully pressed upon the legislature by Governor Hubbard was that of public state grain inspection. The precarious and conflicting grades fixed by individual and associated buyers were the source of incessant dissatisfaction and complaint. Chapter 144 of the General Laws of Minnesota, 1885, established that system of inspection and grading since known and approved on both sides of the Atlantic. A warehouse receipt for a certain quantity of grain of a certain Minnesota grade became a definite asset. Because grain inspection necessarily involved the regulation and control of elevators, which in turn were closely related to railroads, the law placed the control of the system in the hands of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. The title of the board was changed to Board of Railroad and Warehouse Commissioners, and its powers were much extended and fortified.

Annual sessions of the legislature had ceased with that of 1879, but elections continued to be held annually till 1886, from which year all United States, state, and county officers have been elected in the even-numbered years. All state and county terms of office begin on January 1; the fiscal year begins August 1.

Governor Hubbard called to the important office of state superintendent of public instruction David L. Kiehle, who, like his predecessor, had received a clerical education and had had slight experience in school work, but like that predecessor was able to throw himself unreservedly into the public school cause. During the seven terms (1881-93) he remained in office he labored with great fidelity and success to improve the schools of all grades. Institutes and summer training schools were promoted and a state tax of one mill was established to increase the efficiency of the common schools. By an act of 1885 school attendance was made compulsory for twelve weeks in each year.

In September, 1884, Cyrus Northrop, resigning his professorship in Yale College, assumed the presidency of the state university, bringing to the office large knowledge, a ripe experience in education and public affairs, and a remarkable gift for gaining effective support for reasonable measures. The president of the university and the state superintendent of schools being the two working members of the high school board, such effective operation was given to the “act for the encouragement of higher education” that high schools in large numbers heartily took up the desired duty and presently began feeding the university with students fitted for college work. The university was thus enabled in 1890 to drop the last of its preparatory classes.

Whatever may have been whispered in political circles, it was general public expectation that when the legislature of 1883 should come to the election of a United States senator it would do nothing else than reËlect William Windom. He had resigned from the Senate in 1881 to accept a seat in Garfield’s cabinet, but had been reappointed by the governor after the death of that President. Mr. Windom felt so confident of his reËlection that he remained at his post of duty in Washington and did not come to St. Paul until after the discovery by his friends of an indifference, not to say an opposition, needing his personal attention. The Republican caucus gave him a unanimous nomination, but the absence of fifty members was ominous. The election went to the joint convention of the two houses. After sixteen days of balloting the choice went to another. The causes of this defeat of the best man of Minnesota for the place were various. An old political quarrel in the first congressional district was a cause of no little disaffection; that Mr. Windom had built a costly house in Washington, impliedly asserting a permanent hold on the senatorship, furnished excuse to some; the fact that he had been unwisely praised by admiring supporters alienated others. Intemperate censure of opponents by a leading newspaper favoring his reËlection doubtless compacted the opposition. Mr. Windom was himself convinced that a liberal use of money was the effective means of his defeat.

President Harrison called Mr. Windom into his cabinet as secretary of the treasury, for whose duties his industry, his large training in public affairs and matured judgment fitted him. His life was suddenly ended on January 29, 1890, by a paralytic stroke coming at the close of a speech at a banquet in New York city.

On the evening of November 7, 1884, citizens of St. Paul gave a banquet in honor of General Henry Hastings Sibley, first state governor, celebrating his arrival at Mendota fifty years before. For the long series of honors and compliments bestowed on this first citizen of Minnesota the reader must resort to his biographer. In 1888 the trustees of Princeton College conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, in consideration of “high personal character, scholarly attainments, and eminent public service, civil, military, and educational.” General Sibley’s death did not occur until February 18, 1891.