The character and amount of expenditures are exhibited in the appendix. The table there presented shows only the amount of warrants drawn during each fiscal year; and, owing to a continued treasury deficit, in only one year, 1868, is the amount of cash paid out of the treasury the same as the amount of warrants drawn. However, as the warrants drawn were demands upon the treasury which were eventually met, the table represents the policy pursued with respect to expenditures.

The cost of administering the state government was fluctuating, but on the whole showed an upward tendency until 1870, and after that year took a violent rise. The multiplication of state employees and especially the increase in salaries and contingent expenses worked to swell the cost of running the several departments. The Constitution of 1866 extended the term of office of the governor to four years and provided for a salary of $4,000, which was an increase of $1,000 over the former figure. This was further increased in 1870 to $5,000. The- secretary of state, the treasurer, and the comptroller each received annual salaries of $1,800, and the commissioner of the general land office $2,000, until 1866, when all were increased to $2,500, and in 1870 they were further increased to $3,000. Chief clerks after 1870 received $1,400 to $1,600. By the Constitution of 1866 the number of judges of the supreme court was enlarged from three to five, and the minimum salary raised from $3,000 to $4,500. The minimum salary of district judges also was raised from $2,250 to $3,500. These substantial increases in salaries were ill-timed and were beyond the ability of the taxpaying public. The claim for an increase on account of high prices was stronger during the war, but neither the general price level nor the opportunities in private life at this time warranted the increases provided.

Occasions of large annual expenditures were the sessions of the legislature, and to this cost of law-making may be added that on account of the constitutional conventions. Legislative sessions were frequent and long and were taken up largely with private legislation which could have been avoided to a great extent by a general corporation law1 The legislature, however, was not extravagant in the matter of outlays on itself either to the same degree or in the same fashion that characterized other southern legislatures of this period. Expensive chamber furniture and other furnishings, and champagne and cigars to enable committees to endure better their arduous labor do not shame Texas legislative annals as they do those of states which, like South Carolina, were ridden by carpet-baggers. There were, though, improper expenditures which were cloaked under the blanket appropriation for contingent expenses; pet partisan newspapers were generously subscribed for; and the mileage and per diem provided were unprecedentedly liberal.2

While the state departments and the legislature explain a part of the growth of expenditures after 1870, the bulk of the growth is ascribable to other objects. The cost of the judiciary more than doubled, but the organization of new courts and the activity of the state's prosecuting agents account largely for this. The increase in fee payments to sheriffs and prosecuting attorneys was marked, but the fee system was no more abused at this time than under later administrations. After 1871 disbursements from the available school fund took a leading place among the state's expenditures. The use of the assets of the school fund during the war and the failure, due chiefly to inability, to make restoration or reparation to that fund resulted in a suspension of its functions until their revival by the act of 1871. There was expended out of this fund during 1872, 1873, and 1874, $1,489,675, as against $37,885 from 1865 through 1871. Beginning in 1871 the protection of the frontier settlements against marauding Indians and Mexicans called for large annual outlays. The need of protection became manifest immediately after the war, and failure of the Federal government to extend it forced the state to perform the duty. Despite expenditures during the four years, 1871-1874, of $524,963, the protection extended was held to be inadequate.1 The expenditures of this account were subsequently refunded to the state by the national government, but not during the period of the Reconstruction. In 1888, $922,541.52 was refunded; in 1891, $148,615.97. These amounts were refunded under the act of Congress of June 27, 1882, and reimbursed the state for all expenditures of this character between 1866 and 1882. Expenditures for the asylums, especially for the insane, increased during this period, but no exception can be taken to the better provision for the unfortunate wards of the state. There appears to have been some jobbery, however, in connection with the purchase of supplies for the asylums and the repairs of public buildings.2 Except in 1869, when a large amount was expended for support, the penitentiary was not an expensive institution. The expediency of leasing it and the labor of the convicts was suggested in 1868 and was carried out in 1871. Thereafter the only expense of the state in connection with it was for the transportation of prisoners.

1 Message of Governor Davis, January 10, 1871. The San Antonio Daily Herald, April 20, May 8, and June 11, 1873. Proceedings of Taxpayers' Convention, Austin, 1871, p. 21.

2 Reconstruction Journal, 1868, p. 47. The San Antonio Daily Herald, June 11, December 22 and 29, 1868. Flake's Daily Bulletin, August 27r 1868. Message of Governor Davis, January 14, 1873.

Perhaps the most obnoxious of the measures of the E. J. Davis administration was that providing for a system of state police. Warrants drawn on account of the state police and the state militia, - almost wholly, however, for the police, - amounted during the period 1871-1874 to $688,091, or 15 per cent of the total of warrants drawn on the general revenue fund. The personnel of the police body, their abuse of authority, and the fact that they performed functions which belonged to the local governments, led to the abolition of the system by the Democratic legislature in 1873.3

Texas narrowly escaped during this period the subsidizing of railroads with bonds, - a policy that characterized a number of southern Reconstruction governments and which resulted in grievous financial burdens to the states. The constitution of 1866 empowered the legislature to guarantee the bonds of railroad companies to any amount not exceeding the sum of $15,000 per mile. No resort was made to this provision because the Constitution of 1866 was short lived, and the provision was believed to be in conflict with section 33 of the constitution, which prohibited the legislature from contracting a debt to exceed $100,000, except in case of war, to repel invasion, or suppress insurrection.1 The Constitution of 1869 shut out land grants to any but actual settlers, but permitted bond subsidies to internal improvements. By the act of August 5, 1870, incorporating the International Railroad Company, a subsidy in 8 per cent, thirty-year bonds of $10,000 a mile, was granted, and an ad valorem tax upon all taxable property sufficient to pay the interest and contribute to a 2 per cent sinking fund was authorized. The state pledged itself in this act that its bond subsidies to works of internal improvement should not exceed $12,000,000.2 An act carrying a subsidy of $6,000,000 in 8 per cent, thirty-year bonds to a road that should cross the state from east to west and reach the Pacific Ocean was opposed by the governor, and it was only when the bill had passed the legislature after two vetoes that he withdrew his opposition.3 A bill that proposed to subsidize the East Line and Red River Railroad Company with 7 per cent bonds to the amount of $30,000 a mile was effectively vetoed.4 It was provided in the act chartering and subsidizing the Pacific road that when the state should have power under the constitution to grant lands in aid of internal improvements, a land grant should be substituted for the bond subsidy, and this substitution was made in 1873, following the adoption of an amendment to the constitution authorizing land donations. Bonds of the subsidy to the International road were signed by the governor, but when presented to the comptroller to be countersigned and registered,, that officer refused. The company thereupon brought suit to compel the signature of the comptroller, but the supreme court of the state reversed the judgment of the district court awarding a peremptory mandamus and dismissed the case on the ground that the judicial department of the government had no authority to interfere with the executive department in the performance of duties not ministerial in character.1 Unblushing bribery was charged in connection with the passage of this International subsidy, and though the jury of a district court found the allegation of fraud to be untrue, the charges were so rife and upon such high authority as to give them credence.2 It was a cause of wonder at the time that members of the Twelfth Legislature whose income was their per diem should at the end of the session be able to buy fine horses and furniture and to travel north.3

1 The San Antonio Daily Herald, September 6, 1871. Senate Journal, 12th Leg., Adj. Sess., p. 206.

2 Report of Committee on Asylums; House Journal, 14th Leg., p. 14. Report of Committee on Public Buildings; ibid., p. 161.

3 Ramsdell, Reconstruction in Texas, pp. 302, 312.

1 Report of Committee on Judiciary; House Journal, 11th Leg., p. 733. 2Act of August 5, 1870, section 10; Special Laws of 1870, Called Sess., p. 109.

3 House Journal, 12th Leg., p. 1688. 4House Journal, 12th Leg., p. 881.

Except for the increase in salaries under the Throckmorton government and the wastefulness of the constitutional convention of 1868, the expenditures to 1870 were not excessive. This is not true, however, for the period of the Reconstruction thereafter. Expenditures then were beyond the ability of the state, and the best evidence thereof is that, despite heavy taxation, bonds were sold to pay current expenses and a large floating debt was accumulated. The Twelfth Legislature exhibited such a degree of profligacy and open disregard of the state's economic condition that it is notorious. Matters might have been worse, though, and that they were not so was due mainly to the integrity of the governor in the administration of the public finances.4

1 Bledsoe v. the International Railroad Company, 40 Tex., 537 (1874).

2 Bledsoe v. the International Railroad Company, 40 Tex., 537. Message of Governor Coke, January 12, 1875. The San Antonio Daily Herald, October 4 and 20, and November 24, 1870. The Houston Daily Telegraph, February 23 and October 19, 1871.

3 Clippings from the State Gazette and Flake's Bulletin in the San Antonio Daily Herald, September 27 and October 20, 1870.

4 Ramsdell, Reconstruction in Texas, p. 318.