Legislative documents compiled BIENNIAL MESSAGE Assembly OF 342 GOV. RALPH P. LOWE, DELIVERED TO THE EIGHTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA. 328 85617 DES MOINES, IOWA. Gev KFI 4220. Il 1860 v.l GOVERNOR'S MESSAGE. Fellow Citizens of the Senate, and House of Representatives : Representing the Executive Chair, it becomes my duty, under the constitution, to communicate to the General Assembly, the condition of the affairs of the State, as administered in its several departments, and to recommend such measures, as to me shall seem expedient for your action. The period that has elapsed since your last biennial session, has been one of great disturbing causes and anxious solicitude to all classes of our citizens. The first year of this period was visited with heavy and continuous rains, which reduced the measure of our field crops below one half the usual products, whilst the financial revulsion which comupon the Atlantic, in the fall of '57, did not reach its climax for evil in our borders, until the year just past. menced You need not be informed of the disasterous effects produced by these two causes, upon the hopes and condition of our people. Overtaken suddenly and unexpectedly in this misfortune, with heavy individual liabilities, with no facilities for obtaining money, their property reduced to a nominal value, and no demand for it at any price, thousands there are who feel that their homes and their fortunes are in great peril; and that this is so, would be worse than idle to disguise. In this aspect of affairs, you may reasonably expect that strong appeals will be made to you for remedial legislation; and I doubt not that their expostulations will receive your very considerate attention, and prompt you to put forth, in your sovereign capacity, such powers as you possess, to secure to |