California, where he still lives at the time of the present writing, holding some employment from the United States government in connection with the business of preserving the timber on the public lands in that state. [Illustration: _Charles Clinton Nourse_ From Photograph by I. W. Kramer, Des Moines] CHAPTER XIX ABOUT PROHIBITION In the month of November, 1889, the democratic party of the state of Iowa, for the first time since the election of Governor Grimes in 1854, succeeded in electing their candidate for governor; to-wit, Horace Boies. This was brought about by a singular combination between the railroad and the saloon interests of the state. I have already given some account of the effect upon the question of prohibition of the foolish policy pursued by the pretended friends of temperance in securing from the supreme court of the state a decision against the right to manufacture alcohol within the limits of the state for the purpose of export, and also the foolishness and wickedness of certain pretended friends of prohibition in instituting fraudulent prosecutions with a view to making costs and fees for their own personal profit. During the administration of Governor Larrabee the railroads of the state had become very restive under the control exercised by the Railroad Commissioners of the state under the law of 1888. In the month of August, 1888, some thirty suits were commenced in the district court of Polk county against the Rock Island, Northwestern, and "Q" railroads for penalties incurred in failure to make their reports to the Commissioners as required by the statute. The railroads of Iowa had become a very potent political power. We had five railroads extending from the Mississippi to the Missouri river, and in every county of the state in which these roads were located the railroads had one or more active attorneys to look after their interests, and under such captaincy as Blythe, of Burlington, and Hubbard, of Cedar Rapids, they exercised a very important influence over the politics of the state, controlling to a large extent the nomination of supreme judges and district judges and other state officers. The people of the state had become restive under the domination of this power. The open and shameless peddling of railroad passes to the members of the general assembly had begun to lose its power as against the rising indignation of the people. In the counties of Lee, Des Moines, Muscatine, Scott, and Dubuque on the Mississippi river, and such interior counties as Johnson and Crawford, with their foreign population, the saloon power of the state, uniting with the railroads, was sufficient to cause a successful revolt against the party in power. Horace Boies, the democratic candidate for governor, openly and shamelessly declared the prohibitory law to be cruel and unjust in its provisions, and his utterances in this behalf encouraged the violators of the law to