election at which it is voted. The executive department consists of a governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, treasurer and attorney-general, elected biennially in November of the even-numbered years, and an auditor elected at the same time every four years. The veto power of the governor (since 1876) extends to separate sections of appropriation bills. The judicial department comprises a supreme court consisting of a chief justice and (since 1881) four associate justices elected for terms of six years, and lower courts consisting of district courts with original jurisdiction in civil cases in law and equity, and in criminal cases upon indictments by grand juries; justices’ courts, in which the amount in litigation cannot exceed $100, or the punishment cannot exceed three months’ imprisonment or a fine of $100; and of municipal and probate courts with the usual jurisdictions. The legislative department consists of a senate of sixty-three members elected for four years, and a house of representatives of one hundred and nineteen members, elected for two years, the remuneration being mileage and $500 a year. The reapportionment of congressional, senatorial and representative districts is made in the first legislative session after the state census, which has been taken in every tenth year since 1865. The legislature meets biennially in odd-numbered years, the session being limited to ninety days by a constitutional amendment of 1888. A majority of all the members elected to each house is required for the passage of a bill, and a two-thirds majority is necessary to pass a bill over the governor’s veto. All bills for raising revenue must originate in the House of Representatives, but the senate may propose and concur with amendments as on other bills. Expenditures from the fund known as “The Internal Improvement Land Fund,” derived from the sale of state lands, can be made only after the enactment for that purpose has been approved by the voters of the state; in 1881 the legislature, and in 1884 the popular vote, pledged the proceeds of this fund to the payment of Minnesota state railway adjustment bonds. Taxation must be uniform only within classes of property prescribed by the legislature. An Australian ballot law was enacted in 1891; the qualifications for electors (adopted in 1896) require that the voter be at least twenty-one years old, that he shall have been a full citizen of the United States for three months prior to the election, and shall have lived in the state six months and in the election district thirty days. Women (since 1898) may vote for school officers and members of library boards, and are eligible for election to any office pertaining to the management of schools or libraries. A constitutional amendment in regard to local government adopted in 1898 provides that any city or village, by a four-sevenths vote of its electors, may adopt a charter drawn by a commission (appointed by the local district judges) and proposed by such commission within six months of its appointment.
An amendment to the constitution adopted in November 1888 declares that any combination or pool to affect the markets for food products is a “criminal conspiracy, and shall be punished in such manner as the legislature may provide.”
A homestead which is owned and occupied by a debtor as his dwelling place is exempt from seizure or sale for debts other than taxes, those secured by a mortgage on it, or those incurred for its improvement or repair, or for services performed by labourers or servants. But a homestead so exempted may not be larger than one-fourth of an acre if it is in an incorporated place having a population of 5000 or more, than half an acre if it is in an incorporated place having a population of less than 5000, or than eighty acres if it is outside an incorporated place. In case the owner is married the homestead cannot be sold or mortgaged, except for an unpaid portion of the purchase money, without the joinder of husband and wife, and if the owner dies leaving a spouse or minor children, the homestead with its exemptions descends to the surviving member or members of the family. If the owner is a husband and he deserts his family, the wife and minor children may retain the homestead. Under the laws of the state the legal existence and legal personality of a woman are not affected by marriage, and the property rights of a husband and wife are nearly equal. A husband may, however, convey his real estate, other than a homestead, by his separate deed, whereas a wife’s deed for her real estate is void without the joinder of her husband. If either husband or wife dies intestate and there are no descendants the whole of the estate passes to the survivor; if there are descendants the surviving spouse has the use of the homestead for the remainder of his or her life, an absolute title to one-third of the other real estate of the deceased, and to personal property limited to $1000 besides wearing apparel. The grounds for an absolute divorce in Minnesota are adultery, impotence, cruel and inhuman treatment, sentence to state prison or state reformatory subsequent to the marriage, desertion or habitual drunkenness for one year next preceding the application for a divorce. Before applying for an absolute divorce the plaintiff must have resided in the state for the year next preceding, unless the cause of action is adultery committed while the plaintiff was a resident of the state. A wife may at any time sue for a limited divorce from her husband on the ground of cruel and inhuman treatment, of such conduct as to render life with him unsafe and improper, or of abandonment and refusal or neglect to provide for her, if both parties are inhabitants of the state or their marriage took place in the state. A law of 1909 provides for a women’s and children’s department in the state bureau of labour.
The sale of intoxicating liquors is for the most part regulated by licences, but the granting of licences may be prohibited within any town or incorporated village by its legal voters, and the question must be submitted to popular vote upon the request of ten legal voters.
Penal and Charitable Institutions.—The charitable and correctional institutions of Minnesota have been since 1901 under the supervision of a State Board of Control consisting of three paid members appointed by the governor and serving for terms of six years; this board supplanted an unpaid Board of Corrections and Charities established in 1883, and the boards of managers of separate institutions (except the schools for the deaf and the blind at Faribault, and the state public school at Owatonna) and of groups of institutions were abolished. The state institutions consist of state hospitals for the insane at St Peter (1866), at Rochester (1877), established originally as a state inebriate asylum under a law taxing liquor dealers for that purpose, which was subsequently held to be unconstitutional, at Fergus Falls (1887), at Anoka (1900) and at Hastings (1900); the state institute for defectives at Faribault, consisting of the schools for the deaf (1863), blind (1874) and feeble-minded (1879); the state public school for dependent and neglected children at Owatonna (1886); a sanatorium for consumptives at Walker; a hospital for indigent, crippled or deformed children (1907) at St Paul; the state training school for boys near Red Wing; a similar industrial school for girls (established separately in 1907) at Sauk Center; the state reformatory at St Cloud (1887), intermediate between the training school and the state prison, for first offenders between the ages of sixteen and thirty years, in which indeterminate sentences and a parole system are in operation; the state prison at Stillwater (1851), in which there is a parole system and a graded system of diminution of sentence for good conduct, and in which, up to 1895, prisoners were leased under contract (especially to the Minnesota Thresher Company), and since 1895 have been employed in the manufacture of shoes and of binding twine, and in providing for the needs of the prison population; and the state soldiers’ home occupying fifty-one acres adjoining Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis. By an act of 1907 the Board of Control was empowered to establish a hospital for inebriates.
Education.—The state supports a highly efficient public school system, organized through all the grades from the primary district and rural schools to the state university. At the head of the system stands the state superintendent of public instruction, appointed by the governor; there are also county superintendents; and a state high school board, consisting of the governor, state superintendent and the president of the state university, has general supervision of the schools and apportions the state aid. The schools are supported by a state tax, and by the proceeds of a permanent school fund amounting (in 1908) to $19,709,383; in the same year the total value of all public school property was $28,297,420, with an aggregate debt of $6,329,794, and $13,463,211 was spent for public educational purposes. There are state normal schools at Winona (1860), Mankato (1868), St Cloud (1869), Moorhead (1888) and Duluth (1902). The university of Minnesota at Minneapolis was projected by the Territorial Legislature of 1851. Some ground was purchased for its campus in 1854, but it was actually founded by an act of 1864, amended in 1866, 1868 and 1872. It is governed by a board of twelve regents, of whom the president of the university, the governor of the state and the state superintendent of public instruction are members ex officio, and the other nine, holding office for six years, are appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the senate. The university is supported by a state tax of 0·23 mills per dollar on the taxed property of the state, by special appropriations from the state (for “deficiency,” for School of Mines, and for salaries of teachers in the department of mines and engineering), by the interest on state bonds and land contracts purchased with the proceeds of Federal land grants under the Morrill Act of 1862, by Federal appropriations under the Morrill Act of 1890 and the Hatch Act, and by students’ fees, &c.; the total of this income was estimated in 1906–1907 at $628,500. The Act of 1872 provided for five or more colleges or departments: a college of science, literature and the arts, which offers (for the degree of Bachelor of Arts) a four-years course, is entirely elective (except that a certain number of “long courses” must be selected) after the first year, and in which the
