quisites for specific duties assigned as the state institutions were developed, pay for serving on commissions created and fees for performing acts authorized by law—compensation of the several forms, frequently a number of sources in each form, aggregated a liberal and, for some officers, extravagant allowances. In addition to these different forms of emoluments there were frequently additional sums available for traveling expenses and the habit was not lacking of using passes though charging up the regular fares to the state. During this era of perquisites and fees from 1863 to 1907 the language of the constitution remained as follows: "They shall receive no fees or perquisites whatever for the performance of any duties connected with their respective offices "Their plea in exoneration was that the added pay was for extra duties imposed. Furthermore, although the constitution placed the annual salary of the governor and the secretary each at fifteen hundred dollars and that of the treasurer at eight hundred, it did not append the words "and no more" as with the "three dollars per diem" of the members of the legislature and therefore the sums named in the constitution it was held were intended as the minimum salaries. This latter argument receives some weight from the record of the proceedings of the constitutional convention.
The system of perquisites was inaugurated in 1862 through the appointment of the governor as superintendent of the penitentiary with the duty of examining "into the general affairs of the penitentiary at least once in every three months." His expenses in visiting the institution and "a salary of four hundred dollars per annum" were allowed him. In 1870 the opportunity was seized to develop a full-fledged fee system for the secretary of state and the treasurer in connection with the creation of a system of taxation and supervision of foreign insurance, express and brokerage companies.[1]
- ↑ The incipient beginning was in 1864 with the allowance of a $2.00 fee for recording a trade-mark by the Secretary of State.
