1900 amounted to $266,000,000.00, and for the year 1906 to $384,000,000.00, an increase unequalled at any time in the history of the State. A billion dollars would, however, hardly be a fair assessment. We are sharing in a very great prosperity all over the country. Our immediate sister states, Georgia and Mississippi, have increased their assessments in a larger degree, which I assume is the result of superior tax laws and not the result of really increased values.

BACK TAX LAW.

The Tax Commission Law is effective in increasing the assessment against a few people in an average of one-half of the counties. It does not reach one person in one hundred whose property deserves to be raised. In one half of the counties it is entirely ineffective with any exec!1tion this administration could give it; and with any execution, indeed, it ever had at any time since the passage of the act. The whole tax system should. be radically changed. Personal property, except such as that represented by corporation shares, or such as pay a record tax, as I have said, practically bears no part of the tax burden. At your last session you provided for the taxation of mortgages at the small rate of 15 cents a hundred. This departure has not only been effective in raising a considerable revenue, $75,667.21 in 1906 for the State alone, but it suggests an extension along the same line. I am of the opinion that ultimately the law must be so changed as to exclude altogether for consideration all such personal property as may be entirely hidden from the assessor, except such as the law requires court or state records to disclose. I am inclined to believe that the principle of a mortgage tax might profitably and fairly be extended.

The Commission law has been more effective in securing unpaid licenses than in raising valuations or discovering escapes. It seems that the law should provide for a greater diligence on the part of judges of probate in the collection of licenses. Now it requires that the judge of probate shall report the list of licenses collected to the

grand jury. Some of the judges content themselves with receipting for licenses when handed them or, perhaps, notifying parties that they are due such license. They do not count it as a part of their duty to enforce collection. Their indifference, on the whole, has probably in creased since the passage of the back tax law. It would be feasible, it seems, to add to the duty of the probate judge a requirement that he exhaust whatever remedy the law is made to give him to the end that those who might otherwise, may not escape such tax.

Curious to know what has been done I have gone over the returns for four years covering the years of 1898, 1899, and those of 1905 and 1906. The law was established in 1896. I found that in 1898 in thirty-one counties there was either no back tax commissioner, or if there was such an officer he made no raises and furnished no es capes. In 1899 twenty four counties had no raises and reported no escapes. There were six other counties of the sixty-seven in which the tax from escapes and raises from the work of the Commissioner amounted to less than $30.00 in general state and special tax.

For the past year I find there have been no raises and escapes from the Commissioner in 35 counties. For 1905 there was no raises or escapes in 28 counties. It will, I am sure, appear to you at once that as at present written in the books the law is only effective against a few of the parties it ought to reach. You will agree with me that it is most undemocratic to make fish of one and fowl of another. In some of the counties of the State the law has never operated for any one of the ten years which it has been on the books.

Our assessment laws are not operating to the State's advantage. Our neighbors on either side of us are better equipped. Their increase in assessment the past year or two has been greater than ours and I am sure the real valuation of property in Alabama has far outgrown either of them.

RAILROAD ASSESSMENT.

The railroads were assessed by the Board charged with that duty last March for the total sum of $58,426,072.00, an increase in the six years of this administration of $10,227,834. This amount is far below their value, though I think it incontestable that it is a higher valuation than that set upon property generally in this State by owners and assessors. I may go further and say that a greater value is placed upon railroad property in this assessment than is placed on personal and real property in any county in the State.

INHERITANCE TAX.

I think that the State can fairly provide for a reasonable Inheritance Tax.

VAGRANCY.

The law on the statute books has been ineffective to suppress vagrancy. No lines that you may write will likely be entirely satisfactory. That will not hinder you from undertaking a solution of this most serious question. A more efficient vagrancy law should be passed or the present one amended. The Supreme Court has held that the burden is upon the State to prove that the defendant has no property or means to support him. Under this ruling of the court the State is required to prove a negative, which it cannot do. The burden of proof should be upon the defendant charged with vagrancy to establish the nature, kind and amount of property, if any, he has from which he gains a support.

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY.

It is gratifying to me to be able to make special mention of the continued growth of the Department of Archives and History. Although the newest of our State Departments, it has reached an enviable position of dignity and influence. Under the tireless zeal and intel

ligent enthusiasm of its Director, Dr. Thomas M. Owen, its development has steadily proceeded until it has organized and made accessible the archives or public records of the State, and has collected a vast mass of valuable historical materials, such as books, maps, prints, charts, historical memoranda, original documents, relics, portraits, views, and newspaper files, etc., etc. The collections aggregate many thousands of dollars in value.

Since its establishment the Department has been without adequate quarters, and has been compelled to conduct its work under very trying conditions, temporarily using the Senate Chamber for a historical gallery and the Senate cloak room for an office.

The plan of the Department, as a means or agency for meeting the duty which the State owes to its archives and its history, has met general favor. It has the endorsement of the American Historical Association a body of more than two thousand representative historical students from all parts of the United States. The States of Mississippi and West Virginia have created similar Departments. South Carolina has created a History Commission, substantially following our plan, and it has been endorsed in Florida, Arkansas, Tennessee, Iowa, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. It is a matter of congratulation that Alabama should lead in the establishment and development of this new phase of State institutional activity. The Department deserves well at your hands.

YELLOW FEVER.

In the summer of 1904 New Orleans and the State of Louisiana and Mississippi were visited by a terrible yellow fever scourge. There were three cases and two deaths in Alabama, but so excellently was the quarantine managed that beyond these cases, and the great expense and confusion to municipalities and counties and to the State itself, we were unharmed. The statute provides $10,000 a year to fight these epidemics. The State spent in this particular fight $42,300, the money being

supplied in August and September from the fund allowable for the fiscal year 1904, and in October from the fund for the fiscal year 1905. Treasurer Smith advanced $10,000 on an agreement that the Auditor would October 1st, 1906, issue his warrant to the State Health Officer, that officer agreeing to hand it immediately over to the Treasurer. You will observe that this accounts for the $10,000 for each of three years. The balance of the total expenditure was made up by turning over to Dr. Sanders, on the last day of the fiscal year, 1905, what was left of the Governor's Contingent Fund for that year to the amount of $2,200, and by Dr. Sanders borTowing the remainder $8,125, on his personal note, which, however, I and others signed with him. You will be ask ed to appropriate this money with interest to the holders of the note. The few dollars you will be called upon to disburse, as interest on this money, is much cheaper than would have been a session of the Legislature to provide for the deficiency. While $42,000 is a large sum it was well spent in keeping the disease practically out of this State. As it was business was never very greatly disturbed. The victory was very cheap at the price. In this connection I desire to say that I interested myself and procured the interest of all the congressmen from Alabama in a general maritime quarantine, which I believe is now effective. I think it will not be possible again to have the State disturbed over this disease.

UNIFORM SCHOOL BOOKS.

The uniform school book law, which was passed at your last session, was made effective in the summer of 1903. It has been the law of the State for more than three years. The law provided that the Governor and Superintendent of Education, together with eminent teachers appointed by the Governor, should form a State Text Book Commission. The Governor appointed, under the law, Dr. F. M. Peterson, President of the Girls Industrial School; Dr. C. C. Thach, President of the Polytechnic Institute; Dr. J. W. Abercrombie, President of the University. These three with the Governor and