The Fourteenth General Assembly met in adjourned session on the 15th of January, 1872, and proceeded to consider the new code of laws reported by the Commissioners, making some amendments and enacting it into law.
Rumors had been circulated for some months of a defalcation in the State Treasurer’s office. Major Samuel E. Rankin whose term as Treasurer had expired on the 1st of January, sent a communication to the Senate in which he acknowledged having used the funds of the State Agricultural College, of which he had long been treasurer. He had assigned to that institution all of his available property to secure the college against loss. In his confession he made the following statement:
“A few years ago when times were good and money easy to obtain on loan, I invested my means in land and other property and in business and borrowed money for the same purpose and in some cases bought partly on time. Some of these investments did not prove profitable and especially the business in which I had invested the largest amount, but as money was easy I had no difficulty in procuring extension of time on my notes as they became due. I held on to my property believing that in a short time I could dispose of it all a profit; but within the last six months times changed, business became dull and money scarce, those to whom I was indebted needed their money and required payment and, relying in part upon promise of money to borrow, and in part upon the belief that I could obtain the money by sale or mortgage of my property before it would be needed by the College, I used their funds.”
Upon receipt of this communication a joint committee was appointed consisting of three members of the House and two of the Senate to make a thorough investigation of the affair. At the close of the investigation the following facts were found: Major Rankin had been successively elected treasurer of the college for five years but in 1869, 1871 and in 1872 no bond had been given as required by law. Early in 1869 he began to use the college money unlawfully for his own purposes, first in small amounts which he replaced, and afterward in larger
