speedily settled after the arrival of the commissioners sent by the Executive, cost the State an amount far beyond the estimate of the Legislature, and when claims were presented for supplies furnished troops the Executive did not believe the money should be drawn from the University Fund, and expressed his views in that respect to the Comptroller. That fund was the sole dependence of the Executive for the purchase of supplies to keep troops in the field. A considerable sum was paid, however, from the fund for debts contracted during the Rio Grande war. This reduced the amount which might be used to defend the frontier to $76,937.73, which has been exhausted. The Executive, however, kept troops continually in the field, and until the present time supplied them, with the exception of the minute companies called out in each county. Not a dollar has been at his command for months. Deprived of money to purchase supplies, and with the fact before him that Treasury warrants were already selling at a heavy discount, the Executive might well have thrown upon others the responsibility of abandoning the frontier, and left the people to defend themselves. But neither this, nor the fact that many have continually denounced and misrepresented his efforts made in behalf of the frontier, have caused him to forego his exertions; on the contrary, they have been redoubled.
At such periods a man, true to the obligations of his station and the instincts of humanity, should alike rise superior to the obstacles impending in his pathway, and the petty considerations of chagrin and disappointment at the conduct of those who maligned and censured him; and it is a satisfaction to the Executive now to know that the first who have received the undoubted evidences of the determination and the ability of the troops sent forward by him to defend them, are those who have been foremost in their efforts to thwart his endeavors. Finding that it was impossible to purchase any adequate amount of supplies on the credit of the State, the Executive, in two communications dated the 8th of November and the 7th of January, suggested to the State Treasurer the propriety of using, for purposes of frontier defense, the amount in the Treasury on account of University land sales; but the opinion of that officer was adverse to the proposition, and that fund, amounting to $34,708.14, still remains in the Treasury.
The Executive, believing that the Legislature would not repudiate a pledge made under such circumstances, procured of Mr. S. M. Swenson two months' supply of rations, with a guarantee that the same should be paid as soon as your honorable body met. This supply will be exhausted by the time more can be sent forward, and to your earnest consideration the matter is commended.
It will be seen, from the plain statement of facts given above, that from the time of his inauguration up to the present time, the Executive has devoted all the energies at his command to the defense of the frontier. He has called into service a number of the most experienced ranging officers in the State, and given them troops obtained in counties capable of furnishing the best Indian fighters in the world. Not only in the number, but in the equipment of the troops, the means he has adopted for frontier defense have been adequate to more than the reasonable expectations of the country. Besides these, he has provided every county with a minute company for its own defense, formed of its own citizens. If these endeavors have not sufficed to protect the country, no exertions which he could have made would have done so.
