On motion of Mr. Priest, William A. Forward, Esq., Senator elect from the fifteenth District to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of George E. Center, presented a certificate of election from the Secretary of State, and was sworn by the Hon. W. W. J. Kelly, Justice of the Peace for Escambia County.

On motion of Mr. White, a similar certificate was presented by Robert A. Mitchell, Esq. Senator elect from the First District, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Benj. D. Wright, and was sworn by the same officer.

On motion of Mr. Haughton, a similar certificate was presented by Jas. H. T. Lorimer, Senator elect from the Seventh District, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of David S. Walker, and was sworn by the same officer.

The President then addressed the Senate, after which was offered up by the Rev. Mr. Mallette.

prayer

The proceedings of yesterday were read and approved. On motion of Mr. Haughton, a committee of three was appointed to inform the House of Representatives that the Senate is organized and ready to proceed to business. Also, a committee of three to wait with a similar committee from the House, on His Excellency the Governor, and inform him that the two Houses of the General Assembly are organized, and ready to receive any communication his Excellency might please to make.

Messrs. Haughton, Lorimer, and Mitchell were appointed said committee to wait on the House, who retired, and after a short time reported that they had performed that duty.

Messrs. Forward, White, and Bellamy, were appointed said joint committee to wait on his Excellency the Governor.

A committee from the House consisting of Messrs. Barkley Baldwin and Branch, informed the Senate that the House was or ganized and ready to proceed to business, and that they were committee to wait with a similar committee from the Senate, on h Excellency the Governor, and inform him of that fact.

Mr. Forward, from the joint committee to wait on the Govern or, reported that the committee had performed that duty, and that his Excellency would in a short time forward his Message.

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NIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
LIBRARIES
266892

MARCH 1930

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The following message and accompanying documents were re ceived from his Excellency the Governor, by the hands of his private Secretary, Mr. Myers. Which was read.

GOVERNOR'S MESSAGE.

Gentlemen of the Senate

and House of Representatives :

It is to me a source of heartfelt satisfaction that I am permitted, & second time, to meet the Representatives of the People, under circumstances which warrant the conviction, that with the aid and direction of the Author of all Good, and with increased capabilities on their part, they are prepared to renew their exertions for the common good, and to consummate the important trusts involved in their official stations.

It is also with peculiar satisfaction that I feel myself at liberty, and even called upon, to congratulate you and my country, in terms of devout thankfulness, for the abundant blessings of a beneficent Providence, manifested in all that we see, which either contributes to our happiness or prosperity, individually, or which has a tendency to improve our internal condition, as a member of the Confederacy, or to add to the stability and permanency of our Republican institutions.

Instead of the ravages of disease, which on a former occasion was painfully announced as having visited us with dreadful fatality, it is now our good fortune to see depicted in every countenance unerring evidence of its entire absence, "in the glow of health and smile of content." In our abundant harvests, the rich reward of patient toil, enterprise and industry, we have especial cause for the expression of our warmest gratitude-the more particularly when, at the same time, our sympathies are awakened and enlisted for the serious and alarming destitution, in that respect, of other portions of our common country, usually not less prolific than our own in the annual bounties of the earth. Nor should we be less grateful for the unequivocal evidences of our moral improvement and reformation, now so obvious as to attract the attention of the most careless observer of passing events. In the discharge of that portion of the duty imposed upon me by the Constitution, which makes it obligatory upon the Executive to give to the General Assembly information of the state of the Government, and to recommend to its consideration such measures as he deem expedient, it might possibly be construed into a literal discharge of that duty, (under present circumstances,) merely to reca

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