“Resolved, that the superintendent of public property be and he is hereby authorized to purchase two national flags and two state flags, one each of which he shall place over the president’s chair in the senate chamber, and one each over the speaker’s chair in the assembly chamber, where they shall remain during each session of the legislature.”

I do not find any other laws or resolutions relating to this flag until the adoption of the revised statutes of 1878, section 4978 of which provides in part that

“The following acts of the legislature, passed in the several years hereinafter enumerated, shall be repealed, that is to say:”

Then follows a table of the laws thus repealed and among them I find chapter 248 of the laws of 1864. I believe that this ends the legislation in relation to a state flag and that the State of Wisconsin no longer has such a flag.

In the pamphlet published by Doctor Thwaites entitled Wisconsin’s Emblems and Sobriquet he refers to chapter 167 of the laws of Wisconsin of 1907 (section 633m of the Wisconsin statutes), which provides:

“The organization, armament and discipline of the Wisconsin national guard shall be the same as that which is now, or may hereafter be prescribed for the regular and volunteer armies of the United States.”

He seems to think that the state flag is now as provided in paragraph 222 of the United States army regulations for 1904—the colors to be of silk, five feet, six inches fly, and four feet, four inches on the pike, which shall be nine feet long, including spear head and ferrule. From this article I should assume that he considers that chapter 167 of the laws of 1907 is the law that repealed the prior law providing for a state flag. As will be seen from the references herein given, this law was repealed upon the adoption of the revised statutes of 1878.

This may not be of any particular importance, except that as a matter of historical accuracy, it should be noted that Wisconsin, in fact, did for several years have a State Flag.

Very truly yours,
Winfield W. Gilman.

Madison, October 24, 1917.