USA > South Dakota > History of Dakota Territory, volume III > Part 26
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In December, 1903, the Garretson News observed that when the capital was located at Pierre in 1890 it was argued that it would have a tendency to develop that part of the state; that no such result had followed; that the territory west of the Missouri was settling or not settling regardless of the capital location; and that the location should be established strictly on its merits of meeting the wants of the people.
In December, 1903, the Mitchell Republican remarked that filings did not make settlers; that many claim shanties were being carted off bodily, showing that they were not occupied; that the reservation (in addition to the central location), composed of the richest grazing land in the country, seemed to be the only capital stock that Pierre had and that she was using it simply to work up sympathy for herself when anybody referred to it other than as an agri- cultural country.
"Sneering allusions to a buffalo hunt to be held on the range west of Pierre and the characterization of that city as a wild west village, unfitted for that reason to be the capital of 'effete' South Dakota, will not make votes for Mitchell in the capital contest. The offense lies not so much in what is directly stated as in what is very plainly inferred. The same sneering allusions have been made time and again by the same parties to all that vast and important stretch of territory lying north of the limits of Davison county. A year ago, for the same reason, the News did not feel warranted in circulating a supple- ment prepared at Mitchell for the purpose of advertising the Corn Palace, and again this year circulated the corn palace supplement only in Aberdeen, being unwilling to give even a tacit sanction to the egotism and misinformation which
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the supplement contained. In the minds of these people there is nothing north or west of Mitchell worth mentioning-nothing flourishes save wolves and coyotes, and the whole territory is crude, undeveloped and untrustworthy. This year's Corn Palace supplement referred to Aberdeen as the extreme northern point at which corn could be raised successfully, the acme of successful corn. culture being at Mitchell, of course, while the fact that Grant county, north of Aberdeen, is a great corn producer, as are also Roberts, Day, Marshall, McPherson, Edmunds, Walworth and Campbell counties, besides a number of counties in North Dakota. Campbell county, considerably north of Aberdeen, has produced more corn acre for acre in any given term of years than Davison county has produced; so have Brown, Grant, Roberts, Day, Marshall and all the remaining counties on the north tier, while Sully and neighboring counties lying right on the border of what Mitchell calls the land of starvation, are not surpassed for agricultural products by any group of counties in the state. Mitchell is conducting its capital campaign on the basis that a vote for Mitchell will have to be construed as a vote against the good name of twenty good counties in the best state in the Union. Witness the cordon of knockers through which settlers and land buyers have to pass to reach Aberdeen, Huron or Red- field on their way to points either east or west of those cities."-Aberdeen News.
In December, 1903, C. B. Billinghurst, of Pierre, charged Mitchell with sending paid men out to the region west of the Missouri River to work up material to knock that portion of the state.
"Two years ago last Thursday the Clarion set the capital ball rolling, and that something has come of it is evident by the action of the last Legislature and the existence of well organized committees at Pierre and Mitchell to conduct a red hot campaign."-Mitchell Clarion, January, 1904.
"Nearly twelve months before the Clarion was born the capital committee was at work perfecting plans for the meeting of the Legislature where Mitchell was so successful, and all through that year a great deal of work was accom- plished in unifying the forces all over the state. It was the request of the com- mittee that the newspapers of Mitchell should keep absolutely quiet about capital matters, in order that the work could be made more effective and without arous- ing too much discussion over the state. The papers worked in harmony with the committee on this and all other matters and refrained from saying anything. of Mitchell's aspirations."-Mitchell Republican, January 8, 1904.
"The Record has always been firm in its belief that the best interests of the. Black Hills lie in the removal of the capital from Pierre and its location at Mitchell. The reasons for this indisputable fact lay along the same lines used' by the Pierre boomers for the past fifteen years-railroad business. The only alleged reason ever advanced by Pierre for the retention of the state capital is that old, wornout and threadbare argument that if the state capital was kept at Pierre the Northwestern Railroad would build across from there to the Hills as sure as fate. For fifteen years we have heard that cry; and for fifteen years the Northwestern has had one profitable line running into the Black Hills. through the Nebraska country, with no more intention of building a costly bridge across the Missouri at Pierre and running another line through the Bad Lands parallel to its own system than of building to the moon. Mitchell is located on the Milwaukee road, which has reached Evarts, on the Missouri,
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and is going to build to the coast. It cannot and will not pass the Black Hills country without building in here, and thus we will have a direct route to the state capital if it is at Mitchell. The people of the Black Hills can't lose anything by the change. We have dug in the old rut like blind moles for fifteen years, swearing by Pierre-and for what? Nobody knows, except that we used to have bull trains across the reservation in early days."-Sturgis Record, January, 1904.
"What ought to be Redfield's position in reference to the all-important capi- tal question? It may as well be presented in the light of facts in the case, leaving to individual judgment conclusions as to what obligation really exists. From the first, representatives in the Legislature from Spink county for several sessions worked to secure removal. Our representatives were among the fore- most in organizing for resubmission in the Legislature of 1901. In the fall of 1902 when the writer returned from a visit to Missouri, he found the city organized for the purpose of securing the removal of the capital from Pierre. In the discussion of the question it was assented to by all that the passage of the resubmission resolution could not be secured in the Legislature until the aspiring towns should combine on some mutual plan. Redfield took the initiative in bringing the three aspiring cities under the compact for us to create sufficient removal sentiment to secure passage of the resolution in the Legislature. To accomplish this the compact further specified that the name of the city to be inserted in the resubmission resolution be selected by vote in the caucus of such members as favored removal, and that the three cities would abide by the decision reached in said caucus. Mitchell won out in the caucus and was named in the resolution, and Mitchell is now the competitor with Pierre in the coming con- test. Under all the circumstances what would Redfield have expected of Mitchell, providing Redfield had been successful in the caucus? To answer this last question ought to aid in deciding what position Redfield is in honor bound to take."-Redfield Press, January, 1904. "In strong contrast to this is the position of the Huronite, whose editor was a party to the compact. When this editor saw that Huron was left out of the capital removal proposition, he folded his tent and slunk away to the support of Pierre."-Mitchell Republican, January 19, 1904.
"In this talk that is being engendered by the Pierre press bureau or capital committee concerning what they claim has been said by the Mitchell supporters about the reservation country, the Mitchell capital committee feels that not one word derogatory has been said or has emanated from our press bureau which can be construed as doing an injustice to that part of the state. The Republican defies the News (Aberdeen) to reproduce one article that has emanated from the Mitchell campaign committee that has ever cast one reflection on the reser- vation country. The Pierre committee was the first to inject the reservation country into the campaign, and after they set their straw man they tried to hide behind it when it was justly attacked and then threw up their hands and cried over the state for sympathy. Among the first statements sent out by Mitchell in this capital campaign was one to the effect that this city was in the center of population-the place that was most accessible. Before this time Pierre had always referred to the reservation country as the greatest grazing region in the West and as a beef producer it could not be excelled. The outside papers have
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always been generous and advertised that section as the great cattle range of the Dakotas, and it was never looked at in any other light. But Pierre could see that there was no possibility of its becoming the center of population in 100 years, so long as the reservation was used as a cattle range. It was at this juncture that Pierre commenced to talk about agricultural conditions out that way, which were as foreign to the reservation, and are now, as one can imagine. When Mitchell simply reiterated what Pierre has always mentioned with reference to the great range country we are then accused of knocking the state, or one part of it."-Mitchell Republican, January 26, 1904.
At the election for the temporary capital in 1889, as before stated, Pierre received 27,266 votes, Mitchell 7,793, out of a total of 77,175. Pierre carried twenty-six counties. In the contest of 1890 Pierre carried thirty-one counties. At both elections she distanced all her rivals. This showed that Pierre was the favorite and would be again in 1904, it was argued by the Pierre supporters.
"But for the Missouri river barrier no sane man believes that the two rail- roads with four terminals on the banks of that river would not have built across to the western border of our state long ago. The Milwaukee stops at the river at Springfield, Chamberlain and Evarts. The Northwestern stops at Pierre. Once across the river, those roads would open a vast area to profitable agriculture. The area has been producing millions annually in the form of live stock. For pasturage winter and summer it is without a parallel in the whole temperate zone. And yet our Mitchell boomers would give it no more considera- tion than some foreign country."-Groton Independent, February, 1904.
"Despite the handicap to immigration due to the lack of railroads, the section of the state mentioned is making rapid gains in population and wealth. A new town is being started across the river and about thirty miles below Pierre. It will start with a number of mercantile firms and a newspaper, and promises to be a flourishing village from the beginning. A large number of newspapers have also been established during the past year in towns across the river. The influx of settlers to the west part of the state has caused this activity, and the settlers continue to pour into the west and north parts of the state, regardless of the fact that Mitchell boomers persistently deride those portions of South Dakota." -Aberdeen News, February 19, 1904.
"The land west of the Missouri river in South Dakota will in time prove just as valuable for farming purposes as that east of the Big Muddy. In fact it is already proving so, as the experience of settlers west of the river who have ventured to devote their attention to farming rather than to stock raising exclu- sively has abundantly proven within the past year. The big ranges across the river are destined to become in a great measure a thing of the past. The big cattlemen are already seeking other sections. The soil in Western South Dakota is too rich to remain forever as the domain of the cattle kings. It will always be a great cattle country, but within a few years the cattle will be owned by the farmer who raises a few dozen head rather than by the stockman with his hundreds and thousands of head. This change is taking place so rapidly that it will be an injustice to the settlers in that section to remove the capital from its present location in the center of the commonwealth to Mitchell in the southern part of the state. The removal of the capital from Pierre would not only injure that town, but would prove a hard blow to the newly developed interest in the
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country west of the river and to the northern part of the state east of the river. It would have a tendency to confirm, in the opinion of residents of other states, the misleading statements sent out from Mitchell regarding the lack of fertility of the soil and the lack of rainfall in those portions of the state would retard immigration to an extent unrealized even by the Mitchell boomers themselves." -Aberdeen News, February 20, 1904.
The unfairness of this article was in the inference it conveyed that all of the country west of the Missouri river was fertile and had an adequate supply of rainfall.
The Clear Lake Courier observed in February, 1904, that the people of the state had no intention of moving the capital to Mitchell or anywhere else. About the same time the Sioux Falls Forum stated that the changes in popu- lation since 1890 were far more favorable to Pierre than to Mitchell, for in the counties which were then favorable to Mitchell there had been the greatest increase in population, and that it predicted Pierre would again carry off the honors, as it should, by an overwhelming majority. The Brookings Press remarked that the Mitchell newspapers were engaged in a jangle over the ques- tion of which one was entitled to the credit for the discovery of the capital removal possibility ; and that perhaps after election the papers would conclude that "it wasn't such a devil of a discovery after all."
"When Mitchell commenced to talk of being the center of population and of its accessibility then it was that Pierre introduced the great range country as being capable of producing agricultural products. Bringing that range country without any particular sign of population to the attention of the public, it was the intention and aim of the Pierre people to show that agriculture was the leading feature, and that in time the range would be settled with people. With that idea scattered over the state it was the supposition that the people could be impressed with the idea that the center of population would in the years to come move toward the present capital site. When this range country was legitimately brought into the capital campaign and it was referred to simply as a grazing country with Pierre for absolute authority, then Mitchell was accused of 'knocking' that part of the state. Would it be an injustice to the Black Hills section to say that agriculture was the paramount issue in its business life? Try it once and see how quick those Hills people would take it up. On the same basis the range country can legitimately and honestly be referred to as not being particularly adapted to agriculture when the experience has all been the other way."-Mitchell Republican, February 23, 1904.
"The people of this state have no intention of moving (the capital) to Mitchell, or anywhere else. Outside of a few real estate boomers the thought of removing the capital from Pierre has never entered the minds of the people of this state."-Clear Lake Courier, February, 1904.
"When the capital resolution was brought up in the Senate for a vote it passed that body in this way: Mitchell, 39, Pierre 5. Later it was taken up in the House and the vote on the removal bill stood this way: Mitchell 70, Pierre 16."-Mitchell Republican, February 26, 1904.
Pierre argued that in a short time the Northwestern Railway Company would build westward from that city to the Black Hills, and that the Milwaukee instead of building westward from Chamberlain to the Hills, would extend its
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line northwestward from Evarts and not touch the Hills. This argument was advanced to induce the Hills to support Pierre for the capital site.
"True it is that a number of states have their capitals located some distance from the geographical centers. Those capitals were located when the states were first admitted, and have never been removed in spite of the fact that the locations are now far from the center of population. The people of those states are wise enough to refrain from packing up their statehouse effects and removing them to some new location every time some ambitious town springs into the ring with a yearning for capital honors."-Aberdeen News, February 29, 1904. At the same time the News declared that despite the protests of the Mitchell newspapers the literature sent out by that city in the early stages of the contest misrepresented the northern as well as the western parts of the state, and that such assertions would not aid Mitchell in this contest in the minds of all think- ing people who believed in the ultimate development of the whole state.
In spite of the fact that Pierre and Mitchell were desperate rivals for the capital site and had their respective followers, who were equally strenuous and determined, the great majority of the people were in the main neutral and looked wholly from the viewpoint of the state's welfare. They saw readily that the capital should be near the geographical center, providing other con- siderations were equal and harmonious. All realized that much of the state west of the Missouri was semi-arid, but all believed that within a comparatively short time it would be made amply productive and habitable. They thus were of the opinion, despite the reasonableness and undisputableness of many of Mitchell's contentions, that the capital should remain at Pierre. This belief continued to swell in magnitude as the campaign advanced. and as the citizens realized that the western part would in time become populous and prosperous. People saw that it was more of a local fight than one for the benefit of all the population fifty or one hundred years hence. So in the end the good sense of the people settled the question at the polls. But the two cities and their ardent supporters continued the bitter war of misrepresentation and abuse.
"Without reference to the capital question, but solely with regard for the reputation and financial interests of the state at large, the News wants to pro- test once more against the slanders upon the western counties that are now being published in its sympathetic newspapers in syndicate style by the Mitchell capital committee. This week's installment of exchanges again contains syndi- cated articles relative to conditions in the western counties that are shamefully full of misrepresentations and perversions of fact. The counties are held up to scorn as being uninhabitable except by cowboys and coyotes, and in all respects unfruitful."-Aberdeen News, March 1, 1904.
"The News cannot substantiate a word of the above. Why doesn't it pub- lish one of those syndicated articles it tells about, and let its readers judge whether Mitchell is slandering any part of the state."-Mitchell Republican, March 2, 1904.
"The opposition to Mitchell in the capital campaign seems to think that the state capital is sort of a real estate commodity-that it must be left at Pierre in order to act as a lodestone to attract settlers thither. Well, the capital has been there for fourteen years and the development has been almighty slow-in fact there has been none at all. If there was anything in a possible success of
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agriculture on the reservation it would have been apparent long before this. If the country out there is worth anything at all the people will move there without the capital at Pierre, and to attract the people to the reservation simply because the capital is adjacent and then have a succession of crop failures would be the worst thing that could happen to the state, for instead of one portion being blamed for crop shortage the whole state would receive the black eye."- Mitchell Republican, March 3, 1904.
"Everyone familiar with the acts of the last Legislature knows that the bill to remove the state fair from Yankton to Huron was a part of the program framed up by the removal promoters of Mitchell, Huron and Redfield. To pacify Huron in her defeat, Mitchell gave her the state fair. Mitchell looked to her own interests when she entered the capital combination. She is now placing her ambition above the good repute of the state by advertising that two-thirds of the South Dakota land is fit for nothing but a cow pasture." -- Interview Dakota Herald, March II, 1904.
"South Dakota has the soil, the climate and the natural resources; all she needs is the people to develop these resources. And the people are coming, coming by the hundreds and by the thousands. It will not be many years until the prairies of South Dakota will be as thickly covered with towns and villages, with farmhouses, schoolhouses and churches and as thoroughly criss-crossed with lines of railroad as Iowa now is."-Aberdeen News, March 14, 1904.
"Like thousands of others, the writer was caught by the specious plea that the capital ought to be placed at Pierre, because it was the geographical center of the state, under the erroneous supposition that as the state developed it would become accessible to all sections, reckoning little of the topography of the coun- try around Pierre and its inadaptability to anything but grazing, which makes it impossible of settlement and development like agricultural regions."-Dell Rapids Tribune, March, 1904.
In March, 1904, the Sioux City Journal advised both sides to boost, not knock, whereupon many papers of the state and all speakers recommended the same course; but others argued that boosting should not be carried to the extent of lying about the true conditions in order to secure more settlers. It was openly stated that thousands of settlers had been induced to come to the state through misrepresentations of the true conditions. The truth is there was a great difference of opinion concerning the possibilities of the land west of Pierre. Time has proved in a measure that both contestants made claims not countenanced by facts and pushed the campaign beyond prudence in an effort to win the capital. While Mitchell's contention that the lands west of Pierre were good for little except grazing, the claim of Pierre that in time nearly all would be valuable for general agriculture is reasonably certain to be fulfilled according to the recent statements of the Department of Agriculture.
"Why doesn't Mitchell go down to Washington and stop Congressman Burke from opening the Rosebud reservation to settlement? Mitchell grafters know there is no chance for a man to make a living on the cattle range. It is a moral wrong for the Government to spoil a good cattle range for poor agri- cultural settlement. Will she do it?"-Brookings Register, March, 1904.
"Don't be silly now. The opening of the reservation will show that there is about as much difference between Gregory county and millions of acres of
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unoccupied Government lands west of Pierre as between Brookings county and the average run of gumbo plains between here and the Rockies. Not only does Gregory county lie east of Pierre, but it has for the most part a better soil for agricultural purposes than some of the counties east of the Missouri, and as much rainfall as its near neighbors. Yet it will be a great object-lesson -- watching 75,000 people trying to get 2,500 quarter sections at $500 each and having to live on the land five years with millions of acres in Pierre's agricul- tural district awaiting claimants at 50 cents an acre and no questions asked." -- Kimball Graphic, March, 1904.
"To one who knows something of the perfidious methods employed by Pierre when it debauched the voters of the state in the last capital campaign, when by direct purchase it unlawfully secured possession of the seat of gov- ernment, it occurs that Pierre should be the last spot on earth to cry 'conceived in iniquity and carried out by perfidy'-for of all the rotten deals in the history of the West-conceived in iniquity and carried out in perfidy-was that same capital campaign as carried out by Pierre. The scandalous manner in which Pierre money dispensed by Pierre boomers was handled in that campaign still smells to heaven. In that campaign Pierre brazonly handed every voter that could be inveigled into her unholy scheme from $1 to $20 for a vote, and not only handed out the money, but prepared and compelled the voter to cast the ballot so prepared. That was the time when Pierre fraudulently bonded the town and "blowed in" from $600,000 to $1,000,000, with which it bought the seat of government. That is the town that for years never paid a cent of interest on the bonds thus illegally issued and finally secured a compromise with its bondholders by which they were forced to throw off all accumulated interest and accept 30 cents on the dollar of the original amount involved. Had Huron spent a tithe of the money in such an unholy manner, Pierre could never have had a ghost of a show in securing the capital. Not only did Pierre use thou- sands upon thousands of dollars illegitimately, both on and after election day, but her emissaries further debauched the voters on election day with barrels of whisky and kegs of beer until in some instances the election was turned into a drunken orgie. Not only did all this occur, but to make the matter still worse, Pierre had prepared some 10,000 fraudulent votes which she purposely held back, hoping she might have a majority without them, but ready to have them counted if necessary to defeat her rival, Huron, should that number turn the scale in favor of Pierre. And after election some of the citizens proudly boasted of this fact. That is the town that now professes to be 'holier than thou.'"-Mitchell Republican, March 15, 1904.
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