History of Dakota Territory, volume III, Part 34

Author: Kingsbury, George Washington, 1837-; Smith, George Martin, 1847-1920
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : S.J. Clarke Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1146

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By January 12th many bills had been introduced and all were under considera- tion. Three different bills for a state dispensary were introduced. Another meas- ure provided the State Board of Assessment and Equalization should be placed under the control of the governor, secretary of state, auditor, land commissioner and the railway commissioners. Another early bill provided for the establish- ment of two additional normal schools. A memorial to Congress urged the mem- bers from this state to support any action taken at the treaty of Paris. Early in January resolutions supporting the administration's management of the war passed the Senate by a fair majority. A substitute resolution of a little different pur- port, that was introduced was defeated by the vote of 26 to 16. Among other early bills introduced in the two houses were the following: For the destruction of noxious weeds; for a deficiency at the soldiers' home; for a state dispensary ; reducing the legislative session to thirty days; fixing the legal rate of interest at 8 per cent ; exemption of homesteads valued at $2,500 with eighty-five acres or a town lot; appointing a state veterinarian; the necessary work to enable a person to hold a mining claim; a tax on bequests and inheritances which were over $5,000; several investigating committees were asked for; for a postal savings bank; to sink experimental artesian wells in Custer and Fall River counties; to exempt cemeteries and public property from taxation; to establish a state board of embalmers ; to permit insurance against tornadoes and lightning; to make the killing of live stock by railways prima facie evidence of carelessness on the part

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of the railway companies; a petition from the citizens of Brown County asking for an appropriation to pay unpaid premiums awarded at the state fairs of 1893 and 1894; recommending the substitution of a commission in the place of the state treasurer on the State Board of Assessment; a resolution of praise and pride for the South Dakota volunteers in the Philippines; providing for a state board of examiners; making the setting of prairie fires a felony; to protect wild game; for a normal school at Watertown; abolishing the fees of insurance com- missioners.

The Senate passed its first bill January 12th. Other questions and problems considered by both houses were a petition from the Northern Black Hills for the establishment of an experiment farm in that section of the state; and to increase the salaries of supreme judges to $3,000 and circuit judges to $2,500. The legis- lative expense appropriation bill was the first to pass both houses and be signed by the governor. Others considered at a later date were the following: To classify cities according to their population; establishment of a twine-making plant at the penitentiary and appropriating $35,000 for the necessary buildings and equip- ment ; an amendment to the constitution requiring certain educational qualifica- tions for superintendents of schools. By January 25th the Senate had not con- sidered many of the important bills, but had spent much of its time in settling contests for seats and in discussing recent and prospective political measures. The referendum and the dispensary bills were yet in committee. The House was even behind the Senate in the consideration of the important bills. However by January 26th both houses had settled down to hard work. The measure to increase the salaries of judges was defeated in the Senate, but was reconsidered. Those who opposed the bill declared that judges received better pay than teachers and several state officials. The anti-pass bill received prolonged and careful atten- tion. Another bill considered required railways to carry bicycles as baggage. This bill, it was said in the newspapers, was made the football of the Senate, the lobbies and the railway commission. Other measures considered were a bill to attach an island in the Missouri River to Clay County for taxation and judicial purposes ; joint resolution for the return of the First South Dakota Regiment by the Suez Canal route ; to pay Joseph McLeod for supplies furnished the volun- teers during the Indian war of 1890-91 ; this bill was cut down and passed the Senate. Governor Mellette in 1891 did not believe it was a just claim. Senator Gunderson's bill to tax railways, telephone, telegraph and express companies, pro- vided a new method of making valuations. The registration law was early con- sidered in the House.

By January 3Ist other important bills which had been considered were as fol- lows: Courts of conciliation ; methods by which railway commissioners might compel express companies to adhere to certain fixed rates ; for a permanent annual endowment for all the educational institutions upon a per cent basis as follows : State university, 341/2 per cent ; Madison normal school, 17 per cent ; agricultural college, 121/2 per cent ; Spearfish normal, 15 per cent; Springfield normal, 9 per cent ; school of mines, 12 per cent.

The resolution asking Congress to support the treaty with Spain brought out a full partisan discussion of imperialism and expansion. Both sides expressed themselves passionately and unreservedly on this political problem. Other ques- tions were the election of United States senators by direct vote; to prohibit bonds-

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men from transferring their property without notice; to permit taxes to be paid in two equal instalments; fixing maximum rates for express companies ; to abolish professional juries ; to appoint a commission to apportion the remaining acreage of the state endowment lands to institutions not yet in actual existence, but which the state had already provided for; referendum measure; fixing the jurisdiction of justices of the peace in organized counties; to encourage the organization of reading circles ; authorizing the use of Granthan's Code as the official code of the state; fixing the compensation of county supervisors; to prevent the denudation of timber lands without the payment of taxes; to prevent the employment of rela- tives of the regents of education; to levy taxes for sinking artesian wells and to issue bonds therefor ; authorizing counties to fund their outstanding current debts ; requiring the Board of Charities and Corrections to establish classes in the peni- tentiary for the education of convicts, the classes to be conducted by other con- victs ; for a constitutional amendment extending the term of the governor to four years and the terms of the members of the Legislature to four years; to restore the circle at the head of party tickets; how to collect tax on transient herds of cattle ; allowing mutual insurance companies to write three-year risks; to prevent shipment of cattle by unauthorized persons; to abolish the grand jury in certain cases ; to empower school districts to issue overdue coupon bonds; for a constitu- tional amendment allowing greater latitude in the investment of permanent school funds; to prevent the adulteration of milk, cream and dairy products; for the protection of large game.

Not much progress was made in the passage of bills until after the middle of February. The Aberdeen and Watertown Normal School Bill passed both houses, but was vetoed by the governor. They were called industrial schools, but had all the features of normal schools. There was a strong and outspoken sentiment throughout the Legislature in February for the consolidation of several of the state educational institutions. All efforts for new buildings at the state institutions were checked until after the appropriation bill had been considered. Then the question of consolidation was taken up and duly studied and discussed, but was found to be in the main unwise and impracticable. It was believed about the middle of February that the permanent endowment bill would succeed in both houses, and nearly all members seemed pleased to have the appropriations for the state institutions taken from politics and settled thus in permanent fashion. The dispensary bill was duly analyzed and weighed by both houses. In the Senate were four different bills on this subject.

The House in February considered the following measures: To abolish the office of insurance commissioner; denouncing Pettigrew and thanking Kyle for their attitude on the Philippine insurrection; percentage appropriation bill for state institutions ; this bill, which had a limitation rider, passed both Houses, but was vetoed by the governor who took the ground that a fixed and permanent tax for the state institutions would check their growth and limit their usefulness. The Senate promptly passed the bill over the veto, but in the end the House could not do so. The attitude of the republicans on the resolution denouncing Pettigrew and thanking Kyle encountered the severest opposition from the popu- lists who declared that it was "partisan bunkum." The republicans vigorously attacked the views of the populists concerning Aguinaldo, the leader of the Philippine revolt on the Island of Luzon. The populists introduced counter reso-

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lutions justifying Pettigrew in his course toward the administration, but they were promptly voted down in the House. During this session the members of the House seemed to delight in political controversy and intrigue, while the Senate seemed more sedate and less flamboyant. By the 20th of February about four hundred and seventy-five bills had been introduced in both houses but only ten had become laws. Among the measures which were considered by both houses at this time were the Cooper revenue; oil inspection ; placing telegraph companies under the railway commission; pure caucus ; state desopitary ; regis- tration of voters ; prevention of swine disease; wolf bounty ; convict labor ; postal savings bank; requiring public officers to buy local supplies in this state; penalties for fraud by elevator companies. In the general appropriation bill, the article providing for the maintenance of the Springfield Normal School was stricken out. The bill to license the practice of osteopathy passed both houses. There were severe and sarcastic attacks upon the vetoes of the governor at the close of this session. The republican newspapers of the state commented with intense sever- ity upon his attitude on many important measures.

By February 27th the House and Senate sifting committees were doing excel- lent work in presenting the more important measures first and calling attention to the actual needs of the state. A resolution in the House endorsing Governor Lee's veto of the Aberdeen and Watertown Normal School Bill was laid on the table. The Senate passed the House General Appropriation Bill. The Aberdeen Normal Bill passed the House by the vote of 52 to 32. The House likewise passed the new revenue bill and the judicial salary bill which had been amended by allowing the governor a salary of $3,000. It had been defeated in the House by a vote of 44 to 38, but was reconsidered. In the House the Watertown Nor- mal Bill failed to pass over Governor Lee's veto, the vote being 40 to 39. The measures considered or reconsidered late in the session were oil inspection, hos- pital at the soldiers' home; new buildings at several state institutions; making prairie fires a felony; for a Ninth Judicial Circuit ; to resubmit the dispensary proposition ; providing for a state board of agriculture; providing for a state fair board of five members and $2,000 a year for premiums; requiring convicts at the penitentiary to furnish stone for public buildings; to prevent fraud by joint stock companies ; pure food measure; water supply at the soldiers' home; to pay the people of Plankinton for the building which they erected for the reform school; allowing counties to redeem tax titles; providing for a deficiency in legislative expenses; to apply the initiative and referendum to towns and municipalities ; a general game measure; depository for state funds; regulating the practice of osteopathy; to increase the tax levy in the state; prohibiting state officers to take railway passes; empowering cities to issue bonds for water supply, etc.

Among the bills which became laws were the following: Making Ft. Meade a military post; establishing a branch of the National Soldiers' Home at Hot Springs; establishing postal savings banks; supporting the treaty of the Govern- ment with Spain; asking Congress for pay for Indian allotment lands made by the Government; asking greater powers for the Interstate Commerce Commis- sion; securing the records of the convention that framed the state constitution asking for a free homestead law; also for a constitutional amendment for greater latitude in the investment of state school and endowment funds; to resubmit the

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dispensary amendment to the constitution; fixing terms of Circuit Courts; estab- lishing an encampment of state militia at Huron; to prevent operators from divulging contents of telephone conversations and telegrams ; preventing the spread of swine diseases; offering a bounty for coyotes, wolves and mountain lions; adopting Granthan's Code as the official code of the state; appropriating money for the deficiency in mustering in South Dakota troops during the spring of 1898; furnishing water supply at the soldiers' home ; collecting a tax on transient herds of cattle; permitting citizens to pay their tax in two annual installments, March and October; providing for free attendance of soldiers and their children at the state educational institutions ; placing a circle at the head of party ballots ; specify the work necessary to be done to maintain mining claims; empowering foreign railways to connect separate lines; providing for cyclone insurance; providing for the inspection of cattle brought into this state; establishing county reading circles ; passing a pure food law ; providing for the registration for elec- tions ; specifying how the initiative and referendum should be carried into effect ; establishing a feeble minded school at Redfield; paying J. B. McLeod for ex- penses in furnishing supplies during the Indian war of 1890-91; regulating the practice of osteopathy; a new large game law; abolishing days of grace on notes, drafts, etc. ; making an appropriation for the hospital at the soldiers' home ; a general appropriation bill; a revenue law aimed to secure the assessment of all taxable property; applying the provision of the initiative and referendum to towns and municipalities; creating a State Board of Embalmers and licensing embalmers ; general education bill; to prevent timber lands from being stripped without payment of taxes thereon ; establishing an Industrial and Normal School at Aberdeen and donating 401,000 acres of state land for its maintenance. This measure became a law without the governor's signature.

This was one of the most useful sessions ever held thus far. Almost from the start all irrelevant, useless and cumbersome measures were sifted out and consigned to oblivion. The time spent by the members, with a few striking excep- tions, was devoted to measures of great moment to the state. Practically no time was spent in wrangles over unimportant and incongruous bills. The discussions were more dignified and becoming than usual. However, this session was not without fault. It was far too parsimonious in the appropriations for growing and ambitious state institutions. It took no step to improve the inefficient and dis- graceful taxing system that ever since 1889 had been a crying shame to the state. Like nearly all the other sessions of the Legislature it had too many men who knew more about how to round up cattle than to make laws. However, unwit- tingly, a few of the wild counties and not a few of those that could have done" better sent men who knew how to make friends at the polls even if they did not know how to make laws.

In 1901 Burke and Crawford were both candidates for the United States Senate. There was not much excitement at the opening of the legislative ses- sion of 1901, because the republicans had an overwhelming majority and could do about as they pleased. As a matter of fact, the Legislature was firmly under the control of Congressmen Burke and Gamble, United States Attorney Elliot, United States Marshal Kennedy, and Charles McLeod. These men prepared the slates, and controlled the republican majority of the Legislature. The Minnehaha County delegation split over the early issues raised in the House. That dele- Vol. III-16

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gation was finally turned down in the House because they endeavored to organ- ize that body against the republican majority, but were effectually defeated and finally disregarded. Late in January both Houses of the Legislature met in sepa- rate caucuses and voted in favor of Gamble for United States senator. The vote in the Senate stood Gamble 38, Pettigrew 5; in the House, Gamble 75, Petti- grew 8. The most active candidates were Burke, Crawford, Pickler and Ster- ling, who were in pursuit of Mr. Kyle's chair in the Senate. In spite of their ambitions Mr. Gamble secured the nomination and was duly elected. This was a success for the republican machine. Probably the work of this Legislature in the early stages was more routine or slate work than ever before. The ordinary legislator had but little to say concerning the settlement of the important meas- ures. A prominent feature of this session was the difference of personnel between the two Houses and the formation of combines to check or thwart the slate of the majority. They came to be called the "Bosser Crowd" and openly declared and conducted war against the republican political machine and boss rule. It was asserted by the press that their combine was oath-bound, and therefore, in prin- ciple, just as intolerant and unfair as was the republican machine.

A. Sommers was elected speaker of the House, and J. M. Lawson was chosen president pro tem of the Senate. Charles N. Herreid succeeded Andrew E. Lee as governor of the state. George W. Snow became lieutenant-governor, and thus the president of the Senate. Wilmarth, of Huron, was a candidate for speaker, but was defeated because his election would have meant the passage of a bill for the removal of the state capital to Huron.

The Legislature of 1901 was composed of men whose average ability ranked high for South Dakota. The political campaign of the previous year had been one of intense conviction and personality and the members were yet keyed up to a high pitch for the music of the session. As in former sessions bills were introduced from the very start, but were not elaborately considered until certain important or preliminary measures had been disposed of. Among the early bills were the following: Requiring railway companies to fence their right of way; empowering cities to regulate and suppress billard rooms, card rooms and other places of public resort that might prove offensive ; allowing juries to find verdicts in civil cases by three-fourths concurrence ; the object of this bill was to annul the custom which permitted one or two men to defeat the will of the majority on the jury and thus prevent the attainment of justice; for the establishment of a law department at the state university ; approprating $75,000 for a permanent farmers' institute; to improve illuminating oil; dividing the state into two con- gressional districts instead of electing two congressmen at large as has been done since the state was organized. Should this measure pass it was proposed that James River would be the dividing line between the two districts.

Another act providing for the payment of deficiencies in various state funds, made it criminal for state institutions to contract a debt on acount of the state except in pursuance of law-left them no reasonable discretion. All state insti- tutions suffered by this unnecessary, too rigid and contemptible piece of legis- lation. One authority said at this time, "The provisions of the constitution of South Dakota relating to the appropriation of money by the Legislature, the limi- tation of state debt and the fixing of taxes for state purposes, are salutary and guarantee the continuation of the policy of economy in public expenditure which

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has from the first characterized the state government and kept the state's credit at so superbly high a standard." Others declared that while this might be true, it was also certain that the rigid constitution and laws concerning state debt had robbed the commonwealth of the large internal improvements necessary to make much of the land productive and habitable-that the superb credit of the state amounted to nothing, when immense tracts of state land remained unsettled for want of state improvement which the rigid constitution and laws prevented. The newspapers at this time declared that South Dakota appropriations were smaller comparatively than those of any other state. More than one newspaper called the Legislature parsimonious and niggardly. They declared that at a time when a splendid start instead of a mere makeshift should have been made the false cry of economy had robbed the state of a dozen years of development.

At the session of 1901 the Legislature prepared for a new apportionment. Under the constitution of 1889 the Legislature consisted of 45 senators and 124 representatives ; in 1891 they were fixed at 45 senators and 86 representatives. Now in 1901, it was proposed to make the Senate consist of 33 members and the House of 65; thus saving the state $112,000 annually.

By the latter part of January other bills considered were the following: Rais- ing the age of consent to eighteen years; providing for local option by counties ; providing for general prohibition; to turn the fees from the office of the clerk of the Supreme Court into the treasury and fix his salary at $1,500; prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors under twenty years of age; creating the office of state sheep inspector; providing a permanent levy for the various state insti- tutions ; increasing the levy of counties to more than eight mills to meet expenses and bonded indebtedness. The latter was a Black Hills measure and was intro- duced because many of the counties there were unable to meet the charges under the eight mill limitation. The Senate committee which had under consideration the House resolution of sympathy with the English people on the death of Queen Victoria, returned an adverse report on the ground that it was not a matter for official action and that the flag on the State House should be placed at half mast in honor of American citizens only. Other bills considered were providing for the creation of election precincts in states; legalizing the incorporation of one or more cities ; fixing terms of court in the Eighth Judicial Circuit ; governing orders of judgment ; permitting cities to refund bonded indebtedness; preventing the manufacture and sale of cannon crackers and air guns. There was sharp con- troversy over this bill. Other measures were providing for a state board of agriculture of seven members ; a food and dairy commission bill; providing for the expense of the insane patients where there arose a question as to what county to charge it against; making sheriffs collectors of personal property taxes; to create a state library board; to allow boards of equalization to adjourn from time to time instead of from day to day; providing for surveys of section lines in unorganized townships; to allow the establishment of two or more precincts in a township; providing for the discharge of mortgages owned by deceased parties ; fixing grades of punishment for the crime of perjury ; cutting down the amount of bounty paid for wolf scalps and limiting the amount to be paid in one year to $5,000; prohibiting the killing of antelope for ten years; for settlement of indebtedness between villages and townships ; giving heirs of deceased persons the right to bring suit within one year after their death; memorializing Congress

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to remove the sand bar at the mouth of the James River; to elect county com- missioners by vote of the whole county. This encountered much opposition from the fusionists. Memorializing Congress for election of senators by popular vote ; changing the time of election of Supreme and Circuit Court judges to general elections ; to make quit claim deeds absolute title ; providing for the dissolution of cities with less than two hundred and fifty population; memorializing Congress for a treaty opening a portion of Rosebud reservation in Gregory County ; appro- priating 25,000 acres of land to the blind school at Gary; authorizing railroads to extend or alter their line of roads and to build branches and extensions and make alterations ; requiring the establishment of waste gates at mill dams; regulating the notice to be given for road work; requiring a non-resident to appoint a resi- dent agent in his district; fixing the weight of speltz at forty-five pounds to the bushel; providing for making loans of school funds at a minimum of 5 per cent.

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History of Dakota Territory, volume III, Part 34

Author: Kingsbury, George Washington, 1837-; Smith, George Martin, 1847-1920 Publication date: 1915 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : S.J. Clarke Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1146

Author: Kingsbury, George Washington, 1837-; Smith, George Martin, 1847-1920
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : S.J. Clarke Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1146