USA > South Dakota > History of Dakota Territory, volume III > Part 35
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There were sharp fights over many of these bills. The proposition to increase the number of regents of education encountered sharp opposition. The bill failed although Governor Herreid strongly recommended the change. The governor promptly signed the bill creating the Department of History. This act was made an important event of history. Many prominent men of the state assembled to see this bill signed. Among them were Bartlett Tripp, Major Pickler, Judge Dillon, E. C. Ericson, the judges of the Supreme Court, the state officials, many ladies and a considerable group of distinguished citizens. The pen used was after- wards presented to the Historical Society and was a beautiful one of gold and ivory exquisitely and appropriately engraved with the head of a Dakota Indian. President Droppers and Professor Young, of the university, appeared before the Legislature to explain the needs of that institution. Special interests cut a consid- erable figure at the middle of this session. Almost desperate efforts were made by representatives of such interests to secure favors or advancements. At this time it was a popular belief throughout South Dakota that the treasury was wholly at the mercy of the state institutions. As a matter of fact exactly the reverse was true. At no time was any state institution ever given an appropriation which it did not urgently need and which it did not use to the excellent advantage of the state. The cry of enocomy now as in years past was used as a club to subdue and keep down the institutions whose growth gave the state its best name and gave it the greatest advancement in the estimation of the other states of the Union. There was a cry at this session that the state institutions desired to con- trol the appropriations, but it was shown that they were powerless to do so be- cause two-thirds of the legislative members came from counties which had no state institutions and which had no worthy object in eliminating the necessary appropriations for the state institutions.
In 1901 the Legislature was asked to establish farmers' institutes in all parts of the state similar to those in Minnesota. Several bills concerning this question were introduced. Up to this time the agricultural college had maintained super- vision of the farmers' institutes, but as the money available was too small in amount, satisfactory progress had not been made; and therefore a new bill pro- vided for the organization of farmers' institutes in every county. At this session a bill for the establishment of school libraries, prepared by S. C. Hartranft, county superintendent of Brown County, was presented to the Legislature. An-
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other bill introduced was for a state exhibit at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo.
One of the most important measures considered was that concerning educa- tion. Joint committees had agreed upon the measure which if passed, if was believed, would eliminate any objectionable features of the existing law. Also unsettled was the pending question of whether to give the governor power to remove appointive officers. The attorney-general expressed the opinion that the regents of education and the board of charities and corrections were subject to removal, but several senators, likewise lawyers, believed that those boards could be removed only by impeachment. When the question growing out of the attempt of Governor Sheldon to remove Regent Shannon was in the Supreme Court, Judge Fuller dissented from the opinion of the court. The majority held that the gov- ernor had no inherent power of removal. It was therefore realized that should the pending bill pass it would necessarily have to be sustained by the Supreme Court to be of any avail. Both Houses had passed the bill prohibiting the sale of cannon fire crackers or any dynamite crackers or any cracker more than three inches in length. The bill taxing transient merchants with bankrupt stocks and fire sale stocks to the amount of $75 to $100 a month license passed both Houses.
About the middle of February the Legislature were deeply immersed in the difficult task of discussing and analyzing the bills that had been introduced. The repeal of the wolf bounty law was reconsidered and the subject at once became very much alive. Other measures considered were the following: Allow- ing each senator and representative to name ten pupils in some state institution free of tuition ; fixing the penalty for desecration of the American flag at a fine of $100; to allow reassessment of taxes under certain conditions ; requiring town- ships to make repairs on bridges where the cost did not exceed $20; to repeal the act providing for the destruction of noxious weeds. The temperance committee of the Senate reported on four liquor bills and recommended the passage of two of them. One of the bills recommended was drawn, it was said, by the State Liquor Dealers' Association. It prohibited the sale of liquor by druggists. The other bill empowered city councils to regulate, restrain and suppress drinking places. Another provided for the increase of saloon licenses and another em- powered city councils and mayors to close saloons for cause. The question of equal suffrage was settled by the adoption of an adverse committee report. Other bills were one appropriating $1,000 for the expense of the investigating commit- tee; exempting drummers from the provision of peddler licenses ; fixing the power and scope of the Northern Normal School at Aberdeen; reconsideration of the anti-cigarette bill; discussion of the bill giving the governor power to remove constitutional officers; to provide a chaplain for the penitentiary at a salary of $1,000; extending the jurisdiction of townships over villages ; providing penalties for refusal to answer legal inquiries; allowing husband or wife to manage, con- trol or mortgage property when one has been insane for one year; changing the manner of selecting jurors; providing the manner of settling accounts between townships and villages ; providing for separating cities into wards; appropriating $35,000 for expenses of criminal prosecution in unorganized counties ; requiring applicants for admission to the bar to show three years' reading in school or office ; attaching an island in the Missouri River to Clay County ; authorizing cities of the second and third class to issue waterworks bonds; requiring all money collected
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by state boards and heads of institutions and receipts from endowment lands to be turned into the state treasury to be paid out for the benefit of the respective institutions upon warrants of the state auditor; conferring greater powers on managers of the children's home; prohibiting salaried state officers from receiv- ing fees ; memorializing Congress to increase the annual allowance for pupils at the Indian schools ; providing for the Ninth Judicial circuit. On the first motion the latter measure in the House came within one vote of passing. It was re- considered.
The following is the joint resolution passed by the Legislature in response to the investigation of state institutions demanded by Ex-Governor Lee early in 1901. "Whereas Ex-Governor Andrew E. Lee in his message to the Legislature of the state made charges specific and general against the former management of the Hospital for the Insane at Yankton, the penitentiary at Sioux Falls and the reform school at Plankinton, alleging theft, embezzlement, robbery, etc., on the part of the various heads of these institutions and also the Soldiers' Home at Hot Springs, who were removed by the fusion board of charities and corrections. Now, therefore, be it resolved, that a joint committee from the Senate and House of Representatives consisting of three senators and four representatives be appointed and that such committee be and is hereby authorized to make an investi- gation into the management of said institutions up to the present time and report thereon and to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of docu- ments and to issue subpoenas therefor." Representative Benedict was chair- man of this committee.
Late in February both houses were busy with the following bills: To change the boundary between Meade County on the one hand and Lawrence and Pen- nington counties on the other; to change the estray laws by allowing publication in local papers ; appropriating $15,000 for a girls' dormitory at the school for deaf and dumb; requiring guard railings on town and county bridges ; providing regulations for the state board of examiners ; placing children's homes under the control of the board of charities; amending the game laws by making the end of the season for killing ducks April 15th and limiting a day's bag to twelve birds ; governing the taxation of range cattle; providing for recording laws probated in other states; providing for teaching physical culture in the public schools; a compromise on the wolf bounty measure; providing penalties for the destruction of telegraph or telephone lines by steam threshers; providing penalties for tam- pering with or tapping telegraph wires; empowering towns with 350 population to maintain waterworks; authorizing the governor to remove certain officers with- out giving any reason for his action; providing punishment for trespass upon state lands ; appropriating $1,000 to pay the judicial expenses of Gregory County prior to its organization; providing penalties for the transportation of diseased swine; memorializing Congress for the better preservation of the pine on the Black Hills Forest Reserve; permitting further consolidation of tax levies ; en- larging the powers of cities to suppress the sale of intoxicating liquors ; a license bill which prohibited druggists from handling liquor; providing for the collection of delinquent personal tax by the sheriff instead of by the treasurer; providing for the protection of large game; requiring a deposit before beginning action on a tax deed; fixing the manner of levies for town libraries; allowing county seats to be moved from the point off a railroad to a point on a railroad on a petition
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of fifty-five per cent of the voters; memoralizing Congress for an interstate drain- age canal to join Big Stone Lake and Lake Traverse; requiring road supervisors to fill abandoned wells and other dangerous excavations; providing for the ap- pointment of administrator pendente lite and for codification and revision of laws making the governor, secretary of state and attorney general, a board of super- visors and providing for the appointment of two attorneys to act with the attorney general for that purpose and appropriating $13,000 to cover expenses ; joint reso- lutions donating the chair refused by Ex-Governor Lee to the State Historical Society ; allowing the use of abbreviations in the tax list; providing for counsel for indigent criminals and fixing an attorney's fee at $25; preventing the sale of stocks of goods of defrauded creditors; fixing the salary of state veterinarians at $1,200 per year; changing the name of the Aberdeen School of Technology to the Normal and Industrial School; requiring all incidental funds received by any state institution to be turned into the treasury and be drawn out by auditor's war- rant ; to remove the reform school from Plankinton to lands owned by the state near Watertown; to appropriate $1,300 to Mrs. T. M. Evans for extra work performed at the Soldier's Home in 1899; compelling threshing machine opera- tors to plank bridges before crossing; compiling the redemption laws prepared by the State Bar Association; fixing the rate of interest at 10 per cent; exempting compounders of medicine from the provisions of the dealers' license law.
Late in February and early in March, 1901, many important bills were con- sidered by the Legislature. Both houses now worked day and evenings until the termination of the session. The general education bill and the wolf bounty bill were concurred in by both houses. The House appropriation committee reported in favor of appropriations as follows: State university, $40,000; Aberdeen nor- inal, $30,000 ; agricultural college, $50,000; school of mines, $20,000; Springfield normal, $18,000, and similar amounts for several of the other educational institu- tions. Other important measures considered were the following: The care and lease of the Ft. Sisseton Military Reservation ; giving Faulk County an additional term of court ; giving officers of the Children's Home additional power to recover misplaced children; advancing the salaries of county judges twenty-five per cent ; proposing a constitutional amendment providing that sixty per cent of the voters should have power to move a county seat to a railroad ; making the minimum sal- ary of registers of deeds $4,000. The committee on appropriation in the Senate introduced a general bill carrying $958,800. This was about $50,000 less than provided for in the House bill. Other bills were providing penalties for trans- portation of diseased swine; defining how ballots should be marked on mixed tickets ; placing organization of children's homes under the control of the Board of Charities and Corrections; preventing the adulteration of linseed oil; to sub- mit a constitutional amendment permitting an additional indebtedness for the purpose of securing water, sewers, street railways, telephone system and a light- ing plant ; memorial to Congress for legislation giving the United States courts absolute jurisdiction in Indian reservations ; providing regulations for the election of officials of mutual insurance companies so that all would not go out at once ; limiting the risks of county mutual companies to farms ; placing mutual insurance companies under the control of the State Insurance Department; providing for the testing of scales; providing for a new board of commissioners of the Sol- diers' Home ; fixing a specified time for the expiration of terms of members of the
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state boards ; making intoxication a misdemeanor; state sheep inspection. This bill was fought vigorously but finally carried; a liquor license measure ; one re- quiring county commissioners to be elected by the whole county; donating certain property to Dell Rapids for street purposes ; abolishing the Railroad Commission ; several deficiency bills; one for the reorganization of the Board of Charities and Corrections.
During the session of 1901 over 200 bills and joint resolutions were enacted into laws, being the largest number at any session since the organization of the state. The most important Senate bills adopted were as follows: Providing for continuance of cases in court where attorneys or litigants are members of the Legislature; providing for the selection of official papers by county commissioners regardless of the politics of the paper; providing for the collection of delinquent personal tax by the sheriff instead of the treasurer; appropriating money to reim- burse counties and persons who assisted in returning troops from San Francisco; to prevent killing antelope in the state for ten years ; to prevent the name of any person from appearing on the ballot more than once; appropriating $20,000 for legislative printing; granting to counties the whole of the liquor license fee; set- ting aside 25,000 acres of state land for the benefit of the blind school at Gary; providing for the refunding of bonds by cities; the taking of depositions of non- residents in civil suits; legalizing the incorporation of Revillo; prohibiting the manufacture, sale and use of air guns and cannon crackers; providing for the division of cities into wards and the election of aldermen; making a judgment complete when it had been signed and entered on the record by the clerk of court; a general law governing the manner of incorporation of cities, towns and villages; appropriating $2,500 for expenses incurred in criminal prosecutions in unorgan- ized counties ; providing that a director in a state bank must hold at least five shares of the stock; providing for a statement to the state auditor of apportion- ment of endowment funds; fixing the salary of the state veterinarian at $1,500; fixing the terms of the members of the Soldiers' Home; providing methods of securing homes for neglected and ill treated children; general education bill; making terms of county commissioners four years and making them elective; relating to limitation of actions to recovery on tax sales ; allowing towns of 300 population to bond for waterworks and fire apparatus; attaching an island in the Missouri River to Clay County for school purposes; fixing qualifications for ad- mission to the bar; fixing the responsibilities of owners of steam threshers ; pro- viding a penalty of life imprisonment for kidnaping and holding for ransom with threats ; fixing a penalty for tapping telephone and telegraph lines; allowing an executor to bring action or continue action after the death of the principal ; appro- priating money for the expense of setting aside school lands ; appropriating $11,470 for a building at the Madison Normal School; appropriating money to A. J. Mosier for expense in organizing the first South Dakota regiment ; giving threshers first lien on grain for cost of threshing; requiring railroads to fence their tracks along enclosed fields; providing for the preservation and care of a permanent camp and parade ground at Ft. Sisseton; general liquor law ; legalizing the incor- poration of Elkton; classifying county courts and fixing salaries of judges on a basis of population ; making the adulteration of liquor or sale of adulterated liquor a misdemeanor ; fixing terms of court in the Sixth Judicial Circuit ; giving officers of cemetery associations the right of eminent domain in extending cemetery
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boundaries; providing for the establishment and maintenance of public ditches; making the teaching of humane treatment of animals compulsory in the public schools ; empowering county commissioners to employ assistant counsel for state's attorneys; reducing the State Board of Equalization by dropping the superin- tendent of instruction and the attorney general ; providing that all taxes should be spread on record under the head of consolidated tax; allowing levy by states for construction of library buildings and maintenance of libraries ; giving to the gov- ernor authority to accept any grants or devises made to the state; making a cer- tified copy of a public record admissible in evidence; requiring the heads of all state institutions to pay into the state treasury all fees and funds coming into their hands; providing for flood gates in mill dams; allowing live stock to be assessed at the home ranch.
The following Senate joint resolution also became law: Memorializing Con- gress for continuance of the Sisseton Indian Agency; the same to make Ft. Meade a permanent regimental post ; the same for national aid to the State School of Mines ; a resolution providing for an investigation committee to look into the charges made by Ex-Governor Lee against the heads of state institutions ; author- izing the custodian of the state house to present to Ex-Governor Lee his official chair ; a memorial to Congress for an appropriation to remove the sand bar from the mouth of the James River ; same to increase the annual allowance for pupils at the Government Indian school; a resolution providing for submission of an amendment to the constitution to allow county seats to be removed to a railroad town by a vote of sixty per cent of the people; memorializing Congress for the drainage of Red River Valley ; confirming the Hatch and Morrill grants to the State Agricultural College; memorializing Congress for the purpose of amend- ing the Constitution in order to elect United States senators by a vote of the people.
The following were among the bills passed by the House in 1901: Fixing terms of court in the Third Judicial Circuit, also in the Seventh Judicial Circuit ; fixing the salary of governor at $3,000 per year and circuit judges at $2,500 per year; creating the law department of the state university; appropriating $2,500 deficiency for transportation of prisoners to the penitentiary ; providing that jus- tices of the peace and other officers of towns must file bond in all counties where the town lies in more than one county; fixing a tax in addition to all other taxes of 25 cents per head per month on cattle of non-residents which are grazed in the state; fixing the order in which demands against estate should be paid; creating a state historical society ; creating a state board of agriculture of five members appointed by the governor and appropriating $3,000 a year for two years when proof should be furnished that no liquors were sold nor gambling allowed on the fair grounds ; providing for the investment of the permanent school funds in state, county and municipal bonds ; ceding to the United States Government, jurisdiction over crimes committed on Indian reservations; providing for the payment of village and town assessors by the county ; authorizing counties to issue refunding bonds to take up old indebtedness; transferring the fish fund to the state general fund; providing for the issuance of bonds by boards of education of cities of the first class ; licensing transient merchants ; providing for the expenses of insane patients ; making the provision of the registration law apply to all elections ; giving the governor power to remove constitutional officers not liable to impeachment;
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allowing county boards of equalization to adjourn from time to time; making the office of city assessor elective instead of appointive; reorganizing the State Board of Charities ; dividing the cost of construction of bridges between counties and townships ; fixing penalties for the transportation of diseased swine; to pre- vent the desecration of the United States flag; authorizing eight justices of the peace in counties of over 20,000 population when organized into townships; pro- viding for maintaining guard rails on bridges; amending the law relating to the drawing of juries ; allowing husband or wife to mortgage property to pay debts or for maintenance when the other is insane; permitting reassessments for local improvements; fixing grades of perjury; how to mark ballots when a mixed ticket is to be voted; general provision for township organization and govern- ment; fixing the fee for defense of an indigent criminal at $25; creating the office of food and dairy commissioner; authorizing a foreign administrator or executor to bring action in the courts of the state; providing for regulating the practice of dentistry ; a general military law; fixing punishment for trespass on state lands; authorizing the Board of Charities and Corrections to investigate affairs at the Children's Home; providing penalties for the adulteration of lin- seed oil; to prevent fraud on hotel keepers; repealing the law prohibiting the sale of firearms to Indians; general law for the protection of large game; a general wolf bounty law; sidewalk construction in cities; mutual fire insurance companies to be under the insurance commissioner; changing the time of election of supreme and circuit judges to the general election; changing the boundaries of Mead County ; allowing villages to become separate voting precincts under certain conditions; reorganization of the Board of Regents of Education ; gen- eral appropriation bill carrying a little over $1,000,000; compel suit on a note to be brought in the county in which the defendant resides; general printing' bill; providing for a commission to revise and codify the laws.
The following joint resolutions which were passed originated in the House: Memorializing Congress to establish an Indian industrial school at or near Everett ; the same for election of senators by popular vote of the people ; a resolu- tion providing for the submission of a constitutional amendment for the reduc- tion of interest rates on state funds, school and public lands ; memorializing Con- gress to restore the Sisseton Indian Agency; the same to take steps to check the ravages of the pine beetle in the Black Hills forest reserves; the same for the passage of the Grout bill; submission of an amendment to the constitution to allow an increase or limitation of indebtedness for the purpose of securing water and municipal improvements ; memorializing Congress to protect the banks of the Missouri River in the southeast part of the state; the same for laws giving the General Government exclusive jurisdiction over crimes committed on an Indian reservation ; the same for full title to the state of the old Ft. Sisseton Military Reservation; the same asking that Maj. A. S. Frost be advanced to brigadier general on the retired list.
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