USA > South Dakota > History of Dakota Territory, volume III > Part 37
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Among other measures of importance considered by the Legislature in Jan- uary, 1905, were the following: An inheritance tax revenue law which although interesting and thoroughly discussed did not kindle the enthusiasm occasioned by other bills ; a bill to make all assessors responsible to the state instead of to the counties. This bill occasioned prolonged and critical debate. The object was to do away with the existing method of choosing county assessors. The separation of the assessment system from county affairs and other local influences was de- manded. The plan of the bill was to abolish all local assessors and transfer the general power of that office to the State Board of Equalization under which all county assessors, it was provided, should thereafter work. Thus the plan was to make assessments under the direction of the State Board of Equalization. Under the old plan the assessors were responsible to the community and would do as they were told or were requested concerning the valuations of property in order to secure reelection. Under the old system the assessor was thus both the victim Yol. 111-17
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and the beneficiary of the property holders of a community or county. He was at the mercy of the people and did as they requested and not as the law required and hence placed the valuation far too low under the constitution. He did it how- ever because the great majority of the people wanted it. The secret was that the people desired existing assessments not to be disturbed. Mainly for this reason 110 advance in the method of assessment and taxation had been made since the admission of the state. It was now argued that were the assessors placed under the state board and were they made independent of local influences, they could much more easily be required to assess valuations somewhere near actuality. At- torney General Hall at this time expressed the belief that fully $100,000,000 of taxable property in the state was steadily escaping assessment and taxation under the old loose and inefficient system. This question was thoroughly discussed by both houses.
The legislative session of 1905 began at first with no great prospect for the introduction of critical or debatable measures. Later one problem assumed an attitude of considerable importance and was a matter of sharp contention near the close of the session. It was the primary election amendment petition which was signed by about 8,864 voters and asked for the submission of the primary question to a vote of the people. It really was the constitutional provision for the initiative thus making its first pronounced appearance. Almost from the start there came hints and innuendos that the petition would be smothered in the com- mittee rooms. However, the fact that it was mandatory on the Legislature unless fraudulently secured, was sufficient to convince the people that in the end it should pass.
A few of the first bills considered were the following: Providing for a hos- pital for the insane at Watertown ; changes in the Soldiers' Home management ; the dipping of live stock; the capital commission ; several sharp and acrimonious contests for seats in both chambers; a joint resolution providing for the comple- tion of the work of the commission to settle the boundary between Nebraska and South Dakota ; prohibiting the practice of veterinary surgery except by graduates of reputable veterinary colleges ; changing the terms of county courts to March Ist of each year instead of January Ist; for a stone library building on the state house grounds and appropriating $20,000 to cover its cost ; compelling long dis- tance telephone companies to make connections with locals; a convict parole law ; permitting sureties on bonds to limit their labilities ; memorializing Congress for the passage of the 640-acre homestead act, to which there was from the start to finish sharp opposition; repealing the old wolf bounty law, which step was bit- terly opposed by the representatives of several counties ; making homesteads sub- ject to mechanics' liens ; providing a state license for motor cars and limiting the speed of such vehicles to twenty miles an hour in the country and from four to ten miles in cities ; an appropriation for a deficiency at the Soldiers' Home ; author- izing county commissioners to erect county buildings without a vote to that effect from the people; to list for taxation range horses separately from draft horses; providing for the taking of the state census and vital statistics; reducing the con- tract rate of interest from 12 per cent to 10 per cent ; this reduction was fought to a finish by the bankers; measures covering the management of the state land offices and affairs; to throw open the Cheyenne reservation to settlement ; increasing wolf bounties ; basing the salaries of county auditors on property val-
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ues ; to prevent the introduction of noxious insects into South Dakota ; to authorize counties to fund outstanding indebtedness ; to protect jack rabbits from slaughter from May Ist to September 15th ; to send a joint committee to investigate the man- agement of the Soldiers' Home; to regulate the playing of football; to encourage tree planting on school grounds; the introduction of the jack rabbit bill was due to the course taken by the Sioux Falls firm that had contracted to supply the French market with 10,000 jack rabbits, had secured expert marksmen and were busily engaged securing that number of animals; when the seriousness of the bill became manifest, sportsmen in both houses favored the bill in order to protect the rabbits; increasing school fund loans on farm lands; appropriating $10,000 for the expenses of farmers' institutes; to allow county commissioners $100 for the arrest of horse thieves ; providing for the payment to owners for animals killed by the state veterinarian; memorializing Congress for an amendment pro- viding for the election of United States senators by direct vote ; this measure had been favorably considered by nearly every former Legislature; it kindled much interest at this time because the republicans had not asked for this measure in their platform; the bill was really regarded as a test of the proposed primary law measure; many deficiency bills ; giving the Legislature greater power over drain- age matters ; memorializing Congress for an appropriation to build levees and wing dams on the low bank of the Missouri River near the James ; to legalize acts of the town and city councils, county commissioners and township boards of trustees in the granting of liquor licenses where the same had not been authorized during the past year by vote of such cities, towns or townships; empowering cities to condemn property to obtain suitable waterworks plants or access to water outside of the city limits; to revise the irrigation code; for a twine plant at the peni- tiary ; providing that unmarried men should have no property exemptions ; to pre- vent druggists in no license towns from selling liquor except upon physician's prescription ; appropriating $15,000 for the improvements of the state fair grounds at Huron; to amend the laws concerning the qualification for teachers' certifi- cates; appropriating $52.500 for a building at the normal school at Aberdeen ; making the open season to cover September and October only; preventing the shipment of fraudulent dairy products out of the state; allowing a verdict of three-fourths of a jury in civil action ; authorizing counties to incur indebtedness for drainage purposes ; a ditch and drainage code; amending the fish laws that carp could be caught at any time ; making father and mother equal guardians of minor children; inviting seed grain lecturers of the Northwestern Railway to address the Legislature; making notes for medical service non-negotiable and making it a misdemeanor to promise a cure and fail; fixing $100 penalty for false statement as to physical condition for the purpose of receiving public aid; mak- ing it a misdemeanor for either parent to withhold the necessaries of life from minor children ; making the second conviction for petit larceny a penal offense ; to limit the tuition for pupils to $2 per month ; requiring owners of land to keep the weeds mowed down along highways; declaring all unnavigable waters of the state to be public property for irrigation purposes ; limiting the cause for divorce to acts committed in the state or by residents of the state committed outside of its borders; to repeal the law allowing pupils to be sent to high schools at the district expense ; legalizing liquor licenses granted in the past two years where a new license election had been held; allowing county boards $200 for the arrest
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of each horse thief ; providing day schools for the deaf ; memorializing Congress against the commutation provisions of the 640-acre homestead act; requiring to be taught in the public schools the effects of alcohol on the human system; ap- propriating $3,500 for a deficiency at Spearfish Normal; allowing magnetic healers to operate in the state; both houses of the Legislature listened to lectures on the subject of seed grain by Professors Wheeler and Chilcott of the Agricultural College; dividing the members of the Board of Regents between the different political parties ; providing for the regulation and control of trust companies ; pro- hibiting the sale of tobacco to children under twenty years of age; allowing guardians to transfer realty; providing for uniform text books throughout the state ; allowing members of the Legislature $10 per day for their services.
The debate on the question of electing United States senators by direct vote caused one of the liveliest debating tilts of the session. Other measures considered were : Making abandonment of a family a misdemeanor; appropriating $500 for land office filing fees for endowment lands; fixing the liability of banks for re- sponsibility of forged paper at six months after the return of a check to a cus- tomer; to make the season for chicken shooting two months of each year and the duck season five months; authorizing the employment of an assistant state's attorney ; authorizing cities to issue bonds to pay judgments ; appropriating $2,500 to conduct seed grain experiments at the State Experiment Station ; providing that no inmate of the reform school should be retained there after reaching maturity ; fixing the tuition in all state educational institutions at the same figure. Another lively debate, one that became extremely acrimonious, was over the bill to control life insurance companies of the state; defining the liability of railways in dam- age suits.
When the session of 1905 was two-thirds over the first vigorous conflict on the primary election measure ensued in both houses. Intense opposition to the measure arose and as equally intense a fight was made in its support. First the opposition took the ground that the petition was insufficient, having been illegally prepared and having many names not rightfully entitled to a place thereon. In the end this point resulted in the defeat of the measure. Other measures were -providing that the Regents of Education should not be appointed from the counties where the institutions were located ; a measure by the women of the state for a bill to establish another library and a state library commission of five mem- bers, the latter to be composed of the state superintendent and four others appointed by the governor; an exemption bill for dentists, the same as the law gave doctors ; asking that blacksmiths be given a special lien law, because they gave over all property to their clients; permitting mutual insurance companies to write old line life insurance; amending the oil law and sending Professor Shepard of the Agricultural College to Kansas to secure a supply of oil from that state for analytical purposes. Much Kansas oil was used in South Dakota at this time and there was much complaint; however, the analysis showed that the Kansas oil was even better for illuminating purposes than the product dispensed generally by the Standard Oil Company.
There was much discussion over the problem of where mechanical engineer- ing should be rightfully taught in South Dakota. There was great difference of opinion whether it should be taught at the Agricultural College or at the State Uni- versity. The Legislature looked at the problem of hypothecating the endowment
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lands even at a low rate of interest with much doubt and misgiving, because they realized that another series of dry years might make the sale of such lands quite impossible at $10 per acre for a long time to come. Other measures were-making the lightning rod notes non-negotiable; requiring non-residents who desired to practice law in South Dakota to show five years experience and an endorsement from the Supreme Court ; to exempt fraternity and beneficiary organizations from all taxation; a measure by the retail liquor dealers to make the vote upon the proposition of sale of intoxicants final unless another vote was petitioned for; to prevent county boards from issuing licenses for the sale of liquors in towns, town- ships or cities where the people had voted against such sale; reconsidering the wholesale liquor bill which had been defeated in 1903, the present movement being to negative the existing liquor law.
Among other important measures considered by the Legislature late in the session of 1905 were the following: To define swindlers and confidence men; requiring hail insurance companies to deposit guaranty funds before doing busi- ness in South Dakota ; making it a misdemeanor to run a threshing machine on Sunday; regulating and changing the pure food law; for a state inspection of intoxicating liquors; making it a misdemeanor to sell adulterated intoxicating liquors ; elaborate consideration of the primary election bill; memorializing Con- gress for pure food laws ; providing for a state song; making it a misdemeanor to operate a bucket shop; providing that when a vote was taken on the license question the result should remain in force and operation until settled by another vote ; to permit officers and guards at the penal institutions to use force of arms to prevent the escape of convicts or to prevent their injuring the keepers; pro- hibiting county commissioners from granting retail liquor licenses within five miles of any Government contract work; providing for the management and control of cemeteries; providing for the appointment of tax ferrets; to make the pure food commissioners the tester of liquors; permitting cities to procure land by condemnation for sewers; for a twine plant and shirt factory at the penitentiary ; making it a misdemeanor to treat in a saloon; to establish an insane hospital at Milbank, providing the town should donate 160 acres of land; to com- pel the committee to make a report on the primary election bill by February 20th ; requiring county treasurers to collect special assessment taxes of cities ; to apply the probate code to Indian lands; providing for the appointment of assessors instead of their election ; allowing circuit judge to call in another judge to hold a term of court in one county at the same time a term is in progress in another in the same circuit; to increase the limitation of county levies to 10 mills; cre- ating the office of state inspector of liquors ; consideration of the uniform school textbook bill. This measure was killed in the House by a vote of 56 to 30; to prevent hunting dogs from running at large from April to September; pro- viding for a constitutional amendment increasing the salaries of members of the Legislature to $500 for the session ; requiring that township fire-guards should be broken not later than July and should be dragged and kept clear of weeds; payment of road tax in cash; providing that liquor licenses should be paid by full years and prohibiting ex-convicts from engaging in the liquor business ; making the license fee of non-resident hunters $10; requiring county auditors to keep plat books showing all landowners in the county; a life insurance meas- ure; meat inspection in cities and towns ; giving landlords a lien on the crops
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of tenants; providing for the assessment of real estate at its full value; a vig- orous fight on the $10,000 wolf bounty bill. The old law was $5,000. Several members endeavored to do away with any appropriation for wolf bounties; appropriating $13,000 for the state fair buildings at Huron; requiring the Agri- cultural College to make annual exhibits at the state fair; hottest fight of the session over the report of the committee on rules for the indefinite postpone- ment of the initiative petition for the primary election law; farmers' institute imeasures over which there was sharp contention. Mr. Freiberg maintained that the wolf bounty affected only four counties and that they should pay their own fees for wolf scalps; appropriations to pay premiums at state fairs and fixing the salaries of the State Board of Agriculture.
On February 22d the Senate committee announced that the primary peti- tion was so defective and had been prepared so irregularly, if not illegally, that it should be rejected, and accordingly by the vote of 25 to 21 the bill was de- feated. In the House a different conclusion was reached and the bill passed by the vote of 47 to 38. The problem before both Houses was whether the method of preparing the petition should be given a liberal or a strict construction. It was noted that many petitioners did not add their residences opposite their names nor their postoffice addresses except by ditto marks. Many had circu- lated the same petition on different sheets of paper and afterwards the head- ings were torn off and all the signatures were united. For these reasons the Senate refused to sanction the petition. Later the refusal was declared to be wholly a factional subterfuge in the republican party. It was declared by the friends of the petition that the republican bosses of the Senate desired the credit to themselves of introducing a primary bill that should become the law of the state. In 1905 Governor Elrod had the satisfaction of seeing every one of his recommendations, except one, passed by the Legislature.
In January, 1907, the first vote for speaker of the House was as follows: Chaney, 39; Carroll. 38; Price, I. On the second ballot the vote stood: Chaney, 41 ; Carroll, 36. The House and Senate voted separately for United States sena- tor with the following result: In the Senate Crawford received 23 and Lee 6; in the House Crawford received 94 and Lee 9. Frank M. Byrne was president pro tem of the Senate. At this session the Legislature passed the primary elec- tion measure, the county option bill, and amended the divorce bill so that per- sons would be compelled to live one year in the state before they could secure a divorce.
The Legislature of 1907, it was charged, did not fulfil the promises and pledges made in the party platform, but merely passed resolutions thanking and complimenting each other on what they had done, and then with self-satisfied and unctuous spirit adjourned. That was what the state press said of theni. Early in March Mr. Glass, of Watertown, stated openly that "Since the Rail- road Commission was created the roads have with one exception selected all the members of the board and nominated them." It was true that perhaps there were more than one exception, especially when populism was in flower. Of course, if the railways were permitted to select the rest of the ticket, they did not intentionally omit the railway commissioner. The railroads through the republican machine prepared the slates, it was declared. Among the laws passed at this session were the following: Anti-lobby law ; making Washington's birth-
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day a legal holiday; limiting the working hours of railways employes; anti-pass legislation ; circuit judges to be allowed annually $500 expenses; investigation of Senator Gamble's and other state offices; election of United State senator; providing for equalization and transportation charges; for the domestic manu- facture of denatured alcohol; relief for home steam settlers; restriction and regulation of legislative lobbies; prohibiting corporations from contributing money for campaign purposes ; requiring an account of campaign funds; reduc- tion of railway passenger rates to 21/2 cents a mile; reciprocal demurrage; to compel track connections at junction points ; the fellow servant act; to control commercial trusts; to protect weak railway enterprises from being crushed by strong ones; for the supervision of telegraph, telephone, and insurance compa- nies, etc.
At the session of the Legislature in 1907 the following bills, joint resolu- tions, etc., were passed: Memorializing Congress to extend the time required to begin settlement on homesteads; providing for the printing of legislative man- uals and handbooks; appropriating money for the per diem and mileage of members and employes of the Legislature; making orders of the railway com- mission presumptively legal and placing the burden of proof upon others ; memo- rializing Congress to pass laws providing for the safety of railway employes and travelers ; a general anti-pass law; to make Fort Meade a permanent bri- gade post ; providing for expenses of circuit judges ; general reciprocal demur- rage bill; changing terms of court in the ninth district; extending the provi- sions of the parole law to the inmates of the reform school; granting to the state capital commission power to raise money and construct a capitol building on the state grounds at Pierre; for the repeal of the tariff on lumber and saw logs; applying the gross earnings system of taxation to railroads; to prevent the issuance of Government licenses in prohibitory territory ; providing an annual tax of 21/2 per cent of premiums of foreign fire insurance companies and I per cent of premiums of state mutual fire companies as a special tax for firemen ; attaching certain lands cut off by the Missouri River, to Union County ; requir- ing the filing of copies of certificates of election of clerk of Circuit Courts in the office of secretary of state; requiring mutual life insurance companies to make annual accounting to their policyholders; a general .drainage and levee code under the provision of the constitutional amendment attached in 1906; asking the national authorities for an order requiring the examination of claims of homesteaders by special agent before the patent issues; adopting sections of the civil code which were left out by the Legislature of 1905 when it adopted the work of the code commission ; preventing a druggist from filling a prescription for liquor more than once; making a single election precinct of towns of less than five hundred population ; placing the Supreme Court Library under the control of the court ; declaring "blind pigs" and places where games are played for money, chips, or anything of value, to be common nuisances, to he suppressed as such ; fixing fees for filing articles of incorporation and legal papers in the office of the secretary of state; requiring railroads to put in tracks at junction points ; grant- ing to towns greater powers to enforce local option laws and making the illegal selling of liquor a misdemeanor ; providing for the publication of the debates of the constitutional convention of 1885 and 1889; providing the manner of fund- ing the judgment debts of counties; giving the Dakota Central Railway the right
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of way across the penitentiary farm at Sioux Falls; defining the crime of bur- glary by explosives; defining what should be due diligence in the collection of checks and drafts; authorizing committing officers to subpoena and examine wit- nesses before issuing warrants for arrest; to prevent the fraudulent uses of implements and names of secret societies; providing the manner of appointment of mayors in cities where vacancies in that office occur; providing penalties for unlawful use of water and gas; authorizing consolidation of funds in the office of the attorney general; fixing compensation of county assessors in counties of more than twenty thousand inhabitants when the county is not divided into civil town- ships ; providing manner of justification of securities in cases of arrest and bail; creating a state board of osteopathic examiners; changing the laws in regard to admission to the bar ; providing a means of dissolution of corporations; placing the legal department of the railroad commission under the control of the attor- ney general; placing the appointment of the weight and scale inspector in the hands of the governor; changing the name of the agricultural college to the state college of agriculture and mechanic arts; fixing fees of county surveyors at $4 per day ; legalizing irregularities in the incorporation of cities and towns; providing for the compulsory education of the deaf and blind in the state schools provided for that purpose; requiring the secretary of state to make a complete index of session laws; defining the term prison and placing city jails in that class; asking Congress to open Crow Creek Reservation to settlement ; placing the fees from sales of state land in the income fund instead of state general fund; appropriating a sum for an electric plant for the state school for the blind at Gary; providing for the election of overseers of highways by the electors of their various districts; requiring boards of trustees of incorporated towns to redistrict the same when petitioned so to do by at least half the electors of such town; providing for the assessment and taxation of the property of railroad, telegraph, telephone and express companies, other than the mileage on which they operate; prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors within one-third of a mile of any college or academy; authorizing county commissioners to record books prepared by water users' associations as public records ; providing method of appeal from the decision of boards of equalization; requiring judgment of justice courts to be docketed immediately after judgment is rendered; vacating certain streets and alleys at the state fair grounds; changing the name of the reform school to the state training school; providing for the protection of pheas- ants for fifteen years; assenting to a certain grant of money from the general Government to the state agricultural college; authorizing assessors in counties with fifty or more congressional townships to begin their assessment of real estate the first of April; providing the_ compensation of counties for keeping prisoners other than their own; providing manner of extending the life of a corporation; making compulsory the registration of a certificate of purchase of real property on execution; allowing telephone companies to file trust deeds instead of chattel mortgages as an evidence of indebtedness; increasing the fees of county and town treasurers ; a general divorce law requiring residence of one year in the state and three months in the county before beginning suit and all hearings in open court; placing the duties of fire marshal in the office of the insurance commissioner ; appropriating money for a girls' dormitory at the agri- cultural college; providing for the publication of the reports of the state horti-
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