Hon R. F. Pettigrew Biography


	This biography appears on pages 34-39 in "History of Dakota Territory" 
	by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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			HON. R. F. PETTIGREW.  

	Hon. R. F. Pettigrew, for two terms a representative of the state 
of South Dakota in the United States senate, for one term delegate in 
congress from the territory of Dakota, is today the foremost citizen of 
the state in intellectuality, in purpose, in capability. He is a 
product of the state of Vermont, having been born at Ludlow, on the 23d 
of July, 1848. Of remote Scotch ancestry, he has come down to the 
present through several generations of Yankees.  

	At six years of age with his parents, he left Vermont and moved 
to Wisconsin during the rush of early immigration to that state. In the 
course of a year after their arrival, the family located upon a farm in 
the town of Union, Rock county. Mr. Pettigrew engaged in farm work 
until he was sixteen years of age, receiving such education as the 
rural schools afforded, when he entered the Beloit (Wis.) College. At 
this institution he remained two years and then went to Iowa, where he 
remained a year, teaching school and engaging in the study of law. He 
then undertook a course of law study at the State Law School at 
Madison, Wisconsin, but was called home in December, 1867, by the death 
of his father, the management of the farm devolving upon him.  

	In 1869 Mr. Pettigrew came to Dakota as chairman on a land 
surveying party, and after a couple of weeks of service the compass was 
entrusted to him. He remained in the field throughout the season, his 
work being in Moody and Brookings counties. At the close of the 
surveying season, he returned to Madison and devoted the winter to 
studies in the Wisconsin Law School.  

	The next spring (1870), Mr. Pettigrew returned to Dakota and made 
his home at Sioux Falls, where he has since resided. He constructed a 
modest law office on Phillips avenue, teaming the lumber himself from 
Sioux City, a hundred miles away, and entered upon the practice of law.  

	Thus, twenty-two years after life came to him in the rugged 
fastnesses of one of the oldest states in the Union, he found himself 
among the few who had cast their fortunes in the solitude of the far 
west region of the plains. His feet were on the threshold of a new 
empire, a wilderness to be subdued and developed and finally added to 
the crown of the republic as one of the richest jewels. The new man and 
the new west were face to face and the life struggle of one was cast in 
the unknown future of the other. Raw manhood and raw nature walked hand 
in hand, the mission of man to strive, of nature to respond.  

	Into the task Mr. Pettigrew entered with the energy of youth, 
with unflinching courage, with a will before which all obstacles 
yielded, opposition vanished and healthy ambition triumphed. These were 
the characteristics that came out of the east along with this new man 
of the new west and they have attended his career as he has led 
continuously the march of progress in his chosen field of labor. 

	In this embryonic commonwealth there came to Mr. Pettigrew many 
of the honors to be gathered along the frontier of civilization. He was 
three times elected to membership in the upper house of the legislature 
of Dakota territory, as a republican, and in 1880 that party sent him 
to congress as the delegate for the territory, in which capacity he 
served throughout the forty-seventh congress. He was a member of the 
constitutional convention of 1883, a convention composed of delegates 
from the south half of the territory. As chairman of the committee on 
public indebtedness he framed the existing constitutional provision 
under that head, the second constitutional convention under a 
congressional admission act incorporating the report of his committee 
into the constitution that finally became the organic law of the state 
of South Dakota.  

	On February 27, 1879, Mr. Pettigrew was married to Bessie V. 
Pittar of Chicago, Illinois. Miss Pittar, at the time of her marriage, 
was a teacher in the public schools of Chicago. Her mother was the 
daughter of an English judge in Ireland, and her father was of French 
descent, whose ancestors had lived in England since the Edict of Nance 
was revoked. He was a civil engineer by profession and for many years 
had resided in Chicago. They have two sons - Franklin S. Pettigrew and 
Arthur L. Pettigrew, thirty-four and thirty-two years of age, 
respectively. They are both residing upon a large irrigated farm in 
Grant county, Washington.  

	South Dakota, a state created from the south half of the 
territory of Dakota, was admitted to the Union in 1889, and under the 
provisions of the admission act Mr. Pettigrew was elected United States 
Senator on the 16th of October, of that year, along with the late 
Gideon C. Moody, both of the republican party, taking his seat in the 
senate on the 2nd of December following. Under the rules of the senate, 
the two South Dakota senators drew for the long and the short terms 
respectively and Mr. Pettigrew secured the long term. At the expiration 
of his term, Mr. Pettigrew was reelected to the United States senate as 
a republican for the term beginning March 4, 1895. He served until 
March 3, 1901. During the most of his last term as senator he was 
chairman of the committee on Indian affairs and a member of the 
committees on appropriations and public lands, besides serving on 
several less important committees.  

	Mr. Pettigrew was a delegate from his state to the republican 
national convention in 1896 and was one of those who led in the stormy 
conflict in that body against the repudiation of bimetallism. The 
termination of that struggle was the practical defeat of the double 
monetary standard as a principle and a policy of the republican party. 
With several other distinguished advocates of the cause of bimetallism, 
Senator Pettigrew withdrew from the convention and from the party and 
became one of the organizers of the silver republican party. During the 
presidential campaign of 1896 he was along with those who spoke and 
labored in South Dakota and other states in behalf of the fusion ticket 
and he was largely instrumental in carrying South Dakota for the fusion 
presidential candidate, William J. Bryan, and the fusion candidate for 
governor of South Dakota, Andrew E. Lee.  

	In the year 1900, Mr. Pettigrew was the candidate of the 
fusionists for the United States Senate to succeed himself. The 
legislature was that year Strongly republican and he was defeated. He 
retired from the Senate March 3, 1901, and has since held no public 
position. He was fourteen years a member of the national legislative 
body, two years as territorial delegate and twelve years as senator, 
representing the territory of Dakota and the state of South Dakota.  

	Mr. Pettigrew's career as a member of the United States senate 
brought him prominently before the nation. He became one of the leaders 
in that distinguished body of statesmen, and it is well enough known 
among those versed in the affairs of the senate, that it is led by a 
few, while the others follow. Mr. Pettigrew was at all times 
distinctively a leader. Throughout the formative period of his life, 
which covered his frontier experiences, his training gave to him those 
characteristics of self-reliance which admonished him to go first and 
say to the others "come." In the senate, as elsewhere, his place was in 
the van and he quickly found it and then retained it. It was not his 
nature to sit under the restraint of silence or the direction of 
others. His ever busy mentality must originate, plan, suggest and 
confer - must bring the friction of his reasoning in contact with the 
arguments of others and do his share in the formation of principles 
that sustain the fabric of government. He was one of those who gave 
time and thought and toil of mind to the intricate questions that arise 
to perplex the nation and array sentiment against sentiment. In this 
school there is no short road to recognition. It comes at the end of 
processes that transform the student into the statesman, and because of 
these requirements it is only thc few that attain to positions of 
leadership. 

	r. Pettigrew was never through with an undertaking until he had 
mastered all its intricacies and had familiarized himself with every 
detail. This involved continuous application. His most laborious hours 
were spent in his library and the time thus taken was not borrowed from 
the sessions of the senate. His evenings, often lengthened to the 
coming of another day, were devoted to study and research. Through his 
attention to public questions he became a counsellor among the 
thoughtful men that direct the affairs of the highest legislative body 
of the nation and by them his wisdom was freely sought, his stock of 
general information being admittedly voluminous and accurate. This man 
was an achievement of industry, of comprehensive mental grasp and of 
the wonderfully retentive memory with which he is endowed. 

	During his second term as a senatorial representative of South 
Dakota Mr. Pettigrew found himself alienated from the political party 
with which he had served from the beginning of his active career. It 
was not alone that he differed from his political associates on the 
monetary question. The republican party had made other departures from 
the faith in which he had been schooled and had committed itself to 
what seemed to him an abandonment of the doctrine that governments 
derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and to an 
espousal of a policy laden with imperialistic possibilities. 

	In combatting these tendencies of the republican party, Mr. 
Pettigrew delivered a speech in the senate on the 22d and 23d of June 
and the 2d and 6th of July, 1898, against the annexation of the 
Hawaiian islands. This extended presentation of the case, covering one 
hundred and eighteen pamphlet pages, at once gave him his national 
prominence. In it he implicated representatives of the United States 
government in the insurrection that overthrew the Hawaiian government, 
giving a complete history of the events leading to the subsequently 
achieved annexation of the islands to the domain of the United States. 
In a visit to Honolulu he had obtained information that was made the 
basis of his argument, which no public man undertook to refute. His 
facts were new to the public and their vigorous presentation attracted 
general attention. 

	Among his other notable speeches in the senate were several in 
opposition to the acquisition of the Philippine islands, to which he 
applied exhaustive research. His defense of the South African republic 
was another painstaking and effective effort. Throughout his entire 
service in congress he contended for generous laws in behalf of 
settlers on the public lands and for honorable treatment of the Indians 
from whom the lands were taken. On the 24th of February, 1899, he 
addressed the senate in opposition to the Nicaragua canal bill, 
advancing reasons why Panama should be selected as the site of an 
interoceanic canal. In this he pioneered the movement that has resulted 
in the substitution of the Panama for the Nicaragua route. 

	During the period of his membership in the United States senate 
Mr. Pettigrew gave close attention to legislation affecting the public 
domain and through his interest and knowledge of the matter he 
ultimately became author of all the legislation creating and governing 
forest reservations This was probably his greatest work during his 
senatorial career. It was during the year 1890 that Mr. Pettigrew 
secured the passage of a measure authorizing the president of the 
United States to set apart forest reservations, known as section 24 of 
the act of 1891. The law containing this section is a comprehensive 
one, constructed with great care by Senator Pettigrew, assisted by 
Senator Walthall of Mississippi. 

	The germ of the measure came to the senate from the house, having 
been put through that body by Representative Holman of Indiana. It 
consisted of one section, repealing the timber culture law. Mr. 
Pettigrew was a member of the committee on public lands and the 
chairmall Senator Plum of Kansas appointed Mr. Pettigrew and Mr. 
Walthall a sub-committee to construct around the house bill a revision 
of the land laws. When their work was completed they had a measure of 
twenty-four sections, the last of which authorized the president to set 
apart forest reservations. 

	Mr. Pettigrew was more familiar with the subject than any other 
member of the senate and for that reason the task of creating radical 
changes in the meaning and effect of the Iand laws was intrusted to him 
and his work stands as a monument to his industry and integrity of 
purpose. He had been a close student of the forestry laws of France and 
Austria, at that time more advanced than any other nations in the 
specialty, recognizing the necessity for the preservation and the 
replacement of trees that had been wasted with almost criminal 
prodigality. His legislation was the opening of a new era in this 
country in the conservation of forest resources.  

	When his bill came up for discussion and passage in the senate 
and the house none of the members of those bodies gave attention to the 
importance of section 24, and the bill was enacted without any 
objection of importance. Afterwards, when the completed act came before 
the department for enforcement, it was found that nearly all the 
western senators objected to its provisions and entered upon an attempt 
to secure their repeal.  

	After some of the forest reservations secured under the 
provisions of this act had been relieved from the provisions of the act 
through amendments to sundry civil appropriation bills, Mr. Pettigrew, 
with the assistance of Mr. Wolcott, head of the geological survey, 
drafted a measure in which was provided the means for administration of 
the national forest law. This he offered as an amendment to the sundry 
civil appropriation bill and it became a law. He prepared the rules and 
regulations for the government of the Black Hills forest reservation 
provided for in his legislation and they were adopted and put into 
force by Secretary of the Interior Bliss.  

	In 1898 Mr. Pettigrew introduced a bill to provide for the 
withdrawal from sale of all of the public domain, covering agricultural 
and mineral land, and the conveyance of the same to the states, with 
the provision that the states might lease it but could not sell it. 
This attempt at legislation failed. The time was not ripe, and the 
public domain has since passed rapidly from public to private ownership  

	Along toward the close of his senatorial career, Mr. Pettigrew 
presented to the senate a bill that contemplated the ownership of the 
railroads of the country by the general government. It was discussed at 
length before the committee on interstate commerce and the discussion 
brought out a great deal of valuable testimony, which was printed as a 
senate document and is yet on file for reference. He further attempted, 
in his vigorous way, to install public ownership of street car and the 
electric lights of Washington city.  

	Throughout his career as United States senator, Mr. Pettigrew was 
always in advance of his associates. What would now be of easy 
accomplishment was then difficult — impossible Public sentiment is 
coming up to his views of a dozen years back, and he is forging ahead — 
keeping always in advance of the advanced thought of the nation.  

	It was not alone in his public capacity that Mr. Pettigrew left 
the impress of his strong personality upon the undertakings with which 
he has been connected. The city of Sioux Falls, his home since 1870, 
the metropolis of South Dakota, wealthy, progressive and always 
growing, owes much of its success to his efforts in its behalf. Cities 
do not create themselves. They are the product of well directed 
intelligence and it was in part his intelligence that has covered the 
granite hills of the Sioux with beautiful homes and the facilities for 
creating homes. He has also had a prominent share in the constructive 
work of the territory of Dakota and the state of South Dakota. He gave 
to each a strong guiding hand, recognizing from the beginning the 
possibilities of a realm almost unknown when he came into its 
existence.  

	Since Mr. Pettigrew returned from official life he has devoted 
his talents and energies to his personal affairs with the same success 
that always attended his labors in behalf of the public. He has engaged 
chiefly in mining enterprises, out of which he has accumulated a 
comfortable fortune in the few years in which he had been free from the 
cares of a congressional career.