Brief History of SD, 1897 This information appears in Chapter LXIX of "History of South Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. I (1904), pages 361-362 and was scanned, OCRed and edited by Joy Fisher, http://www.rootsweb.com/~archreg/vols/00001.html#0000031 This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the SDGENWEB Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/sd/sdfiles.htm CHAPTER LXIX KYLE'S SECOND ELECTION. Amid the howling blizzards and drifting snows of 1897 the fifth biennial session of South Dakota's legislature convened at Pierre. In the election of the previous year the fusion had secured the governor, attorney general and a majority in the legislature, while the Republicans secured the remainder of the state officers. The legislature stood nine Democrats, fifty-three Republicans and seventy Populists and Silver Republicans. John Colvin, of Mitchell, was elected speaker of the house. The great interest centered about the election of a United States senator. The Democrats in caucus nominated Irving Weeks, of Kimball, the Republicans nominated John A. Pickler, but the Populists and Silver men were unable to agree upon a caucus nomination. As the result of the first joint ballot, Mr. Pickler received fifty-three votes; Mr. Kyle, thirty-three; H. L. Loucks, fourteen A. J. Plowman, eleven; F. M. Goodykoontz, six; A. J. Kellar, three; Irving Weeks, three: C. S. Palmer, one; John A. Bowler, one. After two or three ballots Mr. Loucks withdrew, his friends dividing their votes among the other Populist candidates and Senator Hinkley, of Huron, received for a time the Democratic votes. With little variation the balloting continued daily until the 18th day of February when Alfred B. Kittredge, national Republican committeeman, and other leading Republicans entered into an arrangement with Mr. Kyle by which the latter agreed to in the main support Republican policies in the senate and particularly to do so upon all of the great principles of the party, and he thereupon was given the entire Republican vote with one exception and he held to him a sufficient number of his friends so as to secure sixty-five votes and the re-election. A period of great excitement prevailed in the joint session when the action of the Republicans was revealed and extraordinary attempts made without avail to concentrate the vote to defeat the Kyle programme. Probably no other United States senator has had so unique a political history as Senator Kyle. He was a Republican when he received the Populist nomination for the state senate in 1890, but accepting the election adopted the Populists' views on political questions. In fact, he was already, by a Fourth of July speech, committed to the Populist views before his nomination, but up to that date had not renounced Republicanism. During this first legislative session he was elected to the United States senate by a fusion of the Independent and Democratic votes, having first agreed with Bartlett Tripp and the leading Democrats to support leading Democratic measures during his incumbency of the office, a pledge to which he faithfully adhered. Now he was returned to the senate upon a pledge to support Republican policies and to this pledge he was also perfectly true until his death cut him off in 1901. All parties had declared for a maximum rate law in their platforms and after a good deal of sparring for advantage a drastic law was enacted and a liberal appropriation placed in the hands of the railway commissioners to secure its enforcement, the commissioners being Populists. Great difficulty had been experienced in securing a proper listing of personal property for taxation in the range country, much of the open territory being without any organized county. In the hope to reform this abuse, all of the relinquished range lands were included within Pennington, Meade, Butte, Stanley, Lyman and Gregory counties. At the previous election a constitutional amendment had been adopted reducing the board of regents of education to five members and abolishing the local boards at each institution, conferring upon the regents direct control of all matters relating to the educational institutions. The executive office having passed from the Republicans to the Populists, that party of course asserted a strong desire to secure control of the state institutions, both educational and charitable, and a large part of the session was devoted to schemes on the part of the Republicans to defeat such action. The constitutional amendment providing for the reduction of the board of regents gave Governor Lee full control of the educational institutions and it is much to his credit that he appointed an unusually strong, non-partisan board and there has since been no question of competency in the management of those institutions. The matter of securing control of the charitable institutions, however, depended upon the passage of a bill reorganizing the board of charities and the fight for this purpose was the most desperate that has been waged in Dakota politics and approached the point where bloodshed was imminent. The fusion majority was very slight in the senate. The bill had passed the house and came up for final consideration in the senate on the last evening but one of the session. Twenty-three votes were necessary to pass the bill and but twenty- one could be mustered for it and so the bill failed. As there was but one vacancy upon the board of charities, Governor Lee appointed George W. Kingsbury to fill it, but the control for two years more was left with the Republicans. This legislature submitted to the people an amendment to the constitution providing for the state sale of liquors known as the dispensary system, the question of granting suffrage to women and the initiative and referendum. The latter provision meaning that upon a petition of five per cent. of the voters the legislature must enact any law desired and submit it to the people for ratification and that any law passed by the legislature, unless it contains an emergency clause and is passed by a two-thirds vote of both houses, must upon a five per cent. petition be submitted to the people for ratification. The year 1897 yielded a good harvest and better prices were realized. Live stock had become a leading industry and the creamery and dairy industry made rapid advancement. Debts were rapidly reduced and paid off and the state entered upon the career of prosperity which continues to this writing. Little building, however, was done this season, but the people began to take a more hopeful view and to assert pride in the state. The winter, which set in so severely in the early autumn of 1896, continued with iunabated fury up till April. The snowfall was very great and naturally produced very high water the following spring, but while much inconvenience was suffered there were no great disasters as in 1881. On February 2d a serious accident occurred on the Northwestern Railway at Arlington by which a train was wrecked and four persons killed: Conductor Addington and Frank L. Hoosac, of Huron, and W. L. Harrison and John Loftus, farmers of Arlington. On October 6th the girls' dormitory at the Reform School at Plankinton burned and the lives of six inmates were lost. On the 15th of October, 1897, William B. Sterling died from typhoid fever. He was but thirty-four years of age, but he had made a deep impress upon the people of South Dakota. He was universally esteemed as one of the state's ablest and truest young men, giving promise of a life of extraordinary brilliance and usefulness. In November Louis K. Church, former territorial governor and judge of the district court, died while upon a trip to Alaska. He was a man of ability and honesty. He was born in New York in 1850.