Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1883-06-14
FROM GENERAL H. J. CAMPBELL.


Yankton Dakota, June 10Th, 1sss-Ed.
itor Pioneer Press, st. Paul. Sir: In
addition to the statements of the Rev.
J. v. Hines and the Rev. Joseph Ward,
in reply to the charges and insinuations
OF your Yankton special correspondent,
l desire to say that his charges as to my
self are wholly false.
The statement of the Rev. Mr.. Hines,
who is one of the Oldest and most vener-
able clergymen of Dakota, will convince
every one who knows him that your cor
respondent has for some purpose made
willfully false statements; when
he represents Mr.. Hines as pro.
testing along with others. that the gen.
tlemen who issued the call for the Huron
convention. "led by personal ambition,
or otherwise signed the names of other
men without the least semblance of au-
thority to do eo;" when he repre-.
sents that Mr.. Hines publicly denied
that he had authorized his name to be
signed to the call.
What motive your correspondent can
have for being 30 venomous towards the
signers of the call for the Huron conven-
ton cannot divine. He is Mr.. J Johnson
am told, who is private secretary to Gov.
Ordway, and deputy territorial auditor.
Certainly the Pioneer Press, which is a
paper of wide circulation in Dakota, and
has expressed iteelf as favorable to the
independence and statehood of south
Dakota, has no interest in encouraging
its special correspondent to furnish it
with falsehoods in place of news.
The simple straightforward truth as to
this call is this:
That Messrs. Whitfield and Ward,
members of the committee, decided upon
the call, dictated its form and terms,
and the chairman, Mr.. Whitfield, di.
rected the names of the committee to be
appended, as he had the authority of q
resolution of the committee to do. They
then requested me to prepare it for the
printer and see to its publication, which
L did
1 am informed by Mr.. Whitfield tina,
Mr.. johnson interviewed him about the
same time that he did MIR. HINES, and
that MIR. Whitfield gave him the facts as
l have above stated them.
So that Mr.. johnson has made his
Misrepresentation to you knowingly.
AS to the rest of the charges made
against me personally have only to say
that they are as untrue as the rest.
The movement for statehood in soutl
Dakota began more than three year:
ago. 1t sprang from the people them.
selves. 1t was expressed. in the Siou,
Falle convention in the spring of 1882
in the Canton convention of June 1882
and in the act which passed the legisla
ture last winter calling q constitutions
convention.
The executive committee have merel,
followed out the line of this continuoul
movement of the people.
| They contemplate no revolutionar,
action of any kind.
They know their rights based upo,
the ordinance of 1887, the treaty of $50
and the constitution, as determined b,
the supreme court.
II They feel confident that no congres
will venture to deny to 100000 peopl
their constitutional rights, thus solemn
~ guaranteed.
So far from my being the only or th
chief person engaged in forwarding thi
movement, am really but one of thou
sands. Among them are such men a
Gov. Edmunds, Judge Moody, Ge,
Pease, Bartlett Tripp, Geo. W. Kings
bury, and host of the best men of Ii
territory, as also the almost unanimou
press of south Dakota.
Yours respectfully,
HUGH J. CAMPBELL.