Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1898-10-07
INSURGENTS SWELLING.
C..M. lukes, Of Pierre, Among the
Recent Additions to their
Ranks.


licans. This time it is q business man
connected with one of the strongest
banks Of the state, man interested in
agriculture and stock raising, q man
who never asked for an Office, but who
wields powerful influence in middle
South Dakota. G. N. Lukes, Of Pierre,
is just out in the following address:
Four weeks have rolled around since
the Mitchell convention was held, a
sufficient time to allay soreness and
get kickers into line under ordinary
circumstances, and the party should
now have composed any differences
and be presenting united front for
the campaign. Is this the case? Mr..
Kittredge departs from his affected
pose as the Sphinx of South Dakota
politics and takes an entire column in
the Sioux City Journal to tell Of the
altogether lovely condition in which
he finds the party in South Dakota.
Candidate Phillips takes up the tale in
the Sioux City Journal and declares
that he does not know of solitary man
in South Dakota who voted the Repub-
lican ticket two years ago who will vote
against the party this year. The lesser
candidates upon the ticket echo the
statements Of the leaders and are will
ing to make affidavit that the Republi-
can party in South Dakota was never
so harmonious as now-and yet from
every part Of the state comes the re-
ports Of disquiet and dissatisfaction and
disgust with the result of the Mitchell
convention that in many places is cul-
minating in open revolt. Men who
have been wheelhorses in the Republi-
can party, who have never voted any
thing but the.Republican ticket, men
who have fought valiantly in the past
campaigns for Republican success and
have never wavered in their support Of
the party in either good or evil report,
are either coming out in open revolt or
are privately declaring that they cannot
assist in electing the ticket nominated
at Mitchell.
Whenever an instance Of this kind
comes into prominent notice the ma
chine organs ana stickers cry out sore
head, !" 'insurgent" and Pop" but. the
trouble is that the disease seems too
widespread and the cases too many to
be dismissed in that way. The intelli-
gent men in the rank and file of the
Republican party who are not in poll
tics for what there is in it, who make
their living by honest toll are not salts
fed with this explanation. The man
who thinks Of these things while his
hands are on the handles of his plow or
while he is standing in the dust and
dirt at the tail end Of thresher won
ders why it is that in state where
nine-tenths Of the people are identified
with the agricultural interests there is
no farmer upon the Mitchell ticket.
The honest toiler of foreign ancestry
puzzles over the fact that in state
where so many Of the producers are
either foreign born, or of foreign born
parents the only candidate represent
ing that element succeeded in getting
place upon the ticket when the machine
slipped q cog. The old soldiers are
trying to solve the problem involved in
the fact that every comrade who was a
before the Mitchell conven-
ton was turned down by the machine.
These men are not kickers or sore
heads. They have been the bone and
sinew Of the Republican party in the
past. They have been willing to allow
others to reap the fruits of party vic
tories. But one dull thud has followed
another with such frequency of late
that they have come to think that there
is something more than the ordinary
They have commenced
to investigate and they find these facts
disclosed. That the Republican party
has passed into the control of band of
politicians and corporation attorneys
and lobbyists who are manipulating it
for their personal advantage. That
these men under the leadership of A.
B. Kittredge have built up Tammany
in South Dakota with
Exit" as the Grand Sachem, which
rules absolutely within the party, at
to crush the men that it can
not control They find that Boss Kit
tredge draws princely salary from the
road not on account of his
legal service but tor his political pull.
That this Tammany machine under the
direction Of Kittredge and Aleck John
son dominated the Mitchell convention,
the organization, selecting the
various committees and finally naming
the ticket. He reads the railroad plank
in the platform and reflects that it was
written at the dictation Of Kittredge