The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1904-07-08
Here's Il &nock-down,and.d rag-out
arpument from tho CLARK Pen,h)ic.

Here's Il knock-down-and-d rag-out
argument from the Clark Republic:
Take the great eX.Sioux reservation
west OF Pierre and place it in Illinois,
New York or Ohio and how long
would 1T remain vacant? Don't every
one speak at once, please. Does not
that seem to utterly demolish the
question, as to ultimate occupancy
AS the. Republic has answered Its
own question, perhaps nothing more
is required. But as we haven't any
thing else to do just now, it might be
we'll enough to remind the brother at
Clark-and all of his kind-that it is
not Il question of occupancy but the
extent of it. Some time OF other, we
suppose, the Adirondack region in
New York will feel the pressure of inn
migration, hut SO far no one has sug-
gested placing the capital in its wood
ed depths. No one denies that the
great plains between Pierre and the
Black Hills will contain many more
people than at present. Nebraska is
not much better, yet the western half
of the state contains $4,000 people,
while we have but $4,000 by the last
census outside of the Hills, or about
$1,000 all told west of the Missouri.
But while Nebraska was adding that
population to the western part the
east half OF the state reached nearly
100000, eight times as many. North
Dakota gained 70 per cent in popula-
tion between the cenSu OF 1880 and
1900 South Dakota gained Is per cent?
but of the $4,000 added population by
our northern neighbor less than %, 900
went into the western half of the state
notwithstanding that section of it
has three lines of railroads through it's
best parts. The Dakotas, Nebraska
and kansas-in fact none of the north
western stateS-are like Iowa, Illinois
or Ohio and it is the hight of foolish
ness to assume that they are. South
Dakota, as good a state as it is, will
never see the day it will overtake
Iowa in population and Iowa will
never catch Illinois and Ohio. AS i'm
migration pushes out toward the
Rockies settlement becomes more
scattered because a greater number of
acres are needed to support a family,
and as the country fills in behind the
farms grow smaller and more valuable
as the population increases. The big
$50 and 800 acre farms in Iowa are now
being pieced and parceled out at SIS to
500 an acre and the state as a whole
growing faster in population than
South Dakota despite its millions Of
acres of cheap lands in all parts of it.
Any demand for land that will push
immigration onto the great plains
west of Pierre will simply make lands
on this side of the river that much
more desirable aud increase the popu-
lation In the east half Of the state
proportlonately. When the great
rush for government land in the east
ern part Of the state took place in the
early eighties could take his pick
at $40 an acre in almost any part OF
northwestern Iowa have in the last
ten years made a greater per cent or
gain in population than any four
counties in our whole state. No, it is
not a question Of occupancy but the
extent of it IN the western part of the
state-the percentage that it will
have to the whole-and it will never
exceed twenty per cent.