Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1904-05-26
South Dakota's Next Governor.

Ilsneu as an editorial IN the salt Lake
Daily Tribune, of which Mr.. Heath is
editor. 1t will be read with much
interest in South Dakota:
The career of Mr.. II. s. Elrod, who
on Wednesday was nominated for
governor by the republicans of South
Dakota, is an interesting example of
what can be accomplished in Ameri-
can politics by work aud tact.
Mr.. Elrod is a conservative rather
than a skyrocKet. He is a politician
every day of the week, a fairly good
Methodist Gu Sunday, aud q good citi-
zen and loyal friend always. He went
to Clark, South Dakota, where he still
resides, in June, 1882, a few days after
graduating from De PAW university
in Indiana. He is a native of Green
Castle in that state. He was brought
mp on a farm, is yet under so years of
age, and probably never passed an idle
day in his life.
Ii requires vigilence to win out il
South Dakota politics. A few days
after arriving in Clark, where he
opened a law office and located a pre-
emption, Mr.. Elrod made a Fourth OF
July speech to a crowd of settlers on
the open prairies (there were no pub
lie buildings in the town them and he
has been getting acquainted with the
people of that state ever since. He is
easy to approach and hard to shake
off. He resembles Ex-Governor Steun-
enberg, of Idaho, very much in sim
plicity and earnestness, and the resem-
blance frequently continues to the
point of wearing a collar without a
necktie.
Politics is his speciality, and in that
element Sam Elrod has grown TO be a
whale, including the whalebone and
the oil for flexible and l~ubricating
purposes. He is always provided with
an olive branch, but never carries a
club. He is quite dextrous at welding
the party whip so as to profit by the
sting without producing a report. He
may neglect a business, and forget ID law
proposition, but a point in politics is
never overlooked.
MI. Elrod made a state reputation
in 1884 for party loyalty by supporting
the legislative ticket when his county
almost to a man bolted. Sam is as
loyal to the edicts of his party as
he is to his bishop. In South Dakota
affairs he is a vertiable encyclopedia.
He is a wheelhorse in every depart
ment of party work. His strongest
characteristic and the one to which he
owes his present success is his tact in
handling men. At the last end of a
political convention-and he never
misses such a gathering-he proceeds
at once to make up with every dis
cordant element, and by the time the
crowd starts home he has healed over
the sore places and knows what each
locality will probably want in the next
campaign.
When a judge of the United States
circuit court was to be appointed in
President Harrison's term Elrod, being
also an Indianian, was solicited to see
the president, who had it in mind to
appoint a southern democrat to the
position. The South Dakotan bearded
the lion in his den in the interest of
Judge Sanborn, of st. Paul, Mimi.
He told the president that the contem-
plated appointment might be equity
and sound well from a patriotic stand
point, but that it would not get votes,
for the party where they were needed
in the northwest. Judge Sanborn was
appointed as the result of this inter-
view. Mr.. Elrod has been prosecuting
attorney and county Judge of Clark
county, and has held several positions
of trust under the federal courts,
including receiverships of railroads
and waterworks properties and the dis
bursement Of large sums of money
among the Indians.
While absenr in such an official
capacity at one time the polltlclans OF
his town planned to shut him out of
a county convention that was to select
delegates to a state convention. The
reason advanced was that Elrod was
getting to be a bigger man throughout
the state than he was at home, and
that he needed to be held down. The
country precincts came to the rescue,
and Elrod ran the convention. He was
a protege of the late Hon. 40. Melette,
also of Indiana. and the first governor
of South Dakota, and it is a peculiar
coincidence that he should now be in
line to occupy the same position held by
the man to whom he was always loyal
and whom he had admired so much.