The Bon Homme County independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1904-1913, 1905-01-05
STRENUOUS POLITICS
. "Reminiscences at the Early
bays Of Bon Homme County.
nv MAJ. ROBERT DoLLARD.

The explosions of uncompro-
missing f~actional hostility of 1886
purified the political atmosphere
to such an extent that the outlook
for the campaign OF 1888 was
favorable to harmony in the
republican ranks of Bon Homme
county, but there was visible evil
dence of a coming storm in the
Legislative district of which il
was a part. The delegates to
the district convention were
chosen without a struggle but
the problem as to whether Doug
las or Charles Mix counties
should have the house number
was again decided in favor of the
latter county and when the cleo
ton came about the only votes
the Charles Mix man received in
Douglas were from that faction
OF the party which has since gone
over to the democracy, while his
own county gave him all, or
nearly all. its vote regardless of
party ties. In the convention of
Bon Homme county TO nominate
candidates for election to the
county Offices, a key was put in
to the combination To secure the
election of the entire republican
ticket and il went through sue
c~essfully for the first time in at
least eight years.
Ii looked then as though the
party was at last coming to its
own, as it had for many years
a good majority in the county
If il could enlist its members TO
fight under its banner in the in
~terests of a united vote for its
local candidates, but the party in
its state convention in 1890 adopt
ed a plank in favor of prohibition
and that had about the same
effect on many of the German
voters as the waving of a red flag
IN the face of a mad bull. THE
republicans want To make rs drink
water was a common remark
among them. The spirit of liber-
~ rebelled. Democrats APP
preached them to vote for some
OF their candidates and with the
exception of the candidate for
county treasurer and attorney
general, the entire republican
ticket, county, state and congress
sional was overwhelmed by an
opposition majority. This was
the year when the banner repub-
lican county of Hutchinson gave
the democratic candidate for
governor five hundred majority,
and defeated two of its legislative
candidates, for the same reason
that the republican ticket was
defeated in Bon Homme county.
Ii will be remembered that the
late Judge &C. Moody, of Dead
wood, was in the United States
senate at that time; was a candi-
date for election by the next
Legislature, and that he lacked
but one or two votes of success.
His election would have controll-
cd the senate in 1898. 1t will
also be remembered that the ma
jority of the committee on plat
form in the national democratic
convention at Chicago in 1892, re-
ported the time honored plank
for a revenue tariff adjusted in
the interests of American labor
and industries and that the elo-
quent Henry Wattreson. of Ken
lucky, carried the convention for
his minority report for a revenue
tariff without any mention of its
effect on either American labor
or industry, thus warning them
to get from under by giving coll
or to the view that thereafter the
labor and industries of this coun-
try would be dropped from con-
sideration in framing a tariff
measure if the party were placed
in full power; and it will be re-
membered that President Cleve-
land was nominated and elected
on that platform, had both
branches of congress with him and
that the expectation of the indus
trial world were shattered. The
country, with the belief that the
platform would be carried out
to the letter, and a train of COM
mercial disasters followed such
as no man living had ever seen
before. II the United States
senate, instead of being demo-
cratic, had been controlled by the
republicans, which ii would have