Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1908-01-31
CORPORATION BOSS
KITTREDGE SEES DEFEAT
He, Like All Other Bosses Mast GDe Way to Men Chosen
and Elected by the People---Pohtica Bosses and
Corporation o4gents Shall No Longer
Fue the State.
Rule the State.

The Territory of Dakota was ruled
by Carpet Baggers for nearly thirty
years. While some of the men sent
to govern the honest hardy pioneers
were honest and we'll meaning, the
majority were men seeking plunder
and office through power given them
at Washington. The pioneer settlers
protested against the appointment of
carpet baggerS but their voice was
unheeded and their protests treated
with contempt. These men came to
the territory and did pretty much as
they pleaSed-some of them ing
in drunken debauchery with total
disregard for virtue. In 1873 the
writer sent a petition to the Presi-
dent by the late Col. G. G.. Moody,
signed by nearly two-thirds of all the
voters in the Territory protesting
against the reappointment of John A.
Burbank as governor, but that big
petition and the appeal of COL Moody
we're not considered. This infamous
carpet bag rule continued until state
hood in 1890.
In 1890 the rule of the state politi-
cal boss and corporation agent began
and continued with increasing inso-
lence and arbitrary power until the
people under the leadership of Coe 1.
Crawford smashed the corrupt ma
chine and dethroned corporation
bosses, driving them from power,
compelling the railroads to attend to
their own business and destroying the
power Of the men who were running
the state as private graft, and these
men compelled the people to pay
enormous taxes that should have been
paid by the corporations. Every tax
payer in the state has personal know
ledge of these facts and know them
to be true ,..
With statehood and new capital
at Pierre, opportunity was given a
corrupt lobby to carry on it's dirty
and devlish work. Members whom
the machine lobby could neither pur-
chase nor bulldoze, might be unfor-
tunate enough to surrender to the
wine cup which was handy and al
ways full. Once a member got into
the hands Of these scoundrels he was
doomed-he must surrender or be ex-
posed, because while the wine flowed
free the bawdy attachment of the
lobby was used and a man found him.
self in the clutches of male and fe.
male harlots and thus he was forced
to surrender to avoid exposure.
Many good men have been all but
ruined by that heartless gang of cor
pOration tools who did the bidding
of the bosses in shameless obedience.
This horrible picture of machine rule
and corporation politics was wit
messed any night the corporation ma
chine needed victim who in sobriety
of manhood could not be corrupted or
led astray. ....s
That is the way the machine bosses
ruled until Governor Crawford and a
reform legislature drove the lobby
from Pierre and from power.
South Dakota is not the only state
that has suffered from corporation
rule. Every western state has suf-
fered from the rule of men who were
bribed with passes and temporary
power, and every western state has
been forced to throw off the corpor-
alton yoke, and the fight has been a
bitter one.
We are all familiar with the strug-
gle in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa,
Nebraska and Kansas, and North Da-
kota was compelled, like Minnesota,
to elect a democrat for governor as a
stinging rebuke to the corporation
machine that had forced the nominal
tion OF a corporation tool.
When Boss Kittredge and Alex.
johnson, of the Northwestern rail-
road, nominated Elrod before the
convention met in Sioux Falls in
1904, the majority Of the convention
submitted in silence and others con-
demned the infamous trick. 1t was
the most brazen bit of boss rule ever
perpetrated on long suffering people
and the Crawford victory in 1906 was
the answer hurled at the shameless
ringsters.
In the face of this public record
Boss Kittredge comes before the peo-
pie seeking restoration to power that
he may again insult the voters with
new methods of corporation control.
1t takes a man with large amount
OF brass to face our people seeking a
reelection to the senate where he. in
contempt for the people, said he had
no time to read the rate bill and
silently and secretly opposed every
move of the President to secure its
passage. This lis also a matter OF
public record.
Boss Kittredge must assume that
the people of this state do not know
what they want.
He must assume that they prefer
boss rule to popular government.
He must assume that the people