The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1914-02-26

of no less than 500, 900 in claims
against the state in the three years Of
his service. Anderson does not claim
that by any mean all of this amount
was saved to the state, as a large part
was eventually paid after the law had
been complied with. Neither does he
deny the full credit due A~ttorney-Gen-
eral Royal G. Johnson, now a candi-
date for congress, for the aid and sup
port given his department in his
chosen work as Watchdog of the
Treasury" A third distinction that
belongs to Henry Anderson is his dis
covery of what are known as the
wolf bounty frauds" in the western
part of the state. 1t all came about
from Anderson's habit of looking into
accounts against the state as he would
into affairs of his own business. He
noticed some peculiarities about the
large amount of wolf bounty claims
sent in from the trans-Missouri terri
tory. These regularly exceeded the
state appropriation by far. AS a re-
suit of Anderson's "nosing about" a
total of some $4,000 of wolf bounty
claims were rejected as fraudulent, the
county auditor of Pennington county
was indicted and convicted on his
first trial and the county auditor OF
Fall River county paid back to the
state and to banks the sum of 81, 84S.
Byrne Long a Leader
Gov. Byrne's record is we'll known.
Ever since the inception of the pro
gressive" movement within the re-
publican party in this state, he has
been one of the foremost leaders. In
his service as a member of the state
senate, he was active in helping to
enact such legislation as the anti
pass law, the passenger fare reduction
law, the reduction of express rates,
anti-lobby law, primary election law,
corrupt practices act and the act pro-
viding for the valuation of physical
property of railroads. Since his in
auguroation as governor, Byrne has
paid especial attention to revenue re-
form. Byrne is an unusually
affable man personally and yet
dignifed. He has shown per-
haps a more c~onciliatory attitude to-
ward the "stalwart" wing than any
other important public official of his
crowd since the war began within the
party. This has borne some fruit. 1t
no doubt had something to do with
the fact that the Lawrence county stall
warts endorsed Byrne for governor
and the fact that two daily papers sup
porting Burke for senator are support
ing Byrne for governor. These are
the Deadwood Pioneer-Times and the
Yankton Press and Dakotan.
Everybody Knows Dick
There is probably not a better
known man in South Dakota than R.
o. Richards, the third candidate.
Dick" as everybody calls him, has
a speaking acquaintance with prob
ably every town and hamlet in the
state. He is a wealthy Norwegian
whose a%vocation and joy is politics.
The science of government is as much
his hobby as the collection of antiques
was j. Pierpont Morgan's. A shrewd
business man always, Richards added
fortune to his by loading up
OF South Dakota land just before it
began to advance in price by leaps
and bounds. Richards has made plen-
ty of money and he has spent plenty
of it in the qualification of his passion
for politics. He first espoused the
cause of Coe I. Crawford when the "es-
pousers" were not particularly numer-
Gus and has always received the lions
share Of the credit for putting Craw-
ford not only into the governors chair
but into the United States senate as
well. Then came Gov. Vessey as lat
est ward of the Huron political god
father and Richards rather thought
that he should be allowed to put
through some pet legislation, in par
ticular his primary election law. Yes
sey wouldn't or couldn't approve and
consequently Richards left the pro
gressive" wing of the party. After
flirting with and helping the "stal-
warts" more or less, he this year came
to the point where he was willing to