The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1916-08-25
'-nstE OLD GANG

Recently Fargo newspaper referred
to the Pioneer Express las one of the
"old gang papers, etc.
This. writer, personally, Is rather proud
to be 'creaited as an ,associste OF the men
who are called by many by the intended
insulting name of the ''old gang"
AS mriteg in the newspaper field for
thirty years what this winter has stood
for and what he has opposed is printed
in the files Of this paper. Looking back.
ward at this time we have little 10 re-
gret and little that we wish to have ex-
plunged. Personally, the newspaper
man writes his own autobiography in
his daily OF weekly issues.
But the men with whom We associa-
ted twenty, thirty and some forty years
ago are aaown to this generation as the
.'old gang Most of these men are now
lying in their graves. A few still live
but practically all of them are out of
politics. Most men have or ought to
have the common decency to let the
dead rest. But that word "gang" is roll
led in the mouth of the political dema-
gogue as sweet morsel. 1t insinuates
so much and means so little. When the
demagogue says ';gang'' he means all
that is mean. The epithet includes
every possible political crime and prob
ably includes all the crimes on the crimi.
nal calendar.
Who composed that 4'old gang?"
They were the pioneers of the then
territory of Dakota and later of the new
states of North and South Dakota.
They were the legislators and terri
torlal and state officials. They we're the
business men, the professional men, the
farmers; and in those times this new
state was mostly located in the Red riv-
er valley. They we're the men who
built up Fargo. Grand Forks and q
thousand smaller towns. They were
the men who turned the first sods of the
unbroken prairie and who helped build
the net work of railways that opened up
this wilderness and rescued it from the
Indians and buffalo.
That these men ran things in those
early days much to their own liking is
certainly true; it had to be true because
there were no other persons to run
things. But the supposed theory that
certain few men combined to run things
political and otherwise for their own
special benefit. without reference to the
good of the territory or state, IS lie.
In the first place the political combi-
nations we're such as are made in any
year in any state or locality. Then as
now, but more then because of new con-
ditlons, new questions were constantly
arising ard consequently new combina-
tions were being made. But at the pre-.
sent day, these are all Jumped into the
significant term of "the old gang"
In those early days Dakota was stu
ated. politically like Texas or any south.
ern state is now. There was but one
political party. Nominations at the
state conventions meant certain elec-
tion. That any set of men IN those
early days controlled without question
the republican party is nonsense. The
fights at the state conventions in those
days we're something of the dramatic
and approached the tragic. AS result
the ''gang'' for the ensuing two years
were those who had won out at the last
state convention. Sometimes it was
! one set and sometimes it was another
but then as now 1t was 1.-THE gang" For
then as now success politically was
/, termed by the defeated as "the gang"
Who were these men?