It is with feelings of pride that I again meet in solemn convocation with the sovereign people of Dakota; and it is an especial cause of congratulation to note the respectability and intelligence which characterize those assembled here to discharge the arduous duties devolving upon the honored members of the Third House. It is probably unnecessary for me to say that the presence of so much intelligence, respectability and beauty, is due to the fact that your coming here did not depend upon the suffrages of a majority of the electors of your respective districts. Otherwise, it would have been otherwise, and the assemblage here to-night might have been as inferior in appearance, as illiterate and as vain as that body which biennially assembles in Yankton, and whose existence depends upon the contingency above named.

MORALITY &C.

It is also with much pride that I can thus publicly refer to and commend in general, the upright and honorable conduct [page 4] of the sovereign people of Dakota since our last convocation two years ago.

There have been, however, I am sorry to say, a few instances where a disposition has been shown by some of our subjects to stray from the paths of rectitude and go Beechering after strange gods and godesses [sic]. Cases of this kind are rare, and condign punishment invariably meted out to the malefactors—there being one instance where a culprit for a small measure of transgression—and this upon the testimony of the alleged victim herself—was found guilty of a degree of crime, the least punishment of which is five years in the penitentiary. In all cases of shortcomings, satisfactory reformation speedily followed.

OUTRAGEOUS.

But some of our subjects—men who formerly enjoyed good name and fame—whose thoughts were pure, and who were upright in all their ingoings and outcomings—have brought disgrace and dishonor upon themselves, and by their acts cast a stigma upon the heretofore unspotted fame of this honorable body. Among these transgressions, I am grieved to be compelled to say, is the venerable and high-minded sovereign who two years ago presided with so much dignity and wisdom over the deliberations of this body—Father Turner; another is the eloquent young orator Bartlett Tripp; another is S. L. Spink, who formerly endeared himself to the tax-ridden citizens of this country by espousing their cause and defending their substance from being absorbed in the insatiate maw of a soulless corporation; another is Alderman Gemmill, whose voice and vote in the council chamber of his adopted city are always employed in defense of the rights and interests of his constituents; another is G. W. Kingsbury, who anchored his hopes upon a bread and butter issue, but his hopes went down before the more potent powers of pretzels and lager. These men—and there are others I might name—were overcome by the lust of ambition, and fell, ignobly fell, from their former high estate and placed themselves upon a level with the enemies of freedom and sovereignty, who are constantly nosing around after the putrid political flesh-pots of Dakota. It is with grief and reluctance that I allude to the fall of these men, and to disclose their heinous crime; but I am compelled by an imperative duty to acquaint you with the facts. Their [page 5] crime was great, let their punishment be commensurate. They were candidates for seats in that inferior body, the Legislative Assembly! Could self-debasement be more complete?

A NOBLE-EXAMPLE

In this connection, it is my duty to inform you that certain evil disposed persons sought to induce your executive to assume a similar position and accept a seat in that body; but I am proud to be able to inform you that I promptly declined the proffered dishonor, not only with indignation, but about 200 majority. Speaking of the

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

reminds me that I was greatly surprised this morning to learn for the first time that there is now in session in this city, an organization known by that name. I at first doubted the authenticity of the report, and a timid gentleman who was present when the information was imparted, immediately went home and took a census of his hen coop, and upon his return, being an excitable and profane man, he said the report was a dashed lie: that he had counted his chickens and not one was missing. Another bystander, who is a dealer in groceries, said he believed there might be some truth in the report, as he had noticed during the past three or four weeks and unusual rush of suspicious looking characters to the stone house near the foot of Capital street, and that during that time there had been a very noticeable increase in the sale of cheese and crackers. Desiring to obtain positive information upon the subject, I dispatched one of my staff officers to the place where it was said that body was in session, with instructions to note their appearance and proceedings and report his observations in detail. Unfortunately the member of my staff who I selected for this service at one time held a federal office in the territory, and consequently can neither read or write, and I was compelled to receive from him a verbal report. Upon his return he assured me that the information which I had received was correct—that the Legislative Assembly was actually convened and had been in session for over thirty-five days. He visited the room occupied by the council, and found a jolly set, presided over by a Jolley fellow. A few of them, including Doc. Stevens, had hay-seed in their hair, and nearly all of them had strawberry marks on their noses. One member was laboring under a severe attack of perspiration [page 6] induced by the effort required in making "three dashed good speeches" upon the question whether Slaughter should slaughter Williams or Williams should slaughter Slaughter. They were, as I have already said, a jolly crowd, and took their whiskey straight. They were well presided over, and all the officers were composed of the best timber—the leading scribe being fashioned out of that species of timber known as Linn, which is noted for its rarity in this climate and the large amount of sap it contains.

My lieutenant then went into the hall of the house. But here a very different atmosphere prevailed. In this branch all was Moody and blankness. A moody spirit presided over and permeated the whole house. In all their doings and undoings they were moved, directed and actuated by a moody influence. There was a Sampson amongst them, but that moody spirit was his Delilah, and he was passive and weak. Twenty-five members were in their seats—

ONE WAS IN JAIL.

And here my lieutenant commenced to figure to see if he could ascertain how long it would be before one man would be in his seat and twenty-five in jail. I interrupted him, as it would have taken him, presuming upon the eternal fitness of things and the unerring shafts of justice, at least fifteen minutes to have solved the problem. Not being able to read and write, he was slow in figures. He informed me that each member had a pencil in his hand and a piece of paper before him upon which he was endeavoring to ascertain by the rules of multiplication and addition the aggregate amount of six times forty. They all seemed to be anxious to know, and exhausted all their time in efforts to ascertain what would be the condition of their exchequer if they remained here forty days at $6.00 per diem. But the task imposed upon them was too onerous. It was beyond their comprehension and past finding out; and besides being constantly in a moody frame of mind their arithmetical labors had given them a worn and haggard look.

A LUCKY DISCOVERY.

The timely discovery of the existance [sic] of this body is very fortunate, as it will enable you at this time to adopt such legislation as is necessary to carry into effect the actions of the [page 7] legislature. The measures which it will be necessary for you to adopt will suggest themselves to your minds without me calling your attention to them. One important matter, however, I will mention. The legislative assembly have passed some laws which create new offices of trust and emolument, and in one instance at least, appointed one of their own number to fill one of these new offices. This makes it necessary that you shall pass a law to amend that portion of the organic act of the territory which provides "that no member of the legislative assembly shall hold or be appointed to any office which shall have been created, or the salary or emoluments of which shall have been increased while he was a member, during the term for which he was elected or for one year after the expiration of such term."

DOMESTIC AFFAIRS.

Gladly dismissing this unpleasant subject, I will proceed to a brief discussion of those subjects which relate to our material prosperity. In this direction our progress during the past two years has been moderately satisfactory. During that period we have gained largely in population, wealth and cheap wood sawyers. Some additions have also been made to our numerical strength in the good old way—many children having been very properly born; but to offset the latter increase, according to the law of equalization, and equal number of men should have properly died, but in a very many cases—and especially where such results would in no respect have been subversive of the public interests, they have very improperly refused to perform that service.

GRASSHOPPERS.

Much complaining and swearing has been indulged in by the people on account of the numbers and familiarity of the grasshoppers, which did us the honor to abide with us last summer. Many are so inhospitable as to publicly declare that they begrudge the morsels which were necessary to sustain life in these little beings. We should be more hospitable, more merciful. Who knows but that the Darwinian theory may be correct! A grasshopper may have been at one time a mosquito or a gray-back, or even a political carpetbagger. And is it not possible that in the evolutions of time and successive transmogrifications he may become a turkey buzzard or a shitepoke? And then, would it be too great a [page 8] stretch of credulity to imagine him in the near future a member of the Dakota Legislature? But aside from this, have we not reason for congratulation? Are we not here, while the grasshoppers are gone? Are we not alive, while the grasshoppers are dead? Who has gained the victory? Certainly not the grasshoppers. If they had we would be dead and gone, the grasshoppers would be alive and here, and a certain number of them would be engaged in making laws for the government of the balance. The grasshoppers, where are they? Go ask the winged winds that 'round your pathway steal, and they will answer you in the language of the victors, ausgespielt.

PENALTY AND LUXURY.

There is no cause for complaint. Our people are reveling in plenty and luxury. The wheat crop of the territory in the last harvest yielded from ten to twenty-five bushels per acre, averaging not less than fifteen bushels. Of potatoes, here was a moderately good crop. The oat crop suffered considerable, but in some cases the yield was sixty-five bushels to the acre, and the general crop not less than two-thirds the average. Corn was damaged, but half a crop was gathered. With such a result can there be suffering and want among our people, and are they justified in complaining? In giving the above figures as the result of the last harvest I do not exaggerate or rely upon uncertain information. The figures are taken from a letter to the Hon. Frederick Watts, commissioner of agriculture at Washington, written by a gentleman of this territory, under date of August 12, 1874, who, just previous to writing the letter traveled 250 miles through the counties of Bon Homme, Hutchinson, Turner, Minnehaha, Lincoln, Clay and Yankton for the especial purpose of procuring practical and occular [sic] proof of the condition of the crops and of the people. He found the farmers cheerful and hopeful, and the crops gratifying and satisfactory. And the gentleman who went to all this trouble to ascertain and publish the truth, is no less a personage than the excellent officer who enjoys the prerogative of vetoing the bills passed by the legislative assembly.

OTHER SOURCES OF WEALTH.

However, if our people are not satisfied with these results, they can turn their attention to the development of other [page 9] sources of wealth. When the wheat crop becomes unprofitable, let less labor and capital be invested in its production, and the labor and capital employed in some other direction. And so with the other crops usually cultivated by our farmers, the profit upon which is small or uncertain. There are many undeveloped resources to which the energy and means of our people can be directed, and I believe with a certain and satisfactory profit. The vast amount of grazing land in our territory, the nutriciousness [sic] of the native grasses, and the adaptability of the climate should induce more attention to the interests of stock-raising and the products of the dairy. No country produces better butter and cheese than that which is made in Dakota, and high prices which they always command and the comparatively small expense attending their production, will make these branches of husbandry, when judiciously and practically conducted a source of large and unfailing revenue. The preparation and consignment of the products to market are attended with much less expense and labor than that which is demanded for the handling and shipment of the same value of wheat or other cereals, while the market is always good and sales readily made. Cheese can be shipped in cheap packages at low rates of freight, while butter should in all cases be shipped and marketed in rolls. This latter decision was arrived at after consultation with Major Stone, Major Hanson, Mr. Kingsbury, Mr. McIntyre, Secretary Hand, Bartlett Tripp, Mr. Sheafe, Col. Jolley, Dr. Stevens, and other intelligent agriculturalists, who were unanimous and emphatic in deciding that all the firkin should be kept at home.

MINING AND SHAFTING.

Another source of wealth to our people can be assured by the development of the mineral resources of the territory. The fact that our territory contains mines of vast extent and great richness is undoubted; and their development will not only render us independent of all congressional legislation upon the currency question, but it will furnish healthy and lucrative employment for defeated candidates for office. It is your province, gentlemen, to devise ways and means for the opening to settlement of the gold and silver bearing sections of the territory, and adopt measures for the government of the mines and the protection of the interests of the miners and [page 10] other citizens who wish to engage in other pursuits. To this end you will designate a certain number of intelligent and penetrating gentlemen to act as a committee on mining and shafting. Your principal duty will be to attend to matters pertaining to the mining interests, as I feel fully assured that when Col. Jolley, Dr. Stevens, Mr. Sheafe, Mr. Shaw, Mr. McHench and other members of the legislative assembly return to the bosoms of their constituents the shafting interest will be vigorously prosecuted.

A REMEDY.

If, by following these directions our people fail to achieve independence and wealth; if they are not absolved from the necessity of asking alms and legislative aid, then they have one recourse left — they can join the grange. To achieve this object all applicants are respectfully referred to those horny-handed tillers of the soil, Judge Williams, master, and J. R. Gamble, secretary, of the Yankton branch.

MORE OUTRAGES.

I am compelled to call your attention to an instance of derilection [sic] of duty which in this enlightened and progressive age is a humiliating outrage, and does violence to our boasted philanthropy. The Yankton Indian reservation has not been surveyed and marked off into forty acres tracts for at least sixty days. This culpable if not criminal neglect is in the highest degree reprehensible and imposes upon our enlightened red brethren, burdens and inconveniences from which they should be protected. On account of this derilection [sic] of duty on the part of those having this work in charge these patient, hard-working and intelligent agriculturalists have been brought to the verge of despair and starvation, and it is said to be a most touching sight to see these people standing with their agricultural implements in their hands waiting for the surveying parties to arrive that they may scalp the men and eat their oxen. And as they watch and wait in vain their grief increases, and becomes pitiable to behold. In their agony they have strewn hay-seed in their hair, and in some instances they have become so desperate that they have taken to studying Clevenger's treatise on government surveying made easy, or how to become a confidential deputy. It is your duty, gentlemen, as the friends and champions of progress, of civilization and of christianity to see that the [page 11] wrongs of these people are redressed; that their efforts to redeem their name and nature from the odium of the past may be promptly and heartily seconded, and that the great grief under which they are now bowed to the earth may be removed. By taking prompt and intelligent action in this matter you will be acting the part of good Samaritans, and thereby the faces of these poor people which are now Dewey with grief will soon be Beaman with joy. It is generally understood that a small profit results to the contractor from these surveys. I am not positive that such is the case, but, if after due investigation you find it to be so, you will adopt a rule whereby this profit may be equally distributed among the people of the country, that none may be neglected and none receive an undue share. You will therefore, when you provide for another re-survey of that reservation, in accordance with equity and right, give the contract to citizens of Grant county. They should no longer be neglected.

A LABOR OF LOVE.

Much has been done during the past two years to stay the tide of crime and general cussedness which to some timid minds threaten to engulf the country. Extortion, the evils of monopoly and vast monied corporations, have received a check, if not a staggering heath blow — and Dakota $750.00 — from the sinewy arm of the grange organization. The veil which hid from the public gaze the lechery and hypocrisy of those high in ecclesiastical positions, has been jerked off, and disclosed one who had been accorded the position of a pure and sainted teacher, reclining on something with rugged edges, and just ready to step down and out. Great hopes were entertained that the organization known as the crusaders or praying bands, would have the effect to close the miriads [sic] of drinking places in our land, and compel the people to carry jugs or buy their drinks at the drug stores. But the hopes of the people were not realized. These praying bands or crusaders were composed almost entirely of women. There were but a few men in connection with them, and they parted their hair in the middle. Their warfare was aimed only at the vices indulged in by the opposite sex, and as a consequence the movement soon begat opposition, and before that opposition is paled, and wiggled and pegged out. In reply to the appeals of the crusaders the sterner sex argued that the [page 12] evils of intemperance, of billiards, pitch, seven up, big Ingin, pin pool, and an occasional &c, were not any greater, more demoralizing or detrimental to the public well being than the frivolities of fashion and mania for adornment which rules and governs the female mind. The lords of creation claimed that their point was well put, at any rate it proved a counter irritant which despoiled the country of crusaders. The women would not abandon the panier, the palpitator, the polonais, or anything else commencing with a "P," and consequently the men continue unmolested in their fun, frolicking, fighting and anything else commencing with an "F." The crusade was practically a failure, whether from the causes named or not does not matter. Men are addicted to many habits which are generally conceded to be detrimental to the interests of morality and christianity. Their vices are what might be termed of a gastronomic character. They indulge the demands of appetite and similar passions. On the other hand the weakness of the opposite sex displays itself in a blind devotion to the god of fashion and for personal adornment. But these are the evils — if evils they are — to which mankind and womankind are doomed by a little circumstance which occurred over eighteen hundred year ago and over which we had no control. Nature has ordained — and for this assertion we have the authority of one of the most eminent nest-hiders in the country — that women should spend upon their backs and men upon their bellies. The only exception to this rule to which any particular prominence has ever been given was when Susan sat on Henry Ward's lap.

NO CRUSADE IN DAKOTA.

The crusade did not flourish in Dakota, for the reason that owing to the grasshopper crusade, our husbands and fathers were unable to purchase their wives and daughters the latest style of spring bonnets and other fixings, without which no proper spirited female can offer her devotions or plead for the abatement of a wrong without envying her more fortunate neighbor, whose husband owns the place before whose door she would be called to pray. A little wholesome crusading, however, would not be amiss, even if it did not extend beyond a little [page 13]

COARSE PRAYING

for those members of the legislative assembly who voted against paying their chaplain a meagre [sic] pittance per diem for the disagreeable duty of daily calling the attention of God Almighty to the fact that they are members of the Dakota legislature.

WHAT WAS INTENDED.

I had intended to call your attention to national affairs, and other great questions which should never be neglected by the executive of so great a country as Dakota and of so great a people as Dakotaians [sic], but time, that enemy of mankind and which was originally intended only for slaves, has prevented me from devoting proper attention to them. And here I may remark that the salary paid their executive by the sovereigns of Dakota, is not sufficient to render him independent of the pursuit of more menial duties whereby to eke out a livelihood. But I do not complain. Our people are so heavily taxed to pay the salaries of useless officials that they have very little left for meritorious objects.

OUR RELATIONS.

Our foreign relations continue in the enjoyment of good health. One of them is now on a visit to our country. His name is Killa-Kow-a and he is a squatter governor of the Canibal [sic] Islands, or thereabouts. I invited him to visit Yankton, but he declined on the ground that he feared they might impose a member of the legislature upon him, which would be very tough eating. And then he had heard of the Elk Point convention, and as Burleigh has left the territory, he is fearful that they might want to run him for congress.

GO TO WORK.

I now leave you to commence the discharge of your arduous but honorable duties. Let wisdom, deliberation and a due regard for the public welfare control your every act, and a grateful people will accord to you the welcome plaudit well done good and faithful soveriegns [sic].

GOOD ADVICE.

Upon you, Mr. Speaker, much depends, and much will be demanded of you. You must not hesitate to leave your chair and go upon the floor and instruct the members how to vote. [page 14] Whenever it is necessary, you must do so. After awhile, by practice you can indicate the manner in which you wish to have the sovereigns cast their votes by the tone in which you state the question. If you wish them to vote in the affirmative you will say — "Those who are in favor of the passage of this measure will say AYE! those opposed no." Or if you wish to have the measure defeated you will say — "Those in favor say aye, those opposed NO!"

GREAT EXPECTATIONS.

With those recomendations [sic] and advice, I now close, and in closing tender my resignation of the office of sovereign governor. I have served you for twelve years with faithfulness, fervency and zeal. I am impelled to this course by the result of the last November election. Two years hence we will have a change of administration, and a legislative assembly of a different complexion from that now in session will convene in Yankton, and my duty will then be to deliver a message to that body by authority of a Democratic President of the United States.