The Origins of the Initiative and Referendum in South Dakota: the Political Context

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 1992 The Origins of the Initiative And Referendum in South Dakota: The Political Context Steven L. Plott Clarion University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Plott, Steven L., "The Origins of the Initiative And Referendum in South Dakota: The Political Context" (1992). Great Plains Quarterly. 674. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/674 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. THE ORIGINS OF THE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM IN SOUTH DAKOTA THE POLITICAL CONTEXT STEVEN L. PlOTT In 1898 South Dakota became the first state Dakota," published in South Dakota History in to amend its constitution to give its citizens the the fall of 1973, historian H. Roger Grant sug option of the initiative-in which a given per gested that the accepted explanation for the centage of voters may propose a law, which then enactment of the initiative and referendum in must be approved at the polls-and the refer South Dakota-that they were Populist re endum-in which a law proposed either by ini forms-was too simplistic. Instead Grant em tiative or by the lawmaking body must then be phasized the impact of the depression of the approved by a given percentage of voters. These 1890s and the broadening of the reform base to measures, also known as direct legislation, were include consumers and taxpayers. According to seen by both voters and legislators as a way to Grant hard times in the late 1880s triggered reform democracy by making it more responsive farmer protest and the organization of the Farm to the people. Exactly what impetus propelled ers' Alliance. Then, in 1890, as economic dis South Dakota to enact these reforms at this content spread to the cities as well as the farms, time, however, has been a matter of some dis discontented urban and rural citizens joined to pute among historians. establish the Independent/Populist Party and In the "Origins of a Progressive Reform: The broadened the political discussion to include Initiative and Referendum Movement in South the initiative and referendum. As economic conditions worsened in the early 1890s, the popularity of the initiative and referendum in creased. The depression of the 1890s brought more suffering and injustice and united disaf Steven L. Piott, associate professor of history at fected farmers and workers with angry con Clarion University of Pennsylvania, is the author sumers and taxpayers behind a successful crusade of The Anti-Monopoly Persuasion (1985). He for the passage of the initiative and referendum is currently a Fulbright scholar in New Zealand and is working on a book-length history of the initiative at the state level in 1898. This movement pro and referendum in America. vided both the popular base and the democratic focus for the later Progressive movement in [OPQ 12 (Summer 1992): 181-1931 South Dakota. 1 181 182 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 1992 Grant acknowledged an intellectual debt to should ratify it. There was a growing sense that historian David Thelen, who had previously the way to improve partisan, representative suggested a framework for understanding the government, with all its seemingly inherent de origins of Progressivism in his influential book ficiencies, was to adopt a process that enabled The New Citizenship: The Origins of Progressivism people to control the political agenda. Political in Wisconsin. In his study of Wisconsin, Thelen experience, as much as economic dislocation, persuasively argued that consumers and taxpay provided the impetus for the adoption of the ers (primarily in an emerging urban-industrial initiative and referendum in South Dakota. environment), frightened and angry at the ap parent failure of industrial capitalism during the DAKOTA TERRITORY depression of the 1890s, came together in search of solutions to problems that the existing po Dakota Territory in the 1880s, like many litical system seemed incapable of addressing. states in the agrarian Midwest, was passing The result was a mass-based, cross-class move through various stages of what might best be ment that placed direct democracy at the center described as a boom-and-bust economy. During of its reform vision and provided the impetus the early 1880s Dakotans witnessed a surge in for tum of the century Progressivism. 2 the number of immigrants coming into the ter The problem with Grant's application of the ritory, a rapid expansion in wheat production Thelen thesis is that it does not serve as a sat and generally good harvests, a boom in town isfactory explanation for events in South Da construction, and the advance of the first rail kota. Economic conditions were certainly roads into the territory. ("Dakota the land of important, but so too were political circum promise" was the slogan of the Chicago, Mil stances. If farmers felt economically dependent waukee and St. Paul Railroad.) Encouraged by during the late 1880s and early 1890s, they also these developments, many in the territory be felt politically impotent. When they com gan to talk of statehood. But this upward cycle plained of monopoly-controlled transportation, was not to last. As early as 1884 Dakota farmers warehouse, and marketing agencies, they also began to complain that the price for wheat was complained of partisan politics, one-party dom 20 percent below what it cost them to produce ination, and a state legislature that ignored it and that buyers unfairly graded their grain. farmer demands. Eventually farmers believed When drought pinched Dakotans that same year, that changes to the political economy could few realized the danger in their growing de only come about through political empower pendence on wheat or their lack of crop diver ment. In 1890 farmers and workers formed the sification and livestock. Markets continued to Independent (later Populist) Party. South Da be depressed and farmers increasingly talked of kota Populists added the initiative and refer abuses in grain grading and in transportation endum to their platform in 1892, while the rates. By 1885 the peak of the Great Dakota national People's Party did so in 1896. The Boom had passed. Farmers who had only re depression of the 1890s did not appear to have cently been convinced of unbounded opportu a dramatic effect on the popularity of direct nity and the potential for success were now legislation-economic conditions had been de confronted with the specter of distress and pos pressed in South Dakota for nearly a decade sible failure. l nor did consumers and taxpayers suddenly rise Farmers looking for an explanation increas up to lead a reform crusade. Populist victory in ingly blamed monopolistic transportation, South Dakota in 1896 brought the passage of a warehouse, and marketing agencies, and a state proposed constitutional amendment for the ini legislature that allowed such abuses to exist. tiative and referendum, while Populist failure Many of these farmers joined the newly created by 1898 convinced a majority of voters that they Farmers' Protective Union or "Farmers' Club," INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM 183 a nonpolitical organization that held territory forth farm candidates, farmers ran as indepen wide meetings to discuss questions of farm eco dents and farmers' clubs backed candidates who nomics. Others joined the Northern Farmers' pledged to bring their demands to the floor of Alliance, organized in April 1880 by Milton the territorial legislature. Farmers hoped to have George, owner and editor of the Chicago-based a strong enough antirailroad and antimonopoly farm magazine The Western Rural. A chapter of bloc to present a persuasive case for some type the Northern Alliance first appeared in Dakota of regulatory legislation when the legislature met Territory in February 1881. The organization in Bismarck in January 1885, but they were only was envisioned as aiding farmers in their strug partially successful. The legislature passed a bill gle against monopoly and discriminatory rail creating a Territorial Board of Railroad Com road rates and grain elevator charges. In missioners, but the bill was weakened by an December 1884 representatives from the Farm amendment that deprived the commission of ers' Protective Union and the Northern Farm any power to control freight rates. Two years ers' Alliance met in Huron and laid the later (1887), with even stronger farmer pres groundwork for the Dakota Territorial Alli sure, the legislature passed an elevator and ance. 4 warehouse law empowering the railroad com At that meeting they agreed to demand the mission to license and bond companies engaged equal taxation of property, the end of free rail in the business of grain storage and to regulate road passes for public officials, the regulation of the weighing and grading of grain. But this law transportation rates, and the enactment of leg also had a loophole exempting so-called "pri islation in the interest of farmers. Representa vate elevators," almost half the elevators in the tives met for a second time in Huron in February territory, many of them large enough to control 1885 to formalize the organization, select a slate the grain storage business in their respective of officers, and draw up a constitution. The key areas. Politically inexperienced Dakota farmers individual in the new organization was Henry had been given painful lessons in their inability L. Loucks, a recent homesteader from Canada to prevent corporate-influenced legislators from and organizer of the territory's first farmers' club either preventing or amending effective regu in Deuel County in 1884.

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