Richard F. Pettigrew
Richard Franklin Pettigrew | |
---|---|
United States Senator from South Dakota | |
In office November 2, 1889 – March 3, 1901 | |
Preceded by | none |
Succeeded by | Robert J. Gamble |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Dakota Territory's at-large district | |
In office March 4, 1881 – March 3, 1883 Delegate | |
Preceded by | Granville G. Bennett |
Succeeded by | John B. Raymond |
Personal details | |
Born | Ludlow, Vermont, U.S. | July 23, 1848
Died | October 5, 1926 Sioux Falls, South Dakota, U.S. | (aged 78)
Political party | Republican Silver Republicans |
Relatives | Belle L. Pettigrew (sister) |
Alma mater | Beloit College University of Wisconsin Law School |
Richard Franklin Pettigrew (July 23, 1848 – October 5, 1926) was an American lawyer,
Early life and education
Pettigrew was born to Andrew Jr. Pettigrew and Hannah B. Sawtelle on July 23, 1848, in Ludlow, Windsor County, Vermont, in the residences of his grandparents, parents, seven siblings, uncles, aunts and cousins. He was the sixth child produced out of nine total. Pettigrew's siblings included Hannah M., Alma Jane, Henrietta Adelaide, Luella Belle, Justin A., Frederick (Fred) Wallace, Elizabeth Medora, and Harlan Page.[1] In 1853, Andrew Jr. sold his store to the partnership of Emerson and Richards, and the family moved to Wisconsin in 1854 while Pettigrew was 6 years old.[1] Andrew Jr. moved the family because of his neighbors' tough anti-slavery beliefs, and the store was used for the circulation of anti-slavery literature. The store was boycotted by angry, pro-slavers who threatened the Pettigrew family with violence.[1]
The family settled in Rock County, near Union, Wisconsin.[2] Pettigrew attended Evansville Academy, in Evansville.[2] In 1866, Pettigrew went to Beloit to enroll in Beloit College. In the winter of 1868, Pettigrew entered law school at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.[3]
Career in the Dakotas
Pettigrew moved to
Pettigrew was also instrumental in the founding of many local communities around Sioux Falls by donating land. Pettigrew and his wife, Bessie, donated land in 1886 to aid the founding and development of Granite, Iowa, in Lyon County. In 1888, he and S.L. Tate both donated more land and were responsible for the founding of South Sioux Falls. Pettigrew wanted to build a suburb of Sioux Falls to the south and west.
U.S. Senate
When South Dakota was admitted as a state, Pettigrew was elected as South Dakota's first Senator to the United States Senate. He served from November 2, 1889, to March 3, 1901. He introduced a bill to fund the structure, recommending that native Sioux quartzite be used for construction of the state's
"The American flag went up on Hawaii in dishonor; it came down in honor, and if it goes up again now it will go up in infamy and shame and this Government will join the robber nations of the world."[5]
His speech about Hawaii and annexation were at odds with some of his other views, namely in Federal Indian policy. Pettigrew was a supporter of a bill that sought to unilaterally dissolve tribal governments so as to force them to agree to allotment of their lands. In 1897, he delivered a speech on the Senate floor saying:
"There is no question but that the Congress of the United States at one blow should not only provide that laws passed by those councils, by those governments, should be approved by the President before they go into force, but, on the contrary, that the [tribal] governments themselves should be destroyed; that their power to legislate should be taken away; that their courts should be ousted and a proper judicial system furnished to those people. It is our duty to do it."[6]
In the Presidential Election of 1900, while still in the Senate, he was a delegate and a major figure in the national
Indictment
In 1917, while being interviewed by a journalist from the
Pettigrew assembled a high-powered legal defense team headed up by his close personal friend, prominent attorney Clarence Darrow. The trial was repeatedly delayed, and eventually the charge against him was dropped.
Pettigrew had the formal document of indictment framed, and prominently displayed in his home next to a framed copy of the United States Declaration of Independence, where it remains to this day as part of the exhibits of the Pettigrew Home & Museum.[8]
Later life and death
After his time in the Senate, Pettigrew first practiced law in New York City, but soon returned to Sioux Falls and was active in politics and business until his death in that city. He was interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in Sioux Falls.
Pettigrew left his home to the city of Sioux Falls in his will. The Pettigrew Home & Museum is maintained by the city of Sioux Falls to this day, designed to emulate how a person of Pettigrew's stature would have lived at the turn of the century. The house is filled with antiques from the early 1900s and Pettigrew's personal collection of artifacts from his time as an amateur archaeologist.[9]
Announced January 12, 2009, Richard F. Pettigrew Elementary School opened in fall of 2009 in southwest Sioux Falls.
Works
- "Who Owns the United States?" International Socialist Review, vol. 17, no. 6 (December 1916), pp. 357–359.[10]
- The Course of Empire. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1920. (Anti-imperialist speeches)
- Imperial Washington: The Story of American Public Life from 1870 to 1920. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1922. Originally published as Triumphant Plutocracy: The Story of American Public Life from 1870 to 1920.
Quotes
All quotes are from Pettigrew's book Triumphant Plutocracy.
- "Capital is stolen labor and its only function is to steal more labor."
- "The early years of the century marked the progress of the race toward individual freedom and permanent victory over the tyranny of hereditary aristocracy, but the closing decades of the century have witnessed the surrender of all that was gained to the more heartless tyranny of accumulated wealth."
- "Under the ethics of his profession the lawyer is the only man who can take a bribe and call it a fee."
- "Instead of spending hundreds of millions in conquering the Philippines, it would have been far better economy and better business judgment to spend it in reclaiming the arid lands of the west."
- "The sum and substance of the conquest of the Philippines is to find a field where cheap labor can be secured, labor that does not strike, that does not belong to a union, that does not need an army to keep it in leading strings, that will make goods for the trusts of this country."
- "It had come into being as a protest against slavery and as the special champion of the Declaration of Independence, it would go out of being and out of power as the champion of slavery and the repudiator of the Declaration of Independence." --–On the Republican Party.
- "The Russian Revolutionis the greatest event of our times. It marks the beginning of the epoch when the working people will assume the task of directing and controlling industry. It blazes a path into this unknown country, where the workers of the world are destined to take from their exploiters the right to control and direct the economic affairs of the community."
See also
References
- ^ ISBN 9781575790725.
- ^ a b Wayne Fanebust, Echoes of November, p. 6
- ISBN 9781575790725.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ^ Silva, Noenoe K. (1998). "The 1897 Petitions Protesting Annexation". The Annexation Of Hawaii: A Collection Of Document. University of Hawaii at Manoa. Retrieved December 19, 2016.
- ^ a b "Pettigrew's Speech". The Herald. Los Angeles. July 3, 1898. p. 4.
- ^ Calling the Five Tribes of Oklahoma "barbarous," the bill was passed and Native self-rule was removed. US Congressional Report, 1897, version 30, part 1, pg. 736.
- ^ Wayne Fanebust, Echoes of November, pp. 332-334
- ^ South Dakota Magazine, "Pettigrew's Redemption: Might a Sculptor Vindicate Sioux Falls' Forgotten Father?," by John Andrews (September/October 2010 - retrieved on November 13th, 2011).
- EBSCOhost 45741130.
- ^ Pettigrew, R. F. (December 1916). "Who Owns the United States?" (PDF). International Socialist Review. 17 (6). Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co.: 357–359. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 May 2019. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
Further reading
- Wayne Fanebust, Echoes of November: The Life and Times of Senator R. F. Pettigrew of South Dakota. Freeman, SD: Pine Hill Press, 1997.
External links
- United States Congress. "Richard F. Pettigrew (id: P000271)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
- A Forgotten Fighter against Plutocracy, an article about Pettigrew by George Novack
- Pettigrew Home & Museum Archived 2010-09-25 at the Wayback Machine