Page:A Brief History of South Dakota.djvu/127

Rh filled the Yanktonians with righteous indignation, and they therefore sought the best means to humiliate him. At the suggestion of some of the citizens, Sergeant-at-arms Jim Somers agreed, at the following session, when the bill was to come up for reconsideration, to take the speaker forcibly from his chair and throw him through the window, out of the legislative hall. Somebody talked about the conspiracy, news of the plan came to Pinney's ears, and he appealed to the governor for protection. Company A of the Dakota cavalry had recently been organized and was stationed in town, and the governor promptly ordered a squad of soldiers to go into the hall and protect the speaker in the discharge of his duty. Having thus obstructed the conspirators' plan for revenge, Pinney sat through the session of the day, but the opposition to him was so great that he was compelled to resign.

Jim Somers, however, could not be kept out of his fun. That evening Speaker Pinney stepped into a saloon on Broadway. Somers and a party of his cronies were standing at the bar. As Pinney approached the bar Somers caught him in his arms, carried him across the hall to a closed window, and threw him out. The speaker carried the sash with him and alighted on the ground outside, wearing the sash about his neck.

A new speaker was elected, the bill was re-amended to make Yankton the capital, and was thus passed, Vermilion's ambition being pacified by the location of the territorial university at that town. Despite the apparent recklessness of the members of the Pony Congress, that body passed an extensive code of wise laws, most of which