Page:A Brief History of South Dakota.djvu/173

Rh scarcely a farm in the territory was worth so much as ten dollars an acre. The proposition, however, to buy the school lands at a nominal price came to the attention of General W. H. H. Beadle, then territorial superintendent of public instruction, and he promptly inaugurated a movement to prevent

such action. He declared that the people should adopt, as an irrevocable condition, that not one acre of our school lands should be sold for less than the sum of ten dollars. This proposition seemed like a hopeless dream, even to the most hopeful of the Dakotans, but General Beadle stood strongly for it.

Fearing that a scheme might be worked through Congress to sell the school lands for a small price, General Beadle believed that safety lay only in the division and admission of the Dakotas as states, and in placing the ten-dollar principle in the constitution, and he joined the two plans into one general movement, for the success of which he talked and wrote constantly. In this work he was loyally assisted by Governor Howard, Dr. Joseph Ward, president