Peter Norbeck, Father of Mount Rushmore derisively likened to professional politician by unprofessional politician.

Pat Powers

Apparently, South Dakota’s first native-born Governor and the man who inspired Custer State Park, Norbeck Wildlife Preserve and Mount Rushmore National Memorial accomplished too much for South Dakota for one politician’s taste, according to the debate over Senate Bill 204. 

What was the problem? Apparently State Senator Jim Bolin tried to honor Norbeck with a kind gesture by naming a day in his honor. From the Watertown Public Opinion:

Bolin called Norbeck “probably the most important political figure in our state in the first 50 years of our history.”

Angry Stace Nelsonand…

The only opponent to speak against Peter Norbeck Day was Sen. Stace Nelson, R-Fulton. “I’m sure the career politician was a fine gentleman,” Nelson said.

Read it here.

Well, just darn that Senator Bolin for trying to honor a well digger and farmer who did all that stuff for South Dakota with a day in his honor.

Somehow, I don’t think they’ll be naming anything for Senator Nelson anytime soon.

Update… THAT was fast!

23 thoughts on “Peter Norbeck, Father of Mount Rushmore derisively likened to professional politician by unprofessional politician.”

  2. Hmmm, Joe Foss ran for office in South Dakota 7 times, guess that means the Bullshit Elephant has to call his fellow marine a career politician as well.

    1. For crying out loud. Check your sources. Peter Norbeck was a Republican.

      http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=N000132

      NORBECK, Peter, a Senator from South Dakota; born near Vermillion, Clay County, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota), August 27, 1870; attended the public schools and the University of South Dakota at Vermillion; moved to Redfield, Spink County, S.Dak., in 1900; engaged in agricultural pursuits and in 1895 also engaged as a contractor and driller of deep water, oil, and gas wells; member, State senate 1909-1915; lieutenant governor 1915-1916; Governor of South Dakota 1917-1921; was instrumental in the establishment of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1920; reelected in 1926 and 1932 and served from March 4, 1921, until his death; chairman, Committee on Pensions (Sixty-ninth Congress), Committee on Banking and Currency (Seventieth through Seventy-second Congresses); died in Redfield, S.Dak., December 20, 1936; interment in Bloomington Church Cemetery, near Platte, S.Dak.

          1. Honoring what some do above the surface doesn’t necessarily reflect what they do under the surface. Such is the nature of secret societies. That is probably more relevant to a political discussion regarding Peter Norbeck than what Senator Nelson does in a bathroom. Just saying.

            I apologize if the topic of this thread is not Peter Norbeck and is instead Senator Nelson.

      2. The dude placed, like, five constitutional amendments on the 1918 ballot to allow the State to own and operate businesses. That is socialism, is it not? State run economy? He certainly would not be a Republican in this day and age.

        1. I don’t disagree, but you also have to consider the historic context. They did that because those businesses didn’t really exist in state at the time, and it was cheaper for taxpayers to create them, than to ship things in by rail from another state.

    2. He was a progressive Republican, in the vein of Theodore Roosevelt.

      An “actual socialist” doesn’t believe in private property. Norbeck was a successful businessman with many employees.

      Norbeck did believe in the state running certain state-owned enterprises, if doing so could be more efficient than using private companies. So, for example, he started a state cement plant and a state coal mine (which was weirdly in ND). In both cases, it idea was vertical integration – the state of SD would save money by producing its own cement and mining its own coal, for its own use. If there was extra, it would be sold.

      Most of these state-owned enterprises were shuttered or sold in the 1930s, although the state cement plant of course lasted until the Janklow administration and was sold in the late 1990s.

      Certainly a departure from anything SD would likely do today, but not really socialism.

  7. I’ll get to Stace in a moment. Some context.

    I’m a military brat. The Vietnam War ruined my dad. There is a book called Vietnam Wives which describes what it was like to grow up in our home. I loved my dad, he was faithful to my mom, good to my brother and I, and he grew to hate the military and the government. I never saw him so mad as when he heard me talk about enlisting during the first Gulf War because the government offered me a $25000 sign-on bonus because they needed chaplains so bad. My dad was mad because he lost all faith in any military operation of the US Government. He refused to lose a son to someone else’s ill-conceived war – he had come to believe all wars were bankers wars (that phrase coming from a book by that title written by a highly decorated war vet). Enough on all that, now to Stace…

    My dad would ask the Bull Marine if he has ever had in income that wasn’t a government check. He would tell the Bull Marine he’s not impressed with his incessant military boasting and bravado, having only a career cop job in the military no doubt being a bully, walking secure bases, and doing less in harms way than any Sioux Falls cop does every night. Mostly as a fiscal conservative he would question retirement for anyone, in any career, at year 20. He would challenge, as others are – see link, this unsustainable spending program that has become career military retirement.

    My dad fought for VA benefits for decades. I support vet benefits. But, this retirement thing Stace is cashing in on, it does need to be revisited.

    I view the Bull Marine as a career government employee who now has a cash stream for life. Meanwhile, people like my dad grovelled to stay employed, war having so messed them up they are quite unemployable.

    And Stace vilifies me for my views, he’s heard me voice these before. I wonder if I’m the only military brat he belittles. Certainly he has no regard for the price a military brat like myself paid growing up in war. Unless we honour the Bull Marine with Kim Jong-un-like salutes as we parade by his ruddy rotund greatness every morning we are to be crushed beneath him, investigated, and threatened with a bodily confrontation.

    https://warontherocks.com/2015/03/military-retirement-too-sweet-a-deal/

    1. Stace belittles the other services including those who served in the Coast Guard. They are not in the real service of being a MARINE. If they served in a reserve component of the Armed Forces they were just make believe and did not count. He would probably hold his local volunteer citizen militia in a higher regard where he is self appointed General.

  8. He keeps saying he longs to be put out to pasture as being some old guy with infinite wisdom that has seen the horrors of war and life. Stace is not even that old! That old Bull Marine needs to go back the farm and sit in his rocking chair on the porch and tell his tall tales.

  9. Once again, my prediction…. Stace will someday go nuts (even more than now) and end up in the Pen…. tick, tick, tick…..

  10. There is a certain mindset too prevalent on the right and the left- No tolerance for difference of opinion. Failure to buy everything means one is on the other side without regard to where there is common ground. And, one must be aggressive and assertive in the same way as well. No room to say “agree to disagree.”

    With these folks, I have no home and I’m ok with it.

    I have no problem saying I agree with a person on one issue and disagree on another. Its not personal. Its a difference of opinion.

    I also have no problem saying I agree with a person but disagree with their rationale. Its not personal. Sometimes its a difference of values and sometimes its a difference of priorities/facts one finds relevant/ etc.

    My point is I don’t have to agree or disagree with everything Peter Norbeck ever did or said to not acknowledge Bolin’s statement of Norbeck’s significance on our State. Agree or disagree with Norbeck’s highlights as Governor or Senator, in many cases, we still can see the marks he left. Name another from his era who is his peer in this regard! If there is one or two, I doubt there are three. That is pretty “rare air” to be nearly indisputably in the top three most significant leaders in a state’s first half century.

    But for some, giving credit where credit is due is hard.

  12. Over on facebook, Stace, Tara and Ken Crow are promoting a mythology that back in 2013, Dan Lederman was the SDGOP state chairman, went out to a candidates’ forum on Oine Ridge where Tara witnessed him promise Ravnsborg the AG job if he would just run for Senate and defeat Nelson.

    And not only was Lederman the SDGOP chairman at the time, he wasnt even eligible to vote in SD, being a registered Democrat in Iowa. (Okay, I agree, that if you arent going to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, your only other option for eternal life is to register as a Democrat)

    And now the ONLY reason Stace didnt win that Senate primary against Rounds’ 55.5% of the vote is that Ravnsborg’s 2.8% was the great spoiler.

    Hard to believe Stace has fans dumb enough to believe all this.

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