The Death of First Lieutenant Jonas H. Lien
First Resident of Sioux Falls Killed in a Foreign War
First Lieutenant Jonas H. Lien became the first soldier from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to be killed in action in a foreign war on March 27, 1899. The people of Sioux Falls did not mourn Lien’s death alone, communities across the state paid homage to the fallen soldier.
Born in Faribault County, Minnesota, in 1874, Jonas Lien was raised in Brookings, South Dakota. Lien graduated with honors from the State Agricultural College in Brookings (now South Dakota State Uuniversity) and took a special course at the Lutheran Normal School in Sioux Falls (now Augustana University). Lien left South Dakota to begin a degree from the University of Nebraska, but he returned to South Dakota for the election of 1896. He campaigned in nearly every East River county of South Dakota for the campaign of William Jennings Bryan and “the silver ticket,” a populist movement intent on breaking monopolistic hold of railroads and grain operators during the age of Robber Barons and a strict adherence to the gold standard.
The Bryan campaign earned him the nickname “Boy Orator of the Sioux,” and drew the attention of Populist South Dakota Governor Andrew Lee. Lien became chief clerk of the South Dakota legislature in January 1897 for its spring session and then returned to Sioux Falls. He became the daily editor of the Sioux Falls Press until September 1897, when he returned to Lincoln to continue his education. He graduated from the University of Nebraska in the spring of 1898, just as U.S. war with Spain was beginning. “Feeling that it was more to his liking, he desired to enlist as a private and run his chances with the boys in the ranks,” but was ultimately convinced to accept the position of Adjutant (an officer who assists the commander). He was then known as Lieutenant Jonas H. Lien, Adjutant of the First South Dakota Volunteers.
Like most volunteers, Lien believed he would be sent to Cuba but discovered his unit was to head to the Philippines. While Jonas Lien privately objected to the war’s expansion to the Philippines, he remained with his regiment. The Hesperian remarked “when our second war began he took up his duties with different feelings than when he had first entered for Humanity’s sake. He was disappointed, disgusted.” Before his deployment to the Philippines, Lien’s farewell address noted “if there shall be any praise, we prefer that our deeds and acts shall speak.” His actions did receive praise as his death in the Battle of Marilao on March 27, 1899, gave South Dakotans the chance to consider the price of victory.
Four thousand mourners gathered alongside Governor Lee in Sioux Falls on April 16, 1899, to honor three South Dakotans, including Jonas H. Lien, killed at Marilao. The Reverend N. N. Boe gave an address in which he exalted that “Jonas was by all, without exception, recognized as a young man of great promise. … I dare say he was more widely known than any other young man in South Dakota.” Just 24 years old at his death, the news of Jonas Lien’s death stunned the state and led to the cancelation of several events across South Dakota. The Sioux Falls Press published the sense of public loss that South Dakota felt: “Whatever may have been the ambitions of Jonas Lien, his friends expected great things of him in the future. Had he returned from the Philippines, it is almost certain that he would have been on the state or congressional ticket in 1900.” South Dakota had not only lost a son and soldier in the war, but they also lost a South Dakotan who could have made South Dakota even prouder. Lien’s death offers a classic example of what might have been, had his story not been ended by war.
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