St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-02-04
GAGGED BY GEORGE.
The Northwest Viewed by
His Paper, the Stand
ard.
Single Tax Observations
Connected With His
Trip.
Two Glories of Minneapolis
A Talk With c. A. Pills
bury.
Free Trade and Single Tax
The Newspapers Dis
cuSSiOnS.

ullSUdkc Ill dCCICullIiI9 tuC StdGCuiCilt
made by E. S. Corser to the GLOBE
that Minneapolis could have af-
forded to have given him $4,000
to stay away from Minneapolis, and also
that the exch ange had engaged Prof.
Folwell, of the university, to reply to
him. Both statements are erroneous,
and Prof. Folwell, who spoke in
reply to Mr.. George at the Hen
nepin Avenue theater, Minneapo-
is, did so by the request of the
the Delta Sigma Literary society of
the university. and the arrangements
for the lecture were made shortly after
Mr.. George had concluded his lecture.
Mr.. Georges comments and narration
of his observations at st. Paul and Min
neapolis are interesting, and some of
them follow.
MIR. GEORGES OBSERVATIONS. =
The highest tribute to the effect of my
visit to the Twin Cities of the North
westi was paid in meeting of real es-
tate men in the Minneapolis real estate
exchange, where it was declared that
it would have been cheap a gain
if they had paid me $4,000 to
keep away, and at which steps
were taken to get Prof. Folwell. of the
state university, to expose my "sOphis-
tries'' in the largest hall of the city this
week. But, although | have no doubt
that my visit did some good, l do not
deserve this compliment. The singletax
was in the air before reached Mime
apolis. In addition to the general causes
operating over the whole country to
turn public attention in this direction,
we have in Minneapolis a little knot of
active, earnest men, who. as the readers
of the Standard know, have been for
some time past doing the most efficient
work by circulating literature, &c tting
signatures to petitions, writing to
the press, holding debates, and in other
ways forcing discussion. Among these
are G. j. Buell.. a well.known builder,
County Commissioner Oliver T.
league; L. K. Campbell, carpenter,
treasurer of the league E. l.. Ry-
der, editor of the Northwest Trade,
secretary of the league; Douglas Volk,
the artist; Howe Paige, lawyer; c. E.
Haynes. proprietor of the Northwest
Trade: Rev. Christopher Jansen. the
Norwegian poet; Rev. Mr.. Dahlgren,
Edwin Barber, w. A. Carpenter, George
X. Shaw, a brother of Mr.. Albert
Shaw, some of whose obserya-
tions on the municipal government of
Glasgow we recently published; III. B.
Martin, editor of the Northwestern
Labor Union; and, besides others whose
names have slipped my mind, num-
Der of active newspaper men whose
names it might not be advisable to print
so long as their papers are opposing the
single tax.
TWO MINNEAPOLIS GLoRIEs.
The two principal glories of Mime
apolis are the West hotel and Pills
bury's great flour mills. l stopped at
the West hotel, and magnificent hotel
it is. In San Francisco, i'll New York,
in London and in Paris there are, of
course, larger hotels, but |
know of no finer one. All
the Minneapolis people are
proud of it, and MIR. West, who erected
it. proved not only of his faith in his city
but his public spirit. G. A. Haynes,
publisher of the Northwest Trade, the
leading commercial paper of the North
west, shows in the Journal how his
fellow citizens have rewarded Mr..
West by taxing him over four times
as much as if he had allowed the lot to
lie vacant. like still larger piece OF
land on the very next block of the same
street, where thousand-dollar shaniy
disfigureS a 100000 lot. Mr.. Haynes
assessed value of land were doubled,
the West hotel would be relieved
OF burden of $1,000 per year by the
single ak. This is by no means an I'M
important matter, for so much has the
growth of Minneapolis been checked by
land speculation that the West hotel
must be running at considerable loss.
MILLER AND SINGLE TAX.
Charles A. Pillsbury. the head of the
great flour house of Charles A. Pills
bury & Co., took me over his big mill
and showed me its wonderful machinery.
Mr.. Pillsbury came to Minneapolis with
$500. He has made his money by en-
ergy and enterprise i'll the production
of wealth, and. is now the largest
miller in the world. found him thor
oughly convinced that taking taxes off
improvements and personal property
and concentrating taxation on land
values would be of the greatest benefit
to the whole state and to all classes OF
it's people, save alone the holders
of idle land. Nor is this any
wonder. In the same article in
which he spoke of the West hotel,
Mr.. Haynes showed that while the as
sessed value of the land on which this
great mill stands is ,760; the assessed
value of the improvements-that is to
say, buildings and machinery-iS $780,
$50. On this mill Charles A. Pillsbury
q Co. now pay a tax of S4,750.20. Under
the single tax, even if the present tax
were doubled, their taxes would be only
S590.40.
MIR. PILLsBURY A FREE TRAD Err.
10,
has been elected for ten terms to the
state senate and could have been elected
to the United States senate if he had
consented to take the position and
leave his business. But like many
other Republicans in tine North
west, 1 found him to be really
free trader. And no wonder about
that either He showed me the jute
bags in which the great quantity OF
flour that he exports to Europe IS,
packed. The jute is grown in India:
the bags are woven in Dundee. Our
protective tariff puts a tax both
on jute and On bags, and
the consequence is that these bags
cost Is cents, whereas under free
trade they would only cost cents.
Nearly everything used in the way OF
machinery and supplies is increased I'M
cost ny the ldrlH Ill ike uldullcT, Dut tiO
value of the product is not increased at
all. Here is this great mill, run by the
highest-priced American labor, for Pills
bury & Co. not merely pay the highest
wages, but give share in their profits
annually to all their employees who
have been with them over two years
yet its products are being exported
without bounty to the ''pauper-wage"
countries of Europe. Whoever sees the
high-wage labor is in reality
the cheapest labor, for it Utilities
machinery to the utmost. The cars on
the side tracks are drawn up to the mill.