St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-06-06
A CAMPAIGN FUND INVOLVED

The state of Minnesota declares that
men who deal in logs cannot be trusted
tomanage their own affairs. If left to
buy and sell as other people do in some
other vocations, not yet under state su-
pervislon, they would be cheating each
other and nothing can prevent it but the
all-Wlse state and its impeccable officers.
So the state DEGREES that all logs shall
be scaled by officers, dubbed surveyors
general of logs and lumber. and that the
owners Of the logs shall pay these Of
ficers five cents for each thousand feet
scaled by them.
Five cents for sealing a thousand feet
of lumber seems to be a mere trifle
about which there should not be any
haggling. But when the number of feet
scaled is figured by the hundred million
the aggregated fve-cent pieces mount
to very handsome sum well worth
fighting for, and, as we saw in the last
session of the legislature, we'll worth
spending money to retain. In the Min
neapoliS district the fees amount to about
$4,000 year and about the same in the
Saltwater district. We can understand
then why the Minneapolis surveyor
made so vigorous fight to retain his
perquisites and disdained the offer to
give him salary of $1,000 year. But
while we can understand his interest we
must look farther to learn why legis-
lature should vote to continue system
under which one man, performing
duties which require low order
of intelligence, can get five times
the compensation paid the gov
ernor or the justices of the supreme
court. We find this reason when we
learn that the surveyor generals of these
two districts contribute one-tnird of
their fees to the Republican campaign
fund. Such a revenue is too important
and necessary to be sacrificed to so SIM
pie matter as the rights of indlvidu-
ais.
A year or two ago the Mississippi
Logging and Boom Company moved
their booms from Beef Slough in Wis
consin to West Newton Slough in this
state. They raft out about 600,000,000
feet of lumber annually. At five cents
q ACOo dlO SoOsOOO q yCuls
The logs are cut in Wisconsin, doomed
in this state and RATED out to customers
down the river in this and other sta ties.
Ex-Adt. Gen. MULLEN was made
surveyor for the West Newton dis
trct and proceeded to scale the logs of the
company. The company didn't want
him to do it; their customers didn't want
it.; nobody wanted it but Gen. Null
LEN and the Republican state central
committee. There was no need that the
doughty little general should scale the
logs. For years the company had cut and
scaled and sold its logs to its customers,
and neither of them ever discovered
that they could not protect themselves
OF that protection was needed.
The surveyor, however, proposed to
scale those logs whether the company
wanted it or not, and he and the COM
pany have been having a mOnkey-and-
parrot time of it. and the matter has
got into the courts, and the Wabasha
district contribution to next years cam
paign fund is not only involved, but it
is in danger. AS good Democratic pa
per, believing i'll the state keeping its
official and officiouS nose out of private
business, the GLOBE hopes that the gen.
eral will get handsomely cleaned out in
his contest.