Evening star., 1895-04-30
TO FORM A NEW STATE
Northern Wisconsin and the Upper Michi-
gan Peninsula.
They Will BE Called Superior When
United - Territory About the
Size of Kentucky.


perior, with capital at or near Marquette,
says the New York Herald.
The territory of which this new common
wealth is to be formed will consist of the
upper peninsula of Michigan and that por-
ton of Wisconsin lying north of a line
drawn east and west across the state from
some point on Green Bay, probably the
mouth Of the A1enominee river.
Same Size rs Kentucky.
1t will be about the same size in area as
ard somewhat similar to our time honored
Kentucky. Superior could apply for state
hood next winter with about 100000 inhab-
itants. and they would be of the kind out of
which nations are made. too. They are
ragged. hardy, not fearful Of hardships
given to industry and frugal ways.
OF course, there is reason for all this
Men in the northern portions of these two
states have always felt unfairly treated by
their brethren in the other sections further
south. 1t would have been all right if the
frontier had gone forward as frontiers are
wont to go: If the woods had melted from
Grand Rapids and Madison in an orderly
manner; ii the developed country had gone
forward by easy and orderly degrees, SO
that by the time that Calumet, in Michigan
ana Ashland In Wisconsin, had been reach
ed by civilization, the whole of the rest of
those states would have become accustomed
to the gradually rising Importance of the
border.
But long before there were brick houses
III tne towns midway up the states there
were sand stone business blocks and as
phalt streets at the distant border Long
before there were good roads at Fortescue
and Stevens Point there were bouleyards at
West Superior.
In short, the whole south shore of Lake
Superior was developed country, dotted
with hamlets, enriched with towns of from
?. TT
with the smoke of splendid Industries. be-
lore the old settlements could realize it.
Northern Chains Laughed At.
The people of the north wanted more
than the people of the south would give
them. Legislators at Lansing and at Madi-
son laughed at the claims Of representa-
uves from Superior and Sault Ste. Marie.
they would make no appropriations for
those far away countries. How did they
know an empire was growing there?
And it made the northern people mad.
They have been getting madder and mad
der for years. They know they have tre
richest mineral lands in the world: that the
copper and the iron along the shore of Lake
Superior is a tremendously important inter-
est. and that its wealth Is practically mex
haustible. They know they are receiving
less for the taxes they pay than any other
section of either old state. And they are
getting very tired Of it all.
A Despised Wilderness.
The state of Michigan, which was orig
inally that portion south of the Straits of
Mackinaw and 10 more. didn't want the up
per peninsula anyway. From 1881, wien
Michigan made her first application for
admission to the Union, until her final rec
ognition as an equal in the band OF COM
mcnwealths. Michigan protested against ac
Cepting that distant and despised wilder
Tess
But Uncle Sam would not let young
Michigan in unless she would give up a
strip of her rich southern border. where
settlements and towns We're plenty, to her
slightly older sister Ohio.
Ohio wanted that five-mile strip in order
to secure a lake harbor for Toledo. at
the mouth Of the Maumee river. Ohio was
already a state-had been one, in fact, for
thirty yearS-and she should have been sat
isfied. But she demanded that addition to
her northern border. and was strong
enough to keep young Michigan waiting
until the demand was complied with.
The Fight With Ohio.
Michigan was the madder because young
Indiana, in 1916. had claimed N even
wider portion of wolverine land, and had
been granted it by the government. And
now in 1881. when Ohio went surveying
for that new northern line. Governor Ar
mold ordered Brigad!er General Brown of
the territorial militil to call out the
troops and capture the first commissary
from Ohio who sticks a stake In the soil
of Michigan"
But Congress told Michigan she would
have to give up the fve-mile strip to Ohio,
as she had previously given UP the eight
mile strip to Indiana, but in return she
might have that northern peninsula.
Congress might as well have offered Wei
Iai-Wei. Michigan didn't know where the
northern peninsula was. how large or rich
it might be, nor by whom 1t was peopled.
And although she was. forced very un-
graciously to accept it, the people in the
Superior region feel that she still regards
them as she did in the beginning.
Discriminating Against the North.
One Of the most striking proofs Of leg
islative discrimination against the upper
peninsula is in the legal fare for carry
ing passengers. BY solemn enactment of
law the rate below the straits is three
cents a mile. and above the straits, through
That difference applies within one state.
new and struggling section is saddled
with a passenger tariff one-third higher
than the old and rich portion of the state
will pay.
Perhaps in no other state in the Union
was such a discrimination ever known.
Representative Robinson of Houghton
county is before the present session of
the state legislature with bill to make the
rate uniform over all of Michigan, and he,
has found arrayed AGAINST hun all the old
scoru of the southern portion.
Wisconsin's legislature passed a law
many years ago giving up all OF Ntscon-
sin north of a line drawn west from the
head of Green Bay, to form new state
with the upper peninsula, and that law
has never been repealed.