The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-07-17
VALUABLE RESURRECTION OF
IMPORTANT FACTS. t-1 'r
The Course of the State Prison
Board-Its Duplicity and
- Rascality.
1t Fought Irvine Manufacture-Said
1t Would Cost a Million Dollars
Then 1t Sunk $4,000 of s'-'-
the Peoples Money to
Help the Trust. -.
THE WHOLE STORY TOLD

To the Representative: 49,
How few farmers realize what the Irvine
facture at Saltwater.
Five years ago the honorable prison
board committee, after having spent
some three weeks and l know not how
much of the state appropriation investi-
eating the manufacturing of twine and
Irvine machinery in the east, with view
GOT ascertaining the probable cost and
practicability of establishing plant
at Saltwater, reported it would be i'm
practicable if not impossible, owing to
the enormous cost, which they estimated
at one million to one million five hundred
thousand dollars; so the matter rested
until soon after that great annual alli-
ance meeting, held in the capitol, when
facts that had been secured by officers
Of the Alliance through correspondence
with manufacturers in the east were
presented to Gov. Merriam, showing it
would cost less than fifty thousand dol
lars. The result was plant was placed
in the prison costing less than forty
thousand dollars, believe.
The prison board, to man, l think,
protesting that it would prove failure
The original demand of the Alliance
was that a system of machinery be Sc
cured that would make binding Irvine
out of flax fibre, a material produced in
abundance in this state.
~H The machinery first placed in Still
water was claimed to be flax fibre ma
chinery.. The machine was of foreign
make and built to use fax or lump fibres
ii kept in straight condition as flax is
usually handled in foreign countries.
They paid for this impracticable flax
fiber machinery some sixteen thousand
dollars more than an American system of
machinery would cost adapted to spin
ming fax fiber in the form of tow, such d
system as intended and demanded by the
Alliance.
When 1 visited the prison in 81, while
hooking at the Irvine machinery work,
voice at my side said This is the
finest twine machinery in the world -
On turning around 1 found it was John
Norrish who spoke. In short time,
while looking at other parts of the ma
chinery, heard the same words repeat
ed. On turning to see who spoke found
It was another member of the prison
board.
Why should they all be ready to re-
peat that parrot story? Was it to divert
attention from that sixteen thousand
dollars bonus for an impracticable flax
fiber machinery? l thought it was.
Have the farmers forgotten how the first
season the twiue was put out the execu-
tive committee got the honorable (?)
board to drop the price on Irvine 1 cent.
Also, how every act of the board since has
inspired 60 confidence in their (?) in
tegrity?
l saw typewriter letter the other
day from the warden, in which it was
stated that he had orders for ''ten car
loads Of hemp Irvine more than he could
= FILL" Last winter, when they were max
ing their effort before the legislative
committee to get an act passed so they
could legally become a branch of the
Irvine trust" by getting additional ap-
preparation for long fiber machinery
(Which a member of the prison board said
before the state Alliance meeting they
had found in the hands of the ''trust'')
their statement, as I saw it published
was they could not sell hemp Irvine and
compete with the trust. long fiber
Irvine. They are very modest set, /
really believe; they all would blush at
the sight of the naked truth"
I confess, frankly, l have never used
a pound Of prison Irvine and l take oath
that as long as that modest set of man.
ayers run the thing never will. I have
Representative Irvine ordered through
Hon. F. Borchert. ordered about dou-
BILE the amount I will need. 1 didn't
order so much to be "hoggish," but be-
cause ii percentage of the price went to
help support our paper, l wanted to
make that per cent as large as possible,
see by the last Representative that YOU
have made another drop of "a of a cent.
You need not rebate to me that "a of a
: cent per pound on what I ordered: keen
1t and continue your fight. The only
blow you hit that gang amiss is the blow
that fails to hit.
HAMLINE v. POORE.
Bird Island. MINI.
LIE SUEUR COUNTY WHEAT NOT SO
GOOD.
ITO the Representative:
The enormous wheat crop, as publish
ed in the papers, will not be as big when
threshed, in this county at least, as ii
badly blighted from drought and hot
\ather. Corn was nearly annihilated
III low grounds on last Monday night
rOst