The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1897-02-04

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q civil service bill introduced IN a
State legislature or q city council youl
will know what it. means. y on will!
know it means that there are q lot Of
NANCY, incompe tent, lazy, scurvy
knaves who begin to realize that the.
time is coming for them to take up
their beds and walk, and that they are
throwing a civil service anchor to the
windWard5 in the hope Of efecting sail
walton from that quarter. The State
will never need a set Of civil. servicesI
rules to secure competent clerical sup
port for executive offices as long as the
executive officers have the nerve to 4se-S
lect their on the basis of merit,
and it would be just as unfair to saddle
the loafers of this administratio ion upon
the next set of officers as it would Sbe to
ask the next administration to devote
itself to correcting the errors of this
one. The man who first called 1T 1
/. 'snivel' service gave it the right
name, and I predict that it will take
more snivelling than any member of
this administratio can do to fix the
abominable system on Minnesota.
Minnesota does not furnish.a good soil
for the planting Of an office-holding
.aristocracy such as that which -four
sishes in Washington, and the man who
attempts it here will have his number
taken for future reference and his
measure for an early political coffin.
81.
+ I make the statement without fear Of.
contradiction that IS per cent Of the
printing done by the State in the mat
ter of annual or biennial reports is a
wanton waste of the peoples money.
The railroad and warehouse commits
sioners, the labor commissioner, the.
dairy commissioner and every little
tuppenny head of a ha'penny depart
ment must, he thinks, get out some
kind Of areport to show what he has
been doing, and every such report in
wolves the expenditure of several hun
I.dred or thousand dollars. Fora prac-
tical purposes the reports of the audi
tor, treasurer and secretary Of State
show what has been done in the var
ious departments of the. State govern
ment, and the other reports, as a rule
serve no other purpose than to give a
|. printer a job and feed the vanity Of
some petty official Here is an ele-
CANT, library bound volume entitled
ssThe Biennial Report. Of the CHIEF
\ Fire Warden of the State Of Mime.
3 sota.n tt cost as much as a good farm,
4 and i contains a series Of dialogues
between A. B. and @. D. on the subject
B of forest fires. There are the reports
n OF the Typographical survey, which
cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
/ and which are edited by Prof. Win.
chell, the man who officially declared
twenty years ago that there wasn't
iron enough in Minnesota to make a
nail for the coffin of the first explorer
And SO it is clear down the line. They
; all want to get out a report, they want
to get it in book form, as a monument
to themselves. It will last longer than
marble, for the book will be stored
away on shelf, it will soon be coated
! with dust, and when the antiquarian
Of 2597 turns it over with his finger
and musingly remarks II wonder what
ID fool got this up,' he will: be SC
busy treading cinders that he will
never stop to think about it.
II i. -!
n [ understand there is to be an organ
4 lied movement in the legislature look
4 ing to a reduction of the rate charged
for the transportation of passengers
and ore on the two Iron Range roads,
and if this is done, in connection with
the bill to soak the Rockefellers for
taxes on their mining property it will
create something of a diversion. I am
Informed that the roads in question
lrealize a net profit of about $40 a
train load for shipping ore from the
mines to the docks at Duluth, which is
an annual profit of about 400 per cent
on the capital invested. The COM
panies affected have always heretofore
taken the whole legislature out on a
ljunket through the mining country,
and succeeded in convincing the mem
bers that they were doing business just
i for fun. This time, however, the
members appear to be rather skeptical
on this subject, and it Twill take good
4 deal Of sound argument to convince
1 them. never could quite understand
how it is that you can read in the bust
i ness statement of these companies that
d their properties are worth hundreds
nf nni11iOnc Of io11arc NH i1o Al a "a y, ,,,.