The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1897-07-28
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WHAT WE WANT?
Duluth, MINI. >,

EDITOR MINER;
Dear Sir: Being constant reader
of the two Ely papers, and reading
your article two weeks ago on the
leniency of the county authorities in
regard to the numerous murder cases,
or ';cutting scrapes" as they are called
in Ely, it impressed me very forcibly
that something should be done in re-
CARDS to the matter. Yet your article
savored altogether too much of lynch
law, of which am not in favor. 1t
is all very we'll however and / admire
your pluck in upholding the princi-
pies of law. In the last issue of your
contemporary, the Times, notice a
"hot roast" for gentlemen named
Phillips, game warden for your dis
trict, regarding his,as it was termed,
farming" methods of enforcing the
game laws. 1t seems that this Mr.
Phillips had arrested man for hav-
ing venison in his possession. Evil
IDENTIFY the warden was doing his duty
and enforcing the law and yet there
was kick. The situation in a nut
shell as shown to me by the two an
tagonistic articles in your two papers
is that the citizens of Ely do not
know what they want. Unity Of
action and power will serve the de-
sired purpose but if the people do not
stick together. and the moulders of
public opinion, as the newspapers are
termed. raise howl, one for the rigid
enforcement of the law, and strong
hints for mob violence in the case of
law breakers, and the other for lax
enforcement of the laws and violence
for the officers who do enforce it,
there seems to be screw loose some
where and should be frightened
enough to have the parts work
smoothly together. What do the
people of Ely want?
Yours Respectfully
''John Smith"
Well. Mr.. "John Smith" we can
tell you what we want, We want
justic, just simply justice. We
want our people protected from
the fends who travel about with
knives and use them promis-
ciously on the forms of their fell
low citizens regardless of person
or station. We want someone
convicted and sentenced accord
ing to their crimes. We want to
be law abiding people and those
who come to this country to make
their homes here to live up to the
laws. We do not banker after the
lives Of criminals, but would like
to see them treated as criminals
when put up for trial and the us
ual prosecuting farce is enacted.
The people of Duluth and other
cities know Ely by reputation and
when an officer from the ranges
steps from the train with q pris-
oner in Duluth, the first words
that are heard are: There is q
man from Ely, he knitted fellow
and is brought down for N urder."
IF an officer leaves Ely with a
murderer the people nudge each
other and remark 1.-TWO years on
conviction, free in all probability"
This thing has gone far enough
and while q fair trial is called for,
let fair conviction follow.
what is two years for q murderer,
when a man convicted of grand
larceny gets from three to eight
years. we will also say that while
the Times was light in stating the
game laws were poor laws for
poor people, it is nevertheless a
fact that they were not made to be
broken, even by poor people and
in the particular case the laws OF
the land were broken in three dis
tinct parts. Firstly, by selling
beer without a license; secondly
for buying venison out of season
and thirdly for selling intoxicants
to Indians. The game warden
surely has farm here he can
work proftably. Those arrested
surely knew they were breaking
the laws in some particular spot.
M. Philip is hired to protect