The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-09-25
ERRORS In His CITATIONS
QUESTION AS TO WHETHER GEN.
DOUGLAS TOLD HIM ROW
THEY SHOULD READ
GOV. LIND GOT INFORMATION
Following ON the Trail of His Rep
resentative Were Agents of the
Auditor's Omce-Matter
Not Yet Settled.

Mistakes Of State Auditor Dunn
would be a good general summing ur of
the proceedings before the board of equal
ization yesterday, or. mayhap. Estate Al
ditor Dunn thinks Gov. Lind is off1cious
in performing his duty and is turned down
hard, y would be a still better size-up.
Yesterdays meeting of the board was
an exciting one. The very first thing at
the mornings session, the question of
the assessments on the state mines came
UP. f. G. Mcmillan called the attention
of the ooard 10 the fact tl.a. the citations
asking the mining corporations of the
state to show cause why their assess
ments should -n9t be raised had not been
drawn up properly BY the state auditor.
File stated thai the citations had been
aGdI essed ic cfi1oers of the corporations
instead of to the corporations, and that
these citations were not legal He fur
thermore stated that Attorney General
Douglas had expressly told Mr.. Dunn be-
forehand that the names of the corpora
tons should be placed in the citations.
Mr.. Dunn, who is an ex-ofTicio mem
Der, and was present at the meeting, im-
mediately took the floor and stated that
Mr.. Douglas had not said anything of
the kind. The attorney general was then
called upon, and, though he would not
admit that he had told Auditor Dunn ex
pressly as to the way the citations should
be drawn, he admitted that he had given
instructions about the matter, and he
could not see how the mistakes could
have been made H. w. DAILY said he
knew this to be a fact.
The whole trouble over the serving of
citations could easily have been avoided
had the state auditor paid attention to
it. Some time ago Gov. Lind sent Lawyer
Moritz Helm to the northern part of the
state to get all the information about the
mines that could possibly be gathered.
He did this so as to have every thing pre-
pared for the convening of the board of
equalization. Mr. Helm was asked to
get the following information, printed
blanks being furnished for the purpose:
Name of each mine; description of land;
record owner of fee and leasehold; name
of corporation; where organized; capital
stock; officers and their residences where;
where notice served; by whom managed;
output of ore as estimated by the owner
II
MI. Helm, besides doing this work, se-
cured list of the assessments in ST.
Louis county from County Auditor Hold
en-. This report included description of
the land and the valuation. All this infor-
nation was eventually turned over to the
committee on mines of the state board Of
equalization, from which committee it
went to the state auditor. He, however,
ignored the information, ana addressed
his citations in haphazard way to Off
GERS of the various corpora TONS, and this
in spite of the fact that the reports turn
ed over to him showed on their face that
they were correct
It also developed at the sessions OF the
board of equalization yesterday, though
the matter did not come up, that the
auditor had agents of his own on the
trail of Moritz Helm. These agents made
a specially, it would appear, of going to
the independent HaineS and saying that
assessments would be raised, apparently
with a view of causing trouble at the
sessions of the present board of equaliza-
ton.
D. E. Woodbridge, a newspaper oorre-
spondent Of Duluth, and mining editor of
the Iron Age at New York, was present
at the meeting, and he admitted to the
G b that he had a report TO submit
to the board of equalization containing
all necessary informatio about the mines
In st. Louis county. He also stated that
he did the work for the state auditor
GOV. LINDs OBJECT.
The object of Gov. Lind in collecting
the information he did was Ito settle the
many tax disputes that are going on in
the state. He has been aware for a
long while that there has been consider
able underhand work going on in many
of the counties of the state. The govern
or wants the taxpayer to be Independent
of the assessor, and the work of the vari-
Gus county boards done in a proper man
ner.
AS result of the mistakes made by
Auditor Dunn many of the mining inter-
ests Of the state were not represented
at Yesterdays meeting, though they all
should have been, it being the day set
for the hearing in the resolution drawn
up some ten days ago
There are about eighty mines in the
state, and the following were represent
ed: Oliver Mining company, C. A. Con-
den, Duluth; Lake Superior Consolidat-
ed Mines, j. B. Cation, Duluth; Mime
sofa Iron Company, c. A. Severance, at
torney, st. Paul; American Mining COM
pany, Joseph Sellwood, Duluth; Corri-
gan, Mckinney & Co., Price Mckinney,
Cleveland, and G. w. Wallace, Duluth;
Colonial Mining company, Harry Rob-
erts, Duluth; Mahogany Ore and Steel
company, w. c. Agnew, Duluth; and be-
sides these three or four men who owned
mines Independently. The Oliver Mining
company represented twelve mining COM
panies, and the Lake Superior Consoli-
dated Iron Mines twenty-five companies.
The other companies not represented at
the meeting probably knew that they did
not have to appear legally. The only
thing that can be done now is to Issue
more citations and keep the board IN
session another week.
FROM OWNERS STANDPOINT.
c. A. Conden, who represents the Oil
yer Mining company, which owns the
most valuable property in the northern
part of the state, spent considerable time
before the board yesterday showing why
IN his opinion the assessments should be
>l6ft as they were. He stated that for
the last six years the value of mines
have been adjudged from the amount
of ore produced; that this was the only
method satisfactory to the mine owners.
He asserted that two assessments had
now been made on this plan with salts
factory results. In his opinion relative
values could better be established by
taking into consideration the amount of