Morris tribune., 1906-09-01
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: FROM THE STATE CAPITAL

a a.
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AS an indication of activity on the
part of the Republican state central
committee it can be stated that Mr..
Boobar Of st. Cloud, who is now con-
nected with the congressional library
at Washington, has been placed in
charge of the speakers campaign for
the coming election He has been at
work for weeks from his Washington
viewpoint arranging for speakers to
visit Minnesota at the opportune time.
He is now in ST. Paul and the COM
mittee has supplied him with a suite
Of rooms adjacent to their own, where
the speaking portion of the campaign
will be planned and directed. Begin
ming about Oct. there will be cam
paign of oratorical effort sprung upon
Minnesota in behalf of the Republican
ticket such as the state has never seen
before.
AS the primary meetings are not to
be held until Sept. IS it seems impos-
sible to iRaugurate the oratory effec-
l.
gressional, legislative and local tickets
will then all be in the field and the
orators can spring forth under Mr..
Boobar's direction like Jove fully
panoplied for the fray and the cam
paign managers will then be ready to
exclaim: Lay on, Macduff, and
damnd be he who first cries hold;
snough!"
Any one who thinks we are not to
have an active and winning Repub-
lican campaign this fall should visit
the Republican headquarters in the
Globe building at ST. Paul and get
introduced to the committee.
There Is, perhaps, no one conspic-
uous subject in the state which is so
imperfectly understood as the subject
of drainage. The popular impression
Is that the taxpayers are taxed to
srain the swamp lands for the sole
benefit of the locality where the lands
lie. AS we'll informed man as Gov
ernor Johnson said when he was run
ming for the state senate that his
county (Nicollet) had paid for it's
bitches and now let the northern coun-
ties pay for their own. Governor
Johnson probably views the matter in
different light now because his Off
cial duties have caused him to investi-
gate and he is better informed.
The plain facts are these:
Congress gave the state of Mime
sofa 100000 acres of swamp lands on
condition that the state attended to
their drainage. The state gave away
many of these lands to railroads on
the theory that the railroads would
reclaim them for their own interests.
This was largely done In addition
the state set apart 100000 acres for
the insane asylum at st. Peter, Nicol-
let county, Governor Johnson's home
county. The state also gave a sim
ilar amount to the deaf and dumb asy-
lum at F'aribault and the state prison
at Saltwater. It also gave $4,000
acres each to the normal schools at
Winona, Mankato and st. Cloud When
the 100000 gift by congress had been
thus depleted for railroads and public
institutions there was constitutional
amendment adopted forbidding the
legislature from giving any more
swamp LANDS away, leaving the state
to actually drain the rest, $780, 900
acres. Confronted with this great
heritage the state inaugurated drain
age system, providing that the lands
should be actually drained and sold
like school lands at not less than S.
per acre. The realization from these
sales was ordered by law to go one
half to the common school fund and
one-half to the public institutions Of
the state. From 1891 to 1904 these
sales produced a revenue Of $685.
37244, or an average of $6.43 per acre.
AS it cost On an average 81 per acre
to drain the lands the state had a
profit Of $5.43 per acre, which went in
equal shares to the public schools and
the state institutions. AS the average
price obtained during the same period
for school lands was only $6.26 per acre
it shows that the state had pretty
good bargain by it's drainage work.
The consequence is every voter who
sends a child to a public school and
every town which has state institu-
ton gets the benefit of drainage. AS
most of the public institutions in the
state are in Central or Southern Min
nesota it is unjust and the sheerest
nonsense to claim that the southern
part of the state is taxed to reclaim
the swamp lands in Northern Mime
sota: All that Northern Minnesota
gets is the adding of more agricul-
tural lands for the market, increasing
the population and production of the
state, and of course in this manner
increasing the value of other acres in
the region drained. But this increase
is not obtained at the expense Of any
other part ofrthe state. Comparatively
few people in. the state really under
stand that the drainage of swamp
lands is not a tax and burden upon the