The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1909-01-30
FEDERATION WOMEN
GIVEN D0uBLE-CROSs
In Fight for Proposed Normal School,
Cass Lakes Supporters Are
Becoming Desperate.
WOULD .'HOODWlNK'' FEDERATION
With FRIENDLY PROFESSIONS
Cass Lake Is On Record as Bitterly
Opposed to the Minnesota Ma
tional Forest Reserve.

The very estimable ladies who
form the State Federation of Won
ems Clubs are said to have allied
themselves with the people of Cass
Lake in the fight which the latter
are making to have the proposed
sixth state normal school located at
Cass Lake and in so doing the
good ladies are allowing themselves
to be beautifully 'double-crossed, 2
to use slangy expression.
In order to work up sentiment
favorable to Cass Lake among the
ladies of the federation, the Cass
Lake people have of late been de-
claring at St. Paul that they are just
simply tickled to death" that they
have, surrounding their little village,
an uninhabited national forest re-
serve; that the bitter fight which
they have waged against the perma-
nent establishment of the national
forest reserve was joke, and assur-
ing the federation ladies that the
hearts Of the people of Cass Lake
beat in united support of the feder-
alton in its work for the permanency
of the park.
These overtures to the Federation
of Women's Clubs are but subter-
fuges, pure and simple; and there is
not man, woman or child in Cass
Lake who has not bewailed the fact
that the town is bottled up'' by a
forest reserve which has been des-
cribed in resolutions adopted by
the comercial club of that village as
"a Chinese wall, cutting off the
growth and development Of Cass
Lake and depriving settlers Of thous-
ands of acres of agricultural lands
which would make good homes for
sturdy tillers of the soil"
Anyone who is at all acquainted
with conditions which have prevailed
at Cass Lake knows that a bitter
fight has been waged by Cass
Lake citizens against the officials
of the U. S. forest service, the de-
partment Of the interior and others
interested in establishing the So
called national forest reserve"
ever since the passage of the meas
ure known as the Morris Chippewa
law, which allowed the sale of
timber on certain portions of the
coded lands of Chippewa Indian
reservation of Minnesota and paved
the way for opening some lands to
settlement, but which contained a
proviso for national forest reserve
within the lands surrounding Cass
Lake, as well as giving to the In
dians forever" the islands in Cass
Lake and ten sections of land around
the shores of Pike bay, adjoining
,Cass Lake.
The proviso in the bill which
created the forest reserve has been
a source of much discomfort to
Cass Lakers, and in the past they
have moved heaven and earth" to
break up the reserve, never ceasing
their efforts to get portions of the
reserved lands opened to settlement.
The Minnesota Federation of
Women's Clubs has always advocated
this reserve and much adverse criti-
cism has been heaped upon the ladies
by the press and people of Cass
Lake for their attitude.
The present attempt to enlist the
services of the club in behalf Of
locating sixth state normal school
at Cass Lake is simply a flank move
ment in which the women are be-
ing given the double-cross, in the
most approved fashion.