The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1910-02-11
STATE SHOULD GIVE AID
IN BUILDING OF ROADS
State Auditor lverson Suggests Law to
Assess Lands Belonging to the
Commonwealth.

taken up the suggestion made by
County Auditor Hayner as to the
possibility of assessing state lands
under certain conditions, which was
recently published in the Bemidji
Pioneer, and the St. Paul Pioneer
Press says, relative thereto:
"A suggestion that a state law be
passed providing for assessment of the
lands owned by the state to pay for the
benefits from the building of roads is the
answer that State Auditor S.. G.. lverson
makes to the statement of County Audi
tor Hayner of Beltrami that he believes
that state lands from which grass is sold
can be taxed. To get help for building
[ roads is the principal object of the aeita-
ton for the taxation of state lands in the
northern part of the state.
! THE exemption of state lands from
taxation has long been vexatious ques-
ton to the settlers in northern Minnesota,
as the state land is exempt, and where
the state owns half the land the cost to
the taxpayers is doubled. Mr.. Hayner
thought he had discovered a way around
it because the constitution provides for
the exemption of all public property used
exclusively for public purposes
Mr.. 1verson says there is no possible
way in which the land can be put on the
tax rolls without amending the con-
stitution. To tax the lessee of the land
would be possible, as is done in the case
of the state mineral lands. but Mr.. Iverson
says this is impracticable in the case of
grass lands. The mining company gets
an absolute lease for fifty years and the
land is at once put on the tax rolls and
the company pays the tax in addition to
the royalty on the ore it takes out.
lon account of the long tenure and
high value of the lease this is practicable,
but in the case of grass land the tenure is
from one to five years and the rental
seldom over 10 cents an acre, so that
taxing the lessee would hardly be prac-
teal. The total receipts by the state
each year for leases of grass land is less
than $1,000. ~. ~.
But in order to help pay the cost of
roads through the state lands Mr.. Iverson
believes that the state can pay it's share
of the cost just as it pays for its share of
the benefits from bitches which are built
partly through state land. ...
In the famous pork barrel and the
opinions of the attorney general which
/ followed it was held that the state could
not pay for internal Improvements which
benefited only private land owners, but
the state could spend all the money it
liked improving it's own land. It was
held that the state could spend money for
road inside Itasca State Park, but not
! outside, that it could build bridge in
the Interstate Park at Taylor's Falls, that
the payment of assessments for drainage
Of state lands were valid, but the i'm
provement of drains through settled
portions of the state were illegal.
81 believe something of this sort can
be worked out said Nh. Iverson yester.
day. 1t would be only Justice to the
settlers on the land between the state
land tracts, and it would be money well
spent by the state, for the building Of
roads through the unsettled state lands
would greatly increase their selling value
~ believe the returns to the state
would be tenfold. -'s
! ~ have in mind one private corpor.
alton which had large tract of land up
north. 1t did not attempt to sell an acre
of it until it had built roads all through
| it.. The investment paid it handsomely