The Monte Vista journal., 1913-05-17
MONTE VISTA AT THE FOOT OF GREAT CLD Camp SAYS HENAHN
lines Enthusiastic Over Great District Comprising Summve Platoo
Sumner Gilmore Jasper Camps

could sell their products at a hand
some price.
If we had 100000 miners in Colo
rado, it would mean mining popu-
lation of 100000. Would not that
be an excellent market for the far
mers? Would we not have been
able to dispose of last years crops
at a handsome profit?
Remember that mining camp al
ways pays the highest prices for the
farm products. A mining camp is
the liveliest place in a state or ma
tion where money is made quickly
and spent readily. You remember
when "it was day all day in the day
time and there was no night" at
Creede, in the prosperous days of
your neighboring city.
Do we want those days back
again? Do we want to convert our
mining camp into flourishing towns
and keep our farmers busy feeding
them, our railroads busy hauling
their tonnage, our merchants busy
selling them merchandise at good
prices? Then we must see to it
that our mineral resources are de-
veloped
Do not let anyone deceive you in
to believing that our mineral re-
sources are being depleted The
new strike at PLATORO gives the
lies to that statement. Even Grip
pie Creek and Leadville are still vir-
gin camps. The mining industry
has fallen off in the last twenty
years because the hot air booster has
had his sway. He has filled the
newspapers, the politicians and the
air with a lot of tommyrot about our
dry farms, our scenery and climate
and scoffed at the mining industry.
He has referred to mining as only
wildcatting. He has led investing
public to believe that those who
strike it rich are scarce and that
they are merely lucky. The truth is
that mining is a business and re-
quires more careful study than most
mercantile pursuits. | venture to as
sert that more money has been spent
in Colorado in the last twenty years
in the development of legitimate
mining industries than in all our ir-
rigation and highway enterprises
combined.
The hot air booster has been able
to succeed because the mining man
has not tried to check him. 1t is a
fact that less statistical information
has been written about mining in
Colorado, than upon bees. Hence
the general public has no conception
of its importance. A member of the
legislature during the last session,
said, when we we're asking for an
increased appropriation for our de-
paI tment, Mining does not amount
to much in Colorado, anyway
That statement would have gone
unchallenged had not a member read
some figures which | had prepared.
showing that two-thirds of all of the
inheritance taxes collected by the
state were paid by the estates OF de-
ceased mining men, that only two OF
the many millionaires who died in
Colorado in the last ten years made
their wealth outside Of mining, while
all the millionaires and the multi
mIllionaires who died in the last de-
cade, made their wealth in mining.
showed further that the mining
counties of this state pay one-half
of the taxes outside OF Denver, that
the miner received only 800 in ben
efits from the state and federal gov
ernments to every $500 spent for
the benefit of the farmers. i also
showed that So per cent OF all ton
mage originating in Colorado comes
from the mines, leaving the railroads
only fourteen and one-half per cent
from the farms and mercantile es-
adjustments.
Read Tonnage Statistics.
| think that these statements
answered the member who declared
that mining does not amount to
much in Colorado, anyway. ! think