The Duluth rip-saw. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1917-19??, 1917-10-13
THE PUBLICITY BUREAU.

THE PUBLICITY BUREAU.
The Rip-saw is more concerned
in scrubbing out any dirty cor
ners in the marble-lined court
house than in crusading against
any Of the Big Interests, at this
time, anyway.
| From the Rip-saw's exchanges,
it appears that the Lake Super
ior Tax Association has estab-
lished a publicity bureau and,
therein, installed Talented Gen.
tleman from the Far and Effete
East, where real brains and much
bullion abound. This Talented
Gentleman, it now appears, regu-
larly compounds and distributes
to the Minnesota newspapers a
patent literary medicine, calcu-
lated to cure the ills that afflict
big iron companies.
This publicity bureau neg
lected to put The Mesaba Ore on
the mailing list. The Rip-saw
also was sighted. On the other
hand, The Steel Plant News was
remembered and it also "fell"
for the dope.
The Mesaba Ore is edited by
Dad Atkinson, a chap who re-
fuses to wipe his brogans on the
"Welcome" mat of the Wolvin
building. The Rip-saw believes
that the best interests of St. Louis
county require a new auditor
The Big Interests feel Gun
der great obligation" to Mr.. Hal
den, therefore probably resent the
Rip-saw's objections to him, hence
the slight by the publicity bu-
reau.
But, why remember The Steel
Plant News? Can it be that Col.
Metcalfe has a secret treaty of
peace with the Fat Boys? He is
the man that Col. Koen, the canny
Caledonian Of Biwabik, wishes
shot, shut up or smashed for sedi-
ton, treason, independent thought
display of intelligence and posses
sion of an old-fashioned American
spirit.
AS light punishment for the
slight of the Lake Superior Tax
Association, the Rip-saw reprints
a recent editorial by Dad Atkin-
son, as follows:
STARTS CAMPAIGN OF DECEP-
TION.
The Lake Superior Tax association
of Duluth, has sent out a circular
apparently intended as an answer to
the widely published charge that the
wages of the miners on the iron
range have not sufficiently increased
to meet present war conditions. Ac-
cording to the circular sent out,
however, a higher percentage of war
profits for miners than for operators
Is the now prevailing condition.
Wages, the circular says, have in
creased seventy-one per cent, while
the base price of iron ore has in
creased but sixty-two per cent; and
that the wages paid to miners in
August averaged four dollars and
ninety-five cents, while in August,
nineteen-fourteen, the same miners
received but two dollars and eight
eight cents per day.-Saint Peter
Free Press.
The Lake Superior Tax association
is an illegal combination of Mesaba
range mine owners and mine opera
tors, organized and maintained for
the purpose of keeping down the
tax rate at all points, even to beat
ing the people and the state out Of
the taxes whenever possible. Several
of the Injunction suits brought
against the Village of Hibbing to
prevent the legal expenditure of pub
lie money for permanent public i'm
provements were cooked up and car
ried tn a dismal failure by the Tax
association.
A publicity bureau has recently
been added to the equipment of the
association, with the apparent object
of keeping the people of the state
fully posted" on what the Steel cor
poration and other mining companies
are doing, and the circular letter
mentioned above is no doubt in fur
therance of that laudable endeavor.
The association did not favor this Of
flee with copy of the circular.
In the. absence Of the "facts and
figures" we are, of course, more or
less at loss to understand what
the mining companies are aiming at
in this particular instance. We will,
however, venture a bet that it is
to further deceive the people of the
state, and that use is being made of
the country newspapers to that end.
There isn't anyone In this particu-
lar part of the state that win believe
that the wage scale has been ad-
vanced seventy-one per cent since
nineteen-fourteen, or any other time
within the history of iron mining on
the Mesaba range, because they
know it is not the truth. It is pos
sible (having been done frequently
for the expert publicity agents en-
ployed by the Steel corporation and
reflected BY the Tax association to