The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-11-11
AN ARMY OF MINERS By Frank G. Carpenter

| because the state and the people to some e&tenl hase eunser,S.4 --.. --~ He In tho ground and make the operator give them a small share of the profits. The state owns certain vaiuabie iron properties and allows the ore to be taken out only upon the payment of royalties. It gets l am tod, something like mil lion dollars a year from it's leased mines, and this goes into school fund of which the interest only is available. The inter- SSI aIreauy suyrUrts .,i.S +e public educational institutions of the state, and that from the dndergartens to the universities. The royalties on the 00o
 In addition, the state collects 1 or cent .4n on a4 u4 -.le y.e ...,.sn Jil of the mines which it does not own, and there also are local town, county and school district taxes upon these same ore properties. An official of one oI the largest companies tells me that his taxes are eqtal apot.. '4i on all the ore he takes out. The mines pay annual taxes also upon all the ore in sight-that is, upon all the ore that IS known to exist in the earth. The aE- sessed valuation of the various mining properties is more than 270.00D000, and the tax upon this brings a big revenue. There is a tax also on the transportati tion VI l4ie Ci6 WHICH s1iHOuHlS lo oOillSlHhA5 like a million dollars a year. Indeed, the iron mines of Minnesota pay one-fifth of all the real estate taxes of the common wealth. The money is collected without trouble and It makes Minnesota compara- lively rich IL furnishes an exampie to the other states of what they have lost or lose by not holding on to a large part of the mineral rights within their boun- daries.
 As it is, the bulk of the ore now in the ground belongs to parties outside the state. The most of it is owned by the United States Steel corporation, whose branch, the Oliver Iron Mining company, has valuable mines in every range about Lake Superior, and which through it's hundred and more of great ore vessels, sends down tens of millions of tons every season. Vast fortunes have been made out of the mines, and other fortunes are yet to come. The amount of ore in sight steadily increases, notwithstanding the prediction that the deposits are playing out and that they will soon be ex- hausted. Some of the experts have given them life of 50 years, and others say that these Mesabi mines will play out within less than 9 years. The amount taken out last year about Lake Superior was 65,0O0000 tons, and the product next year will probably be greater. Neverthe- less, Mir West, the manager of the east SIli diSlSlOn Ol tIc mines or the OllVeE Iron Mining company, tells me they have more iron in sight than at any time pre- vious in the history of the Lake Superior region. There is more in the Marquette range than was supposed to exist 30 years ago; and this is also true of these great ranges here. The exploration goes stead fly on and new deposits are being discov- cred.
 It Is now 67 years since iron was known to exist in this part of the world. A lit- tie was shipped from the edge of the Mesabi mountains in 1850, and at about the close of our civil war a government geologst reported that there was ore of value in several places back of Duiuth. A few years later the Vermillion range was found to contain iron, and Jay Cooke and his associates of the Northern Pa cific railway organized the Minnesota Iron company with a capital of $4, COG, GOO Then Jay Cooke failed and nothing of i'm portance was done until 1882, when, by the aid of a state grant of swamp lands, the Duluth and Iron Range railroad was built to haul out the ore. At about the same time Charlemagne Tower, the father of the former ambassodr to Ger