The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1919-11-14

ton" the thought that his long and
consuming desire to be railroad and
warehouse commissioner is in any
degree a moving spring in his zeal
for the tonnage tax. Yet both these
honest gentlemen are human, and,
like the rest of US, it is possible that
they are sometimes powerfully
moved by self-interest.
An Ever Changing Issue
Why, if the tonnage tax is sound
economic policy, has the statesman
ship of Southern Minnesota failed to
develop it and present it to the state
in constructive and permanent
form? They have been offering the
tonnage tax to the state for twenty
years, and every year they have Of
fered a different one! Why has this
thing, like Pau-puk-kee-wis in his
desperate attempts to escape the
wrath of Hiawatha, constantly
changed it's form and its sub
stance-why, but to escape the logic
of the facts which continually pur-
sued, overlook and destroyed it?
One year it is bow-legged, the next
knock-kneed; if it has eyes, they
see not, and if it has brains they
think not; it is lacking now one vital
organ and now another; it is con-
slant in one respect only-it always
appears with a stomach, huge intes-
tines and an Unsuitable craving for
cash. It is the most shifty public
policy ever known in Minnesota; it
appears at every legislative session
in a different form. It's authors give
it birth in the morning and disown it
at night. Three times this year,
did they scrap it and make it over,
and every time they swore that It
was a perfect thing. They must have
been wrong cne time. Were they
wrong the first time? Or the last
time? Or next time? Or all the
time? The truth is, that the advo-
Gates of the tonnage tax are not pro-
posing a sound public policy; they
are, and they have been for twenty
years, Simply trying to get the mon
ey, and their various tonnage tax
bills are simply so many shifty ex-
cuses for their attempts to rise in
their might" and 'take" what be-
longs to somebody else. II this is
not playing the Hun, let them find
something to call it more to their IL
king. 1t viii smell the same by any
other ma ne.
Press Avoids Issue; Threatens
If the tonnage tax is a reasonable
public policy, why does not the press
of Southern Minnesota produce some
rational argument in its behalf? Why
instead, does it indulge in so much
silly talk about Northern Minnesota
becoming nothing but series of
"yast and unsightly holes in the
ground" why does it constantly
stoop to specious appeals to preju-
dice against the "steel trust" why
does it give over it's columns to so
much claptrap about the "divinc
right" of man in Dodge county to
something he neither produced or
bought or earned in Itascd county
and to the natural heritage" of
Southern Minnesota in one hand
picked vanishing resource out of
many such, without ever attempting
to show a basis for restricting di-
vine right in politics or for this new
tangled heritage; and why, above
all, does it so totally neglect discus
sion to make room for the ever recur-
ring threat to "rise in its might" and
"take" it's desire? Never yet in the
twenty years of tonnage tax. agita
ton, has any Southern Minnesota
editor attempted dispassionate.
comprehensive argument on behalf
of this thing. Why? For the best
and most sufficient of reasons. There
is no such thing as a dispassionate
argument on behalf Of the tonnage
tax. 1t is a weed planted by the
Paul Of greed, watered by the Apollo
of prejudice, and now they hope that
the God of might will give it the in
crease. Such thing is not thing
to be examined too closely; better
to adopt the practice Of the Hun, and
justify the action by might.
Southern Statesmen Shun 1t
If the tonnage tax is a sound eco
nomic policy, why have the ablest
men of Southern Minnesota invaria-
bly, sat silent when it was up for dis
cussion in the house of representa-
tives, that branch of the legislature