Der Nordstern. [volume] (St. Cloud, Minn.) 1874-1931, 1920-06-10

Association, an organization Of the
people Of Minnesota whose aim 10
to save the state from the evils
which will follow the enactment
Of a tonnage tax measure.
What the people of Northern Min
nesota are -rying to do is to talk with
their neighbors and fellow-citizens of
Southern M~innesota-to talk to them
STRAIGHT, and without the use of
mediums that confuse and distort and
create mutual antipathies and misun.
derstandings.
The people Of Northern Minnesota
are trying to talk straight to the PEG.
pie Of Southern Minnesota about the
tonnage tax o. iron ore-trying to
talk WITH them-trying to talk it all
yer fairly and squarely.
In the past a high wall of misunder-
standing has been built up because
there was no effort to get the people of
the two parts of the state to talking
straight to each other.
So it was that a lot Of people in
Northern Minnesota got to talking as
though the people in Southern Mime
sofa were a bunch Of highbinders and
h1ghwaymen bent on running the peo-
pie of the North.
So it was that a lot of people in
Southern Minnesota got to talking as
though the people in Northern Mime
sofa were a bunch of corporation tools
who were trying to help the steel trust
dodge their taxes.
It isn't so. Neither end Of it is so.
North and South, they are just peo-
ple-the same kind of people, inter-
ested in the same sort of Justice,
helped by the same things and hurt
by the same things. If tonnage tax is
good, it will help Northern Minnesota
at the same time that it helps South
ern Minnesota. If tonnage tax is bad,
it will hurt Southern Minnesota just
as surely as it hurts Northern Mime
s0ta-just as surely, if less vitality.
The Story of Tonnage Tax.
This is the story of the tonnage tax
In Minnesota:
When the tonnage tax was first IN
troduced in the 1907 legislature its
primary purpose was to compel the
manufacture Of iron and steel in this
state, and it's secondary purpose was
to compel the iron mining interests to
pay their fair share of the expenses of
the state government.
The first tonnage tax bill was for a
tax of Is cents a ton, 20 cents to be
rebated on all iron smelted within the
state; this shows the primary purpose
of this proposed legislation. This be-
ing obviously N attempt to tax ex-
ports from the state, which the Fed
eral Constitution forbids, this first
measure was dropped, and the straight
tonnage tax bill, followed later by a
~"supertax" bill, came in.
While the tonnage tax was pending
in the 1907 legislature efforts thereto
fore made by Duluth citizens to in
duce the United States Steel Corpora
ton to begin the manufacture of steel
in this state were brought to a head,
and when the bill was defeated, there
was a promise from that company that
a steel plant, to cost $6,000,000 to
$4,000, 900 would be built in Duluth.
Today there is in Duluth a great, up
to-date steel plant of the United States
Steel corporation, costing $30,000.0 900
instead Of the promised $6,000,000 or
$4,000, 900, and plans are drawn ready
for immediate extensions costing &c.,
100000 MORE.
Though happily the tonnage tax has
failed, this aim of the original tonnage
takers has been met-to the great ben
eft Of all Minnesota.
How about the taxes? In 1907 the
total assessed valuation of all the iron
mines of Minnesota vas $64,486,409. on
which the state in that year got a total
Of $179,272.
This year, 1920, the assessed valua-
ton Of the iron mines of Minnesota is
$288, 937, 230-more than four times that
of 1907-and the states direct tax
from this wealth will be 81, 340,403-
more than thirteen times that Of 1907.
So the secondary purpose Of the
original tonnage takers has also been
met.
The tonnage tax agitation, therefore,
has given the state a monster steel in.
dustry, and has compelled the iron in
terest to pay taxes on a just valuation
multiplying the states revenue from
this source by twenty-five.
It has served both the purposes for
which it was started. Why should 1t
be continued, when the threat Of it
j%eopardizes the creation Of a great in
dustry that cannot fail to benefit every
part Of the state?
Politics W. Business.
The tonnage tax had served the pur-
pose for which It was proposed. It
had reached it's climax, had dwindled,
and had all but died-as 1t should,
since its purposes had been served
when Townleyism, carpet-bagging
from North Dakota, exhumed Il an q