The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1921-02-25
HITCHCOCK TELLS
LEGISLATIVE TALE
FOR READERS.
TICKLE LOVE AFFAIRS OF THE
TONNAGE TAKERS LAID BARE
LEGISLATURE VERY BUSY
WITH IMPORTANT MEASURES
ST. LOUIS COUNTY MEMBERS
VERY POPULAR.
,(By Representative R.W. Hitchcock.)

less bills are choking the legislative
seam. General Orders with list
o. some $50 bills. list that is stead
ily swelling as rcpo,ts of committees
c:me in, has hardly been touched 70;
two weeks. The big bills OF the SEES
sion are beginning to come out OF
committee and the demand for special
orders threatens to eat up every leg
islative session. The senate is not
quite so far along with the big things
and is still grinding out the small
stuff, which simply serves to increase
the congestion in the house.
The highway bill took up all the
time of the house at three of the five
sessions last week and was finally
passed after the faction which advo-
Gates a commission ana which was de-
termined to muss up the act with
every possible sort of petty imita-
ton had exhausted every effort to
delay the bill. Supporters of the
bill finally lost patience with the pol
icy of obstruction and knocked each
amendment on the head as fast as it
was presented and finally forced the
bill to roll call with 103 Ayes and
10 Nays. The highway committee OF
the house has worked steadily on the
bill since December 2l, has held in
Vulnerable hearings and the measure
was finally given a three-day debate
on the floor of the house, most un-
usual proceeding. The same fight
will be repeated in the senate, where
the lines are Tightening for and
against single commissioner and for
and against limitations that will make
Amendment No. l merely a county
road law instead of a state wide
measure. The bill as it passed the
house centraliZes the maintenance
and construction of the 1000 miles
of the trunk highway system in a
single commissioner, focuses the eyes
of all the state upon him and holds
him, and him alone, responsible for
every act in the work of making Min
nesota the best paved state in the
Union. Only two limitations of con-
sequence are found in the bill as
passed by the house. One of these
requires that 40 per cent of all re-
ceipts from the sale of automobile
licenses be spent in maintenance; the
other limits the amount which may
be spent in maintenance in any one
county in any one year to four per
cent of the maintenance fund. Both
of these limitations are concessions
to eXpediency, but both are unwise
and unfair and will often Use to
plague the administration of the law
with forced inefficiency. ...
There are a good many folks, so
''they say, in the south and west
who are afraid if the highway COM
missioner is not tied hand and foot,
st. Louis county will somehow steal
the whole trunk highway fund.
Therefor they insist upon fixing it 50
that st. Louis county will get only a
minor fraction of the fair share
Maybe their determination to plumber
the mines of st. Louis county ac-
counts for their suspicious OF others
and this brings us to the subject Of
A Brand New Tonnage Tax.
Tonnage Takers have many affairs
of the heart. They have been known
in the short space of twenty-four
hours to basely turn from the adent
wooing of one divinity and throw
themselves with fervent cries of de-
votion at the feet of another, Not
withstanding their fickleness, they
are constant in one respect. 1t is an
heiress that the Tonnage Takers
want. The size of her pile is the
only thing that counts. If she's got
the money they'll stand for any dis
tortion of face or figure. Once the,
loved lass named Export Tax. They
thought her rich, but soon they
found that she was penniless
Straightway they threw her over and
embraced the cruel but immensely
wealthy Miss Lien Tax. Fortune
and the legislature smiled on their
importuning; almost they thought
they had her, when, at the last NOM
ent Old Man Johnson kicked them
down the steps of the Capitol.
Baked and desperate, they soon fell
for fearful crush on Miss Super
Tax. They declared that she was
the most divinely fair of all of the
daughters of Taxation. But she
proved difficult miss and they had
hard time a-wooing her. While the
courtship Jagged, one day an old hay
seed drove into town and upsto Wab-
asha hill and handed down a girl
fresh from the farm. When the
Tonnage Takers saw the thick, golden
tresses of Miss Profits Tax, they for
got forever all their loves of the past
and they spake as one man: This
is the damsel our hearts have longed
for; saw any man ever such golden
ringlets" And they wooed her long
and loudly and with much vain boast
ing. Once, with cave man methods,
they dragged her to the very steps
of the altar; yet she escaped them.
Then they vowed they would wed her
before the new year was seven days
old; but January was spent and Feb
ruary heightened its days and still