The Ely miner., 1928-11-16
STATEMENT BY THE GAS
TAX COMMITTEE.
(Conmunicated)

The Gasoline Tax Amendment Com
mittee issued statement through An
drew FinStuen, rs secretary, this
week, thanking all those vino worked
for the paSsage of the amendment and
expressing the pellef that the action
taken will be a great benefit to che
whole state.
The statement follows,
'The Gasoline Tax Amendment ap-
parently has been passed. rs this is
written, it has a total OF 5i8 0O0 ia
vorable votes, according to the unoffi-
cial count, and the vote from some
thing over 100 precincts is yet to come
in. As the total vote cast III the cleo
ton likely will not run over 1,025, 600
at the most, the amendment apparent
ly has safe majority
1.-The victory is all the mere remark
able because the amendment was
actively opposed by all the dailies Of
the three large cities. However, it
got Al 900 votes in st. Paul and more
than $4,000 in Minneapolis
1.-The Committee naturally is graft
fed over the result and wishes to take
this opportunity to thank the more
than 1000 committeeman through
out the state who worked to put the
amendment over. 1t wishes also at
this time to pay special tribute to the
country newspapers of Minnesota
which did more than any other agency
to win the fight The country papers
used columns of valuable space to
boost the amendment because they
realized it was fine civic enterprise
that would benefit their communities
and the result shows in the tremen-
dous vote obtained through the coun-
try districts.
Passage of the amendment is GO
ing to be great thing for the state
1t gives us broader and more COM
prehensive road program and will ir
the end benefit the whole state"
Asked about Commissioner Bah
cocks statement that the gasoline ta2
now must be increased to make up fol-
the 81 100000 which the amendment
would give to secondary roads, Mr.
Finstuen repeated the position taker
by the committee throughout the cam
paign.
1.-The committee consistently has
taken the position that it was engaged
in passing constitutional amendment
which would allow the men using the
secondary roads a share in the i'm
provements made possible by the gaso-
line tax, and that it was neither faith
ering or sanctioning a plan to change
the gasoline tax" he said I'VE have
said that the highway department
now has an annual fund of $17,300, 900
and that it is not going to be crippled
by taking away $1,8O0,00O for the Sec
ondary roads, that even if the high
way department has to get along with
little less money for a few years
the men on the secondary roads should
have consideration.
Naturally, there will be proposals to
change the gasoline tax Commis-
sioner Babcock asked for an increase
two years ago, but it was not granted
There will be other proposals. ALI must
be decided by the legislature on their
merits when they come up. What the
legislature does pretty likely will rep
resent the sentiment of the people
Certainly theGasoline Tax Amend
ment Committee is not going to ask
it to increase the tax.
'The committee has confined itself
to one thing, getting the amendment
passed, and has taken no action on
any proposal to alter the amount of
the tax. Individually, some of its
members, I think, are opposed to in
creaSing the tax. Others may favor an
increase. AS committee, it has con-
fined itself to the constitutional ques-
ton, and now that that fight is over,
its work is done"