The Ely miner., 1929-11-29

desires to prohibit mining In tne Ter
ritory embraced in the Shipstead-New-
ton bill, would be amusing If 1t were
not so silly. First, she whould aoonsn
mining in the restricted territory Win
the statement neither open pit or
unsightly shaft head should ever oe
permitted within sight OF those lovely
shores"
The lady may mean well IN the
above statement, but, she goes on and
knocks her own argument in the head
with the afterthought that the state
should reserve for its own use all the
mineral rights in the territory, II
she. or anyone else, can tell us OF what
use are mineral rights if mining is TO
be prohibited, we would like to know.
Then she speaks of returns from the
state-owned mineral lands going p
the educational fund. How much are
the returns from mineral lands on
which no mining is done9
ssss
OF what use is mineral in the ground
if not mined and manufactured into
useful articles? What kind OF sec
ton of the country would this have
been had not Geo. Stone and others
in the early days found mineral de-
poSitS on the Vermilion range and
later secured capital for development
and a railroad? What built up the
cities at the Head of the Lakes, on
the ranges and Upper Michigan, If not
mining and employment In the nnnesF
ssss
The lady may not know 1t but we
will tell her that if all the ''unSightly
shaft houses and open pits" OF both
"a
denly set into the Superior National
Forest, there would still be hundreds
of miles of wilderness in which pos
terity" could lose itself. About
month ago the government sold the
timber from 50 900 acres in the forest
and these $4,000 acres comprise about
four townships out Of total OF 81
townships in the forest. 1t is safe to
say that the actual mining on the two
ranges covers less than this amount Of
territory.
This is merely given to show what
an immense domain is embraced in
the territory named in the Shipstead-
Newton bill and the Superior National
Forest. In addition to this there is
the Quitico Forest on the other side
of the line with about as much more,
culture and in which territory the en-
tire population of Minneapolis could
be placed and there would be several
acres for each
Those people in the southern end of
the state shuold not be so free with
advice on the conduct Of affairs in
this section of the state. The north
country and especially st. Louis
county, has furnished the state with
an educational fund and Is furnishing
about two-thirds of the ready cash in
taxes with which to operate the state.
There will come time some day when
home rule will be demanded for this
section. However, this will never hap
pen until we can outvote them This,
we will never be able to do unless our
population increases and our popula-
ton will not increase unless we are
permitted to develop more Of our prin-
cipal industries, mining, farming and
tourists.
If the Minneapolis lady has her way,
more mining is out. Agriculture is
developing as rapidly as possible.
(Note the turkey and butter shipments
out Of the Arrowhead the past month";
Our tourist business is of immense
volume and would be still greater If
jealousy in the south end of the state
was not so pronounced. The goose
that lays the golden eggs for the state
Is in the north section, mines, eggs,
poultry, butter, potatoes and tourists.
The Twin Cities are little bit dis
posed to covet the results of all these
and assume credit for their develop
ment, in addition to the revenues al
ready received from northern Mime
sofa.
Tourists passing through the Twins
have complained that instead Of being
sent to Ely where they wanted to
come, they have been told to go in
other directions where they did not
want to CO. because the trade terri
tory Of these other directions was
contiguous to the Twin Cities. You
can hardly blame the cities for that
however, because after a tourist once
sees this country and its magnificent
scenery. distances, lakes fish and
game, he is lost to them forever and
makes straight for Ely without de-
touring through those cities.
ssss
Anyway to make long story short,
we still maintain that the story by
the Minneapolis lady would be anus
ing were it not so silly. We want
industry and scenery both and can
not exist on scenery alone. One man
in commenting on the affair, desig-
mated it as "Backus propaganda
We doubt it and believe the lady was
only over enthusiastic There are
several ways to skin cat and this
may be one Of them. The opposition
to mines may have been injected into
the argument to create sentiment for
the dam scheme.
Some young fellow hung himself be-
cause some people found fault with
him. Fay Cravens over at Milaca
expresses the opinion that should this
practice become general the trees
would be full of preachers, doctors,
school teachers and editors, and con-
-.