The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1930-01-24
,On This
Occasion
Q lust few thoughts by the Editor on thing
q Material and Immaterial

u
County Treasurer Bill" Sargent and
we Thought well OF Bill in confor-
nance with the opinion OF him we
have held since the early days OF the
county when he was sheriff. Last
week we received another billet doux
from bill" which told us in language
very polite vet firm, that our personal
property taxes were due and payable
ON or before the last of February. lie
Miner editor was not alone IN pelng
remembered with the first OF the year
greeting. The county treasurer Sent
one to each and every personal prop
erty taxpayer in the county. Along
with this came several dozen other
"please RENTS" from supply men, IN
snrance agents both fire and life, paper
houses grocery, coal, wood, ngnt,
water and other necessarleS
&s**
All this only leads us to what we
intend to say In order to meet de-
mands for the beginning of the year
on us In addition to the regular weekly
payroll, we would request all those
who have received reminders to make
all efforts possible to get OH the
wrong side of our books. Pay us so
that we can pay the other fellow and
thus enable him to pay you. see
Sort of perpetual circulation with
every dollar paying thousands OF DOL
lars worth of debts as long as II CIR
culates among us, however, lost lot
ever the minute it is sent out OF town
to pay for something that could nave
been bought at home.
The Miner is not alone in this.
This thirty day" stuff (and then
catch me if you CAM has cluttered up
the books of every merchant and bus
mess man in town. Some OF the mer-
chants have as much as $4,000 In
risks on their books and some of these
same risks are now paying cash for
their necessaries Not to the merchant
who extended them credit, but to the
cat-house, the peddler and itineranr
merchant. The authorities are power
less to cope with this, they say, on
account of the system Of order
taking" in vogue in the city.
Be that as it may. Business in the
best town on the ranges is not all pie
and cake. Every man this side or
Timbucto, with something to sell Is
coming to Ely because it is a good
town The result is that these get
the cash while the local merchants
assets remain on the shelf. If he can't
sell them he is broke. With a large
winter and summer payroll being dis
tributed regularly every month ana
further augmented by the big tourist
dollar every summer, Ely business
should be done on discount basis
and not on the indefinite payment
system.
The local merchant pays taxes;
salaries for employees; light and water,
builds structures in which to do BUS
mess and pay more taxes, etc; DON
ates to churches, schools, Salvation
Army. Red Cross, entertainments anc
other public and private and charit-
able projects He is called upon every
dav of the year for something or
other. The next time sickness or
some other setback comes slong,
write to the cat-house or the peddler
for credit or donation and see what
you get?
In another place will be found a
preliminary summing up OF the timber
situation on the lands to be flooded
by the Backus dam scheme as re-
ported on by the engineers who have
been working under the Instructions
of the international Joint Commission
and whose report is now being printed.
The report is very m'auta ana eXhaus-
tive and has required three years In
preparation 1t covers three heavy
volumes and will be finished In April,
so it is said. The article we are pub
fishing shows what will happen 10
shore lines as viewed by writer In
lac uThQf
will happen will be plenty, should the
applications for dams be granted.
We wish to call particular attention
to the report where it states land to
10 feet on Eastwood Lake and rivers
Farther down in the chain OF lakes
the proposed increases would reach as
high as approximately 80 feet, under
the original plans proposed by Mr..
Backus." Just imagine what 19 feet
on Eastwood would do, or even feet.
Five feet would kill the timber on
thousands of miles of shore line and
10 feet would back the water over the
portage between Fall and Eastwood;
back water into Fall Shagawa, White
Iron and other lakes and in truth
make an ocean of the northern part
of the state.
The shipsteadd-Newton bill was or
iginally introduced to prevent such
wholesale scheme of appropriation In
an unnecessary endeavor to tie up the
power situation for the future with
benefits to accrue to the individual
given the permit to construct the
dams and with the ultimate view OF
controlling the situation should need
for more power arise.
The bill was introduced at this ses-
sion of Congress and all the amend
ments thereto agreed to by the COM
mittee that had made trip over the
territory were omitted A letter has
been received from Senator ShipSteao
stating that he would again embody
these amendments in the bill and also
have it referred back to the Agricu1-
tural Department instead of the Pub
lie Lands and Parks department.
CONGRESSMAN Pittenger, this week
also introduced a bill calculated to care
for the deficiencies in the Shipstead-
Nolan bill. Our congressman feels
that the bill is too drastic and will
interfere with industry-needed to
make the wheels go round-in asmuch
as it will stop timber cutting and
mining except in minute spots in the
vast territory affected.
Unfortunately we were prevented
from attending the Forty-Sixth An
nual Convention of the Minnesota
Editorial Association in Minneapolis
last Friday and Saturday. The con-
vention was pronounced better than