The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1934-11-02
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-Four years ago Floyd Bjerstjerne
Olson filled the air with cries for
house cleaning ON WabaSha Hill. Two
months later the people placed him
there to do the job. Did he do it? He
did not. Instead he flung wide the
doors and the windows, and the files,
the cockroacheS, and the rats came
trooping in.
Before he had hardly warmed his
new-found chair Governor Olson issued
and enforced an order that the supreme
court of Minnesota has declared was
an invitation to fraud. Later the dis
trict court for Ramsey county filed a
decree which adjudged that the con-
tract prices of the first six contracts
made under Governor Olson's order
We're 1880 in excess of ''the reason
able cost Plus reasonable profit"
A fraud of 26.9 on all of the $15,O00.-
600 of road contracts for 1892, under the
convenient regulations set up by Gov
ernor Olson, would have mulcted the
people Of Minnesota out of $4O35 900,
and put that amount of graft into the
pockets Of the favored contractors or
other persons to whom, for good and
sufficient reasons, they wished to dis
tribute the money.
What are the plain, unvarniShed facts
of this matter as attested by the records
and the findings of the courts?
On February Goth, month and a
half after he became Governor, Floyd
B. Olson issued the following order tc
State Highway Commissioner Charles
M Babcock:
ITO be eligible to bid or be awarded
contract or contracts to construct
more than 100000 square yards o.
paving for the state of Minnesota, 9
bidder shall have completed successfully
contracts with the Minnesota Highway
Department for not less than 10000,
square yards of paving"
The Governor followed this up with
letter to Mr.. Babcock in which ht
said that he assumed full responsibility
for this order.
The highway department. then ISSUED
instructions to all contractors described
by the Governor, not only limiting the
contractors who could bid, but limiting
the amount Of paving that any one con-
tractor would be allowed to do.
In October 1881 bids were advertised
for six paving contracts to be let, under
the restrictive regulations set up by
Governor Olson sitting regulations
and limitations" the supreme court
called them. Only those contractors
specified by Governor OlSon'S Sitting
regulations and limitations were al
lowed to bid on any of these six con-
tracts.
The ''conspirating contractors" as
the supreme court called them, got to-
gether and parceled out the work.
when the bids came in," says the
supreme court, 'at a price alleged to be
approximately so per cent above a
reasonable price and nearly as much
over previous contracts let under COM
petition, it would seem that the most
inexperienced of officials would have
comprehended the Situation-the con-
traSt was so great between the bids on
the major projects and those on the
more competitive minor project and
the previous contracts, that the failure
of the department to comprehend the
fraud being perpetrated was, in our
judgment, so gross nisapprehension
OF the situation as to amount to con-
Structive participation in the fraud
We therefor treat the situation alleged
as one where there was not only con-
Spiracy and collision among the bid
derS, but a constructive participation
by the state officers whose duty it was
to protect the public from the result of
such a conspiracy"
Nevertheless the highway department
had already, under orders from Cover
nor Olson, gone ahead and let the six