The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1935-10-31

pears to be safe and he may even be
able to pay the rent on the divisions
luxurious quarters on University
Avenue.
Receipts of the Drivers License Di-
vision for the third quarter of 1885
were $4,000 or $4,000 per month. On
July 1st of this year the division had
been in existence for Is months and it
would almost seem that everyone in
Minnesota had parted with his two-bits
and was possessed of drivers license.
Nevertheless, am average of $4,000
drivers licenses we're issued each month
for the ensuing three months, and that
rate seems likely to be maintained.
AS a result the economy spasm of May
and June has subsidized and the payroll
is up again to some $4,000 per month.
With Minnesota'S 81 clerks of court
doing most of the work, the Drivers
License Division may still be able to
maintain itself in comfort if not in the
luxury to which it treated itself in the
early days of its lush receipts.
The special session of the Legislature
set for December End will be the third
special session in Minnesota in twenty
years. A session lasting Il days was
held in September 1919 In 1888 a
special session began December 5th and
ran through to January 9Th. The 1919
session enacted IS laws, the 1888 session
49,
There is no legal limit to the length
Of a special session, no restraint upon
matters that may DE considered, no pay
for the members.
The cooling and billing with which
the opening date was announced is just
ducky but the taxpayer, firmly fastened
between the millstones of politics and
craftsmanship, fears that the honey
moon will be short.
Complete and final Minnesota con-
formity with federal social security
legislation will cost many millions, to
obtain which new sources of revenue
must be found, but the essential be-
ginnings of cooperation with the federal
act can be financed within the appro-
priationS made by the Legislature last
winter. Such program for the special
session would make it compare lively
short, leaving the rounding out of the
program and the final solution of the
tax problem to the regular session to
follow a year later. There is a deal of
common sense in this suggestion which
some Solons are urging, for it will take
twelve months or more to get the social
security program under way; that time
and its experiences will point the way
to a better understanding Of what is
necessary to permanent program.
Modern instances showing that truth
is still stranger than fiction:
Among the progressive laws of a pro-
gressive state is Chapter 351, Laws 1927
of Minnesota, which provides that the
content Of loaf of bread may not be
changed as to weight, the purpose of
the act being to prevent bakers from
cheating the public by juggling the
weight of a loaf. But now comes the
DISTINGUISHED Secretary of Agriculture to
advise the bakers how to eXtricate
themselves from the dilemma the New
Deal has got them into relative to the
1-cent rise in the price Of bread. There
are other ways Of coming out even be-
sides raising the price. Mr.. Wallace
suggests; namely, by varying the weight
of the loaf. Humbug EN-! Unfortun-
ately for Mr.. Wallace's suggestion, the
law seems to stand in the way in
Minnesota.
That's one. Here's another For more
than 100 years attempts have persist
ertly been made to make the purchaser
of liquor equally guilty with the seller,
but all attempts have failed, and today
the illegal vendor of booze may get
pinched but the happy purchaser there
of goes scott free. The New Deal, how
ever, did not need to try for a century;
it turned the trick in the twinkling of
an eye, so to speak, in its potato control
act, for that act will not only slap the
farmer who sells more than five bushels
Of potatoes without a license into the
hoosegow but it has cell next door to
the farmers cell for the fellow who
buys from him.
Down in washington, where he hopes
soon to become fixture, Governor
Olson Of Minnesota unburdened himself
not long ago of some highfalutin' ideas
on civil service. He would like to leave
Minnesota with an adequate civil SER
vice law when he quits the Gopher
Statehouse, he advised an intentIy lis
tening nation. What a change has