The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1936-02-27

forced by the governor but which the
court denounced as sitting regulations
and restrictions" and IAN invitation . :.
to conspire to obtain the work at an
exhorbitant profit"
Overturned his refusal to pay at
torneyS for their services to the people
of the state in the road graft cases.
Branded as fragrant maladministra-
ton his use of state troops to keep men
and women from working.
1t should be remembered that it is
not one court, but several different
courts and judges, some of them the
governors own appointees, who are re-
sponsible for these severe censures.
When the governor gets to be one of
the Big Four-Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler,
Olson,- goings-on like these will not be
tolerated from courts and parliaments.
Away back in 1878, fifty-seven years
ago, an act was placed upon the statute
resulted in some severe headaches, and
if the supreme court, which listened to
arguments on the act last Friday, fails
to uphold the district court, which has
held that the law was repealed by i'm
plication, these headaches will be
splitting headaches, for even Governor
Olson has admitted that the applica-
ton of the law would result in the con-
fscation of every corporation in Min
nesota.
The act is Section 2021 of the Mime
sofa Statutes, popularity known as the
act to tax corporate excess" or, in
other words, the intangible good will OF
corporations. For fifty-seven years
there has been practically no attempt
to enforce this act, and its sudden
startling resurrection, to quote the Ian
guage of the district court, has given
industry in Minnesota the gravest con-
Germ, for its enforcement would not only
wipe out the big corporations of the
state but smash all the little ones to
smithereens as well.
The sudden startling resurrection" Oh
the act three years ago has not yet re-
suited in adding much cash to the state
treasury, but it has yielded millions by
the way of promises. Former Mayor w
A. Anderson of Minneapolis got, and
still has, a $4,000 a year job out of it
as "tax investigator Mr.. Anderson
says that enforcement of the 1878 act
will net Minnesota S20,OO0,0OO per year
Governor Olson has been more modest
in his claims, setting the profits at only
S. 900 ,000 Although Chief Tax InveSti-
gator Anderson claims that the prin-
ciple of the corporate excess" tax exists
in practically every state, the records
show that it is actually enforced in but
two states and that of these two, Illinois
has been most successful in collecting
not more than $2,400,000. Inasmuch as
Illinois has 81 times the population
and many more times the wealth and
number of corporations of Minnesota
the prospect does not seem rosy fol
cashing in on either the governors
SIS 900 900 or Mr.. Anderson's $4,000, DOC
no matter what the supreme court does
The district court for Hennepir
county, Judge A. M. Selover, presiding
held on September 7th last that Section
2021 has been Enthusiastically inopera-
tive since its enactment and that il
has been superseded, annulled and re-
pealed" by subsequent acts, namely, the
mortgage registry tax of 1907, the money
and credits tax of 1911 and the income
tax of 1888. The state appealed and
the issue was argued in the supreme
court last Friday.