Year: 1871

DULUTHS VICTORIES.


"Duluth is victorious" exultingly shouts
the HtnnesOtian of that place, referring to
the recent Intervention Of the Secretary of
War in the suit recently brought by the
United States to restrain the excavation OF
canal through Minnesota Point Yes,
Duluth is victorious. Let US glance at the
list Of her victories.


In the first place she triumphed over the
United States Engineers, disinterested and
scientific gentlemen, who reported officially
that the best and most practicable harbor
for Duluth, that afforded by the Bay
OF Superior, with an entrance at the mouth
of the St. Louis river, between Minnesota
Point and Wisconsin Point. But that har-
Dor, large, commodious and safe, and not
liable to be overcrowded for a century to
come, if ever, she would share with Supe-
ror; and 50 she held the Government
bound not merely to supply her, by obvi-
ous and economical methods, with first
class harbor facilities adequate for the
needs of the largest commerce she could
hope for, but also by extraordinary dis
examinations in her favor, and by large and
unnecessary expenditures, to come between
her, and ''the played out place seven miles
down the Bay the above mentioned
paper terms Superior-and thus shield her
Duluth from the effects of an honest. le-
.riti I'M bn fri
umphed over the Committees of Congress,
which, responsible for a ust appropriation
Of the public monies, ani having regard to
the recommendations pf the Engineer Bu-
reau, refused to be moved by her frantic
fears Of Superior, and to report bill in ia
vor Of costly and impracticable outside
harbor She triumphed over all these, and
In the hurry and confusion of the last hours
under which $4,000 is devoted to the
outside breakwater' Next she threw
down the glove to the general Government
which had notified her through its engi-
neers, that the excavation OF an artificial
channel between the Bay and the Lake
through Minnesota Point, would by divert
inc the flow Of the river, injure the natural
entry ut the mouth of the St. Louis and de-
feat the object of the public Improvements
IN progress there She treated that Motif
cation with superlative contempt, detied
the jurisdiction of the War Department in
the premises, and went on In the face of an
action prosecuted by the United States to
restrain her, and made through the Point
an opening at which the waters of the Bay
are discharged in large volume into the
lake. the only effect Of the suit being, to
stimulate her to redoubled efforts in her
lawless course Then, when Judge Mil er
Of the United States Court, had decided,
upon a hearing before him, at which her
Attorneys appeared, that ber operations
were illegal aud injurious, and had granted
IN Injunction torbidding the further prose
cution of the work on the canal, she beat
the Court by dispatching an emissary to
Washington, and there through gross mis-
representations, as we must think, lnt1u-
encing the War Department to have the
Injunction suspended; and at the same
stroke she beat the Department itself,
which bad but recently instituted the suit
to conserve its own prerogatVes; beat 1t
Just at the particular juncture when Judge
Miler's ruling upon the laac of the case,
and the startling fact that rapid shoalng
at the entry ensued upon the opening OF the
canal, combined to justify and demand the
continuance of the legal proceedings.


While the Department held in its own
hands, IN tie provisional injunction, the
only adequate security that Duluth, if per-
mitted to go on with the canal work, would
limit herself to corner of the Bay by
building dixie that should prevent the dl
version of the river current. she again beat
the Government badly, by inducing 1t te
surrender that security, and take IN It's place
piece of paper signed by the Mayor O
Duluth, and called bond for 100000
IN instrument, which probably 1t Is no
within her corporate capacity to bind her