Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/1014

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MINNESOTA


in 1900 to sixteenth place in 1920; but, though lumbering declined, timber manufacturing increased, so that Minnesota ranked in 1920 among the first states in the production of pulp wood, railway ties, fence posts, and telegraph poles. The foundry and machine-shop industries also have grown rapidly. A portion of the state's iron ore is now worked in huge iron and steel plants on the St. Louis river near Duluth, and farm machinery is manufactured increasingly.

Transportation. The railway mileage in Minnesota Dec. 31 1919 was 9,230, an increase of about 9% since 1908. In 1918 there were 161 -8 m. of electric line operated in the state. The U.S. Government completed in 1920 the construction of a dam in the Mississippi between St. Paul and Minneapolis, which by means of locks makes the latter city the head of navigation on the river. An attempt is being made to revive freighting on the river, between Minneapolis and St. Louis. With the growth of motor traffic, the demand for good roads has greatly increased, and the state was engaging in 1921 in road building on an extensive scale. An amendment to the constitution (1912) authorized the Legislature to levy a one-mill tax, the proceeds to be distributed among the counties and used for road building and maintenance; another amendment (1920) author- ized the Legislature to issue bonds and provided for the taxation of motor vehicles in order to finance a system of state trunk highways covering 7,000 m. and comprising 70 routes which will reach every county seat and important community. There were in 1921 about 98,000 m. of public roads in the state.

Education. The State Department of Education, as reorganized in 1919, consisted of five citizens, appointed by the governor for terms of five years. The board appoints the commissioner of educa- tion, who is actual head of the Department, and holds office for six years. In 1920 240 high schools, 261 graded schools, 255 consolidated schools, and 6,107 rural schools fulfilled the requirements of the Department of Education and therefore received, in addition to local support, state aid, derived from a one-mill tax, from the income on the permanent school fund ($30,920,032 in 1920), and from legislative appropriations. During the year 1920 $38,358,555 was expended upon public education, an average of $76.16 per pupil. A new normal school, the sixth, was opened at Bemidji in 1919. By an Act of 1921 the state normal schools were renamed state teachers' colleges and were authorized to award appropriate degrees. These colleges are controlled by a board consisting of the commissioner of education and eight members appointed by the governor for terms of four years. The university of Minnesota at Minneapolis comprises 13 colleges and schools, those most recently organized being the school of nursing (1909) and the school of business (1919). A note- worthy development in the medical school is its affiliation with the Mayo Clinic at Rochester. In 1915 William J. and Charles H. Mayo, the famous surgeons, established the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, endowed it to the amount of $1,500,000 and gave it to the university. By virtue of this gift the university controls practically all medical instruction in Minnesota and has been enabled to develop research and graduate instruction in medi- cine. The Department of Agriculture includes a college of forestry, a school of traction engineering, and a department of home economics. Schools of agriculture and experiment stations at Crookston, Morris, Grand Rapids, Duluth, Waseca, Cloquet, and Zumbra Heights afford assistance and instruction to farmers and students of agriculture in all parts of the state. The university library of 350,000 volumes is supplemented by a number of other libraries accessible to students. These are the Minneapolis Public Library and, in St. Paul, the state Law Library, the library and manuscript collections of the Min- nesota Historical Society, housed in a new building erected by the state in the years 1916-8, and the St. Paul Public Library, which with the Hill Reference Library, established by the late James J. Hill, occupies a new and beautiful building. In 1919-20 the university had 9,027 students; in 1920-1, 930 faculty members and 231 build- ings (including agricultural schools and experiment stations), erected at a cost of $6,177,443. An extensive building programme covering a period of 10 years was initiated in 1919, when the Legisla- ture appropriated $5,600,000 for this purpose. Besides this the university's income from the state amounts to about $7,500,000 for the biennium 1921-3. Since 1911 the university has had three pres- idents: Dr. George E. Vincent, 1911-7; Dr. Marion L. Burton, 1917-20; and Dr. Lotus D. Coffman.

Government. In 1921 the state's machinery for the super- vision of labour was reorganized. An industrial commission of three members appointed by the governor superseded the single commissioner previously controlling the Department of Labour. As reorganized, the Department consists of seven divisions: workmen's compensation, boiler inspection, accident prevention, statistics, women and children, employment and mediation and arbitration. The law creating the industrial commission vests it with special powers and duties: (i) to administer the work- men's compensation law; (2) to establish and conduct free employment agencies, supervise the work of private employment agencies, and deal with the problem of unemployment; and (3) to promote voluntary arbitration in labour disputes by appoint-

ing, if desirable, temporary boards of arbitration or conciliation and by conducting investigations and hearings.

The consolidation of the direction of the state's charitable and penal institutions under the state Board of Control was completed in 1917, and the Board in 1921 had charge of 17 institutions. Two new ones are an asylum for the insane, with a special ward for inebriates at Willmar (1914), and a state reformatory for women at Shakopee (1920). The new state prison buildings at Stillwater, completed in 1912, cover 22 ac. in a tract of 1 ,000 ac. The most ad- vanced methods of discipline and management are used, and prisoners are paid wages for their labour. During the year 1919 the per capita expense for each prisoner was $368.30 and the earnings averaged $906.66. In the fiscal year ending in June 1920. receipts from prison industries were over $5,000,000. The remarkable de- velopment of the prison was due largely to Henry Wolfer, warden from 1892 to 1914. The Legislature of 1921 increased the member- ship of the state Board of Control from three to five and provided that two members shall be women. The policy of establishing and maintaining state parks, of which Itasca state park was the first in 1891, has been followed consistently, with the result that there were in 1921 14 such parks, located on tracts of land selected for scenic beauty or historic interest. Those recently established are Alexander Ramsey state park in Redwood county (1911); Fort Ridgely state park, Nicollet county (1911); Horace Austin state park, Mower county (i9'3); Jay Cooke state park, Carlton county (1915); Sibley state park, Kandiyohi county (1919) ; Toqua Lakes state park, Big Stone county (1919); Whitewater state park, Winona county (1919); Scenic state park, Itasca county (1921); and Sleepy Eye Lake state park, Brown county (1921). In addition the state maintains the Pillsbury state forest, Cass county, and the Burntside state forest, St. Louis county. Two Federal forest reserves are also located in the state: Superior National Forest in St. Louis, Lake and Cook coun- ties; and Minnesota National Forest in Itasca, Cass and Beltrami counties. In 1913 the number of legislative districts in the state was increased from 63 to 67; and in 1920 the term of judges of pro- bate was lengthened from two to four years by constitutional amendment. Over 60 cities of the state, including the three largest, have adopted home-rule charters under the constitutional amend- ment adopted in 1896 and readopted with some slight changes in 1898. Minneapolis, after many unsuccessful attempts, finally voted favourably on a home-rule charter in 1920.

Finance. On June 30 1920 there were 1,584 banking institutions in Minnesota, of which 1,151 were state banks, 24 trust companies, 9 savings banks, 69 building and loan associations, and 331 national banks. Their deposits amounted .to about $800,000,000. The Federal Reserve Bank for the ninth district is located in Minneapolis. All banking institutions other than national banks are under the supervision of the superintendent of banks. This official, or his deputies, according to the Act of 1909 which created the Depart- ment of Banking, examines at least twice a year the banks and other moneyed corporations created under state laws. In 1918, $15.262,760 in income taxes was paid by 84,515 Minnesotans on total net incomes amounting to $291,074,629. The total value of taxable property in the state was $2,084,000,000 in 1921 as compared with $1,194,962,312 in 1910.

History. The most important political movement of recent years was the growth of the Non-partizan League. The League, organized in North Dakota in 1915 by Arthur C Townley, aimed to secure " state ownership of elevators, flour-mills, packing- houses and cold-storage plants, the central equipment concerned with the marketing of the farmers' products." The League's organizers began to work in Minnesota in 1916, and in Jan. 1917 its national headquarters were established in St. Paul. To enlist support from the urban population the League attempted to ally itself with labour, through the organization of a Working People's Non-partizan Political League. In June 1920 this movement nearly captured the Republican primary in spite of the fact that the regular Republicans held a pre-primary con- vention to choose one candidate on whom they should concen- trate their votes. Organized labour has rapidly increased its membership, the figures of July 1920 indicating 717 labour unions with a membership of over 90,000. The members of over 80% of the unions reporting to the state Department of Labour received wage increases during the biennium 1918-20. In the same period the Department received reports on 74 strikes, involving 51,940 persons.

Probably the two most important pieces of legislation in the dec- ade 1910-20 were the primary law and the so-called tonnage tax. The former, passed in 1912, provides that candidates for state and county offices be nominated at primary elections in June preceding the general election. With the exception of the state executive officers, the railway and warehouse commissioners, and the clerk of the Supreme Court, all state and local officers, including members