The Bemidji Daily Pioneer

LOSE ITS CHARTER

State Officials Find It Has Failed to Send in Two Per Cent of License Money to Fund.

BELTRAMI COUNTY IS OUT $100

Has Not Received Its Ten Per Cent For Two Years, as Only First Payment Was Made.

ONE SALOON IN THE VILLAGE

Has Been Operating For Three Years And Furnishes the Only Source Of Revenue.

Failure to pay Beltrami county $50 a year for the past two years and the state of Minnesota $10 a year for three years, may result in the passing of Island Lake, a village about thirty miles north of Bemidji.

The village of Island Lake has been incorporated for six years, but in checking up the accounts of Minnesota villages, Public Examiner Andrew Fritz found that Island Lake had not paid into the state inebriate fund the two per cent of saloon license money received by that village.

As the Hickerson and Dickinson saloon is the only one operating there the license money has amounted to $500 per year. Since the last trustees were elected three years ago, the saloon has paid in $1,500 license money. It is said that no improvements have been made and that the village is bankrupt.

Examiner Fritz and Attorney General Smith were in Bemidji Saturday and drove to Island Lake returning Sunday afternoon.

They made a thorough examination of the affairs of the village and at the state capitol yesterday announced that while the village claimed to have had an election last fall, the official returns did not give the village figures. Mr. Fritz will further examine the village books and following his report, General Smith will determine whether or not the village has forfeited its rights.

A state law requires that there be at least 125 persons in a community before a village can be incorporated.

Island Lake has less than fifty and it is believed that this fact will also prove a point against it. Hickerson and Dickinson run the only saloon there and it is said that one of the partners has been serving on the village council.

The affairs of Hickerson and Dickinson have been troubled for sometime past. Last summer a federal officer caused the arrest of the men on charges of selling liquor to the Indians of the Red Lake reservation and those cases are still to come before the federal court.

Last fall, they were arrested on a charge of selling liquor on Sunday, the charge having been preferred by W. F. Dickens, agent at Red Lake. The charge against Dickinson was dismissed, Hickerson was freed after a jury trial.

County Auditor George said this morning that the village had made the payment into the ten per cent fund three years ago when the saloon was first started but that no money had been received since then. Should the village charter be taken away the saloon will pass to the control of the county commissioners. As it has been a sore spot in the flesh of the administration of the Red Lake reservation, there will probably be a warm fight before the commissioners should any attempt be made to relicense the saloon.