Grand Rapids Herald Review

THE CAMPAIGN HAS STARTED

There was a notable gathering of men at Eveleth last Monday. It was a meeting of delegates representing business men's organizations of the several municipalities of the Mesaba range, extending from Ely to Grand Rapids. The commercial clubs of Hibbing and Virginia took the initiative in calling together representative men of Northeastern Minnesota to consider the matter of starting a campaign of education throughout the state on the much mooted question of levying a double tax on iron ore.

Nearly all villages and cities responded and the earnestness of purpose displayed is an indication that the false and pernicious propaganda that has been carried on for many years past relating to the iron industry will be successfully met and overcome with irresistible logic and the force of facts.

The people of Northern Minnesota are resolved to no longer hope against hope that a spirit of justice will voluntarily supplant the false teachings of those who seek to profit politically by advocating legislation that is fundamentally unfair and viciously wrong. They are determined to no longer permit a condition to exist that excites the accusation of remissness of duty to their own vital interests.

While propaganda has been carried on incessantly in the southern half of Minnesota advocating a policy that is calculated to place the whole burden of state maintenance on a single industry, those threatened with exploitation have maintained a passive attitude that hitherto has not even risen to the point of resentment. The men present at the meeting last Monday took an inventory of the situation and laid the foundation for a campaign of education that will not fail if it is persistently and intelligently directed. Every man agreed that the one and only thing necessary to do is to use the facts that cannot be successfully controverted and present them to the people in every part of the state.

A committee was named to prepare a plan of organization. Representatives from all Northeastern Minnesota will be called together at an early date to determine on details of the proposed campaign. There is nothing surreptitious about the undertaking. It is open and above board. Opponents of the policy of a square deal will be invited to meet those who are appealing for justice in open debate of the subject. There will be no gumshoeing by those who "know their rights and knowing dare defend."

They propose to drive the demagogues back into the retreats from which they crawled. They propose to educate the voters and taxpayers of every county in Minnesota to realize that the interests involved are the interests of all the people and not a sectional issue. They will be able to make it clear to every intelligent voter that the unjust legislation proposed cannot result otherwise than in the creation of a monopoly of the iron industry of the state. The glib-tongued gabbler on the alleged atrocities of the United States Steel corporation will be unmasked as the real friend of monopoly.

The divided sentiment of the north and south sections of the state, as a result of this campaign, will be obliterated, and all the people of all Minnesota will be the better able to work in harmony for the common good.