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GETTING ELECTION RETURNS BY TELEPHONE

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Within the last decade it was doubtless inevitable that the national game of politics should widely adopt telephony as a campaign instrument, and Senator Hanna deserves the credit of having first seen and developed its latent possibilities in that direction. Among other things its use has killed the old-fashioned roorback" that was once so dangerous an element in the last days of a presidential campaign for the obvious reason that a lie (national campaign brand, or mere village gossip) can be nailed instantly if one will but go to the telephone and call up somebody who knows the truth about it. More than that, it gave the "personal equation" of this great campaign manager carrying power wherever long-distance telephone lines had penetrated. In all moments of stress and excitement indeed these telephone centrals have become so many natural centers for information, and a great public event, political or otherwise, is often more quickly disseminated through them even than through the newspapers. Nor does the average reader of these same newspapers realize how vastly important is the telephone in securing the news itself, or how

often it is dictated over a telephone transmitter on the very scene of action and taken down on a typewriter by an operator at the newspaper end of the telephone. On the big city journals there are reporters whose relations with the office are entirely by telephone, and on some newspapers the entire reportorial staff, when on assignment, is in half hourly communication with the editor in his sanctum.

This present growth, according to the telephone engineers, is as yet hardly more than the healthful beginning of a movement that will eventually include the entire civilized world and a certain adjacent fraction of the uncivilized. Here, too, this country will be the leading factor. It would be safe to say that there has been no time for several years past when there

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subscribers, and the further annihilation of time and space between the seventyodd million of people scattered over the United States. That it saves time for these millions goes of course without saying, but in the past years the total amount saved annually by the average reduction of four seconds per message affected during that period by the Bell systems, presents one of the most startlingly curious examples of time economy that the world has yet witnessed. In a single year these four seconds saved on each telephone cali count up to a grand total of 14,359,992,000 seconds-in other words, to 445 years of time, a link in the chain of eternity that would carry us back forty-two years before the discovery of America.

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HE Northwest is an immense extent of country stretching from Lake Michigan to the Rocky Mountains.

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is too large a territory to be covered in a single article of reasonable length. I shall therefore confine attention to the three States of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, which may be considered as fairly representative of the whole region in general features, though farther advanced in their development than some of the more western parts. While it is not the purpose of this article to present a large array of statistics, it will be necessary to present a few in order to give a clear idea of the country under consideration. The growth of these states in the last forty years, compared with

progress made in settling the older parts of the country, has been amazing.

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It was more than a century after Columbus discovered America before an English settlement was made in what is now the United States; and the whole country, seventy years after the first settlement was made, had less than three millions of people. Minnesota was admitted into the union as a state in 1858 and the two Dakotas were admitted in 1889. 1850 Minnesota had but 6,000 inhabitants. In 1905 she has 1,975,000. North Dakota in 1880 had 36,000 inhabitants; in 1900, 320,000, and at the present time at least 400,000. South Dakota has at the present time about 500,000 people. The total population of the three states is nearly 3,000,000 or about the same as that of the thirteen original states when engaged in the War for Independence.

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The largest part of the wealth produced in these states is drawn from the land by the farmers, who constitute a very large part of the population. Minnesota produces agricultural products to the value of $200,000,000 a year, the largest product being wheat-90,000,000 to 100,000,000 bushels-this being more than is raised in any other state. The dairy products of the state amount to nearly $40,000,000 a year. North Dakota raises about 70,000,000 bushels of wheat a year, and a larger crop of flax than any other state in the union. South Dakota adds 50,000,000 to 60,000,000 bushels of the total yield of wheat in the Northwest. Immense crops of corn, oats, barley and potatoes are also produced in these states. Probably the soil of these three states yields an annual production of at least $500,000,000. This is not the result of the most skilful farming, but rather of the extent and natural fertility of the soil.

The Twin Cities," Minneapolis and Saint Paul, are situated in the middle eastern part of Minnesota, on both sides of the Mississippi River. They are contiguous and their centers are but ten miles apart. The population of Minneapolis, according to the census recently taken, is more than two hundred and sixty thousand and that of Saint Paul is nearly two hundred thousand. The next national census will easily show a population of more than a half million in the two cities. Together they are the gateway to the Northwest. Seven

lines of railroads from Chicago have their terminus in these cities. From them the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific and the "Soo" railroads begin their long course to the Pacific.

Saint Paul and Minneapolis have for years been rivals in business, and in almost everything; and the rivalry has not always been conducted with the utmost kindness and courtesy. kindness and courtesy. There has been occasionally very unnecessary recrimination. But these cities are now becoming large enough to be both just and generous. Both are growing rapidly and in a healthy way. Both are delightful to live in; and the interests of both as related to the rest of the world are essentially the same. Both cities have a large foreign-born population, Saint Paul's being largely German, Irish and French with goodly numbers of Norwegians; while Minneapolis has thousands of Scandinavians and a smaller number of the other races. In both cities there are large numbers of native Ameri

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THE CITY HALL AND COURTHOUSE AT MINNEAPOLIS A good illustration of the municipal buildings of the Northwest

cans of the best New England and New York origin, and a considerable sprinkling of politicians from Indiana. The assimilation of all these has been rapid and the best kind of citizenship has been the result.

One hundred and eighty-four churches in Minneapolis and one hundred and fifty in Saint Paul furnish evidence that the people are not indifferent to religion. In ordinary elections Saint Paul is Democratic, but it regularly gives the Republican candidate for Congress a majority while Minneapolis is strongly Republican, yet elects a Democratic mayor whenever a

zations of business men, known as the Commercial Clubs, working in harmony, and an age of good feeling has begun. Minneapolis has just now celebrated the sixty-seventh birthday of Saint Paul's foremost citizen, James J. Hill, and Mr. Hill, president of the Great Northern Railroad Company, at the banquet in his honor, said to the assembled guests of Minneapolitans: "You are well placed here. We are interested in your welfare and your prosperity. We have over one-tenth of the railway mileage of the United States. You have more than twenty-two thousand miles of road that wishes you

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Republican mayor has not proved satisfactory, and within the last five years the city has once elected a Democrat to Congress and once given such a majority to a Democratic candidate for governor as to secure his election. From all this it will be correctly judged that the people of both cities are less partisan than some others, and more ready to support men for their qualities than for any label the candidates wear. The two cities are united by three lines of trolley cars, the best in the world, and intercourse between the people of the two cities is easy. Entertainments in one city are generously patronized by the people of the other city.

Matters of interest to both cities are carefully looked after by powerful organi

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well and that can help to build up and means to do everything that will put you forward, because it has no other interest that is higher or that is located elsewhere, and upon that I think your future rests upon a solid and substantial foundation.'

No one can doubt the correctness of Mr. Hill's judgment in this case. The Twin Cities are necessary to the Northwest and they are in a large sense already the servants of the people living in the smaller cities and on the prairies north and west, their sister city of Duluth on Lake Superior sharing with them in this service and having, like them, by reason of her usefulness and mission, a perfect assurance of perpetual though perhaps not uniform prosperity in the future.

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