THE CONFERENCE PROPER 



21 



time in- the same territory, it seems to me we 

 are going to have too much iron ore in the 

 future. At least the press so far has put too 

 much iron in the souls of Americans because 

 of some of the conditions which obtain. 



I am gratified to be able to bring to you — 

 and I am not here to advertise Minnesota 

 especially — my suggestion that we are suffi- 

 ciently conceited in Minnesota to think we 

 are going to be able to provide iron for the 

 world for a long time to come. As a matter 

 of news, and not particularly because it is of 

 interest, but because it is germane to some 

 extent to the subject here, we say that a few 

 years ago iron was first discovered in Minne- 

 sota. The conditions have been materially or 

 completely changed in the meantime. As a 

 matter of fact, when the Mesaba Range was 

 first opened up, no one thought the commer- 

 cial ore was of great value, being what they 

 called 60 per cent ore. Then it ran to 55 per 

 cent ore. That is almost the standard now. 

 Even out on the western part of the Mesaba 

 Range, they are mining very profitably 35 per 

 cent ore, because the steel companies under- 

 stand the conservation of their natural re- 

 sources. Because of a washing process, they 

 raise the standard of that ore to 50 or 55 per 

 cent for commercial uses. 



The great bodies of ore which have been 

 discovered have been made useful by the con- 

 servation of their resources. West of the 

 Mesaba Range we are opening what they call 

 the Cayuna Range, and the ore is in very 

 much deeper bodies, not of so high grade, but 

 all new. The most sanguine promoters, if I 

 might use that term, declare that the finding 

 of ore on the Cayuna Range will vastly eclipse 

 the Mesaba Range ; so that we have every 

 reason to believe that within a few years we 

 are going to develop sufficient bodies of ore 

 to take care of all needs of this country for 

 the next two hundred years, and as Mr. Cole, 

 the general superintendent of the Oliver Min- 

 ing Company, said, something like a year ago, 

 when I was talking to him about it, "We have 

 just begun to scratch the earth." I do not 

 say that in a spirit of boastfulness, so far as 

 Minnesota is concerned, or so far as the Na- 

 tional Government is concerned. It is a matter 

 of humiliation to me to know that those great 

 iron resources of the country at one time be- 

 longed to the Federal Government and later 

 to the government of the State of Minnesota, 

 and by reason of the lack of interest of the 

 people in the conservation and ownership of 

 their natural resources, they have_ allowed 

 them to pass into the hands of special inter- 

 ests. They are there and they belong not to 

 the National Government, nor to the State of 

 Minnesota, except in small degree. It is very 

 important the National Government and the 

 State government should conserve that which 

 they do own and see to it that it does not pass 

 into the hands of private owners in the future. 

 But it is a matter of humiliation that it has 

 gone as far as it has and into the hands of 

 private parties. 



Let me say in behalf, too, of the private 

 individuals who own it, that owning a private 



enterprise means the conservation of their 

 natural resources. There is no question of 

 the interest of the steel company in the pro- 

 tection and preservation of their own prop- 

 erty, and because it is a private enterprise 

 they will look after the details of their busi- 

 ness much better and much more closely than 

 State or governmental enterprises are looked 

 after. Because of the things they have done, 

 the Federal Government and the State gov- 

 ernment too, can learn a very valuable lesson, 

 and that is, in all material things, at least, to 

 conduct their business on the same broad 

 lines of business interest which characterize a 

 successful business man in the conduct of his 

 private affairs. When we have divorced our 

 public business from political considerations — 

 and I was much moved by a remark, I think 

 by the President yesterday, who said that this 

 should not be made the vehicle for the en- 

 hancement of any political fortunes — then the 

 situation will be more tolerable. If we will 

 use as a measure of public good, using for 

 our own benefit and our own advantage, the 

 lessons which come to us from successful 

 business men's enterprises, we will do much 

 to conserve our natural resources in that par- 

 ticular direction. 



Now, this steel company I have mentioned 

 not only owns mines in Minnesota, but mines 

 in Alabama — and when I speak of Alabama I 

 mean the Birmingham district — and has, by 

 reason of experience, learned to conserve nat- 

 ural resources, and I am quite amused, so far 

 as the iron industry is concerned, to hear peo- 

 ple talk about the waste. 



In the Mesaba country, as a matter of fact, 

 I want to say it is all open pit mining, not the 

 underground mining. That is still done some- 

 what on the Vermillion Range, but in the 

 Mesaba Range, the greatest iron range in the 

 world, it is all done by open pit mining, just 

 as you would strip off a quarry or a sand pit 

 and then start to dig the open ore, and there 

 is absolutely no waste to it at all. 



I am not going to discuss the matter any 

 further than to say that I do take an opti- 

 mistic view of the situation. 



They say while there are billions of tons of 

 ore, possibly the grade is low. The average 

 grade would probably run 50 per cent in the 

 Mesaba Range. The Krupp works, in Ger- 

 many, do business with iron which averages 

 29 per cent, and if they can use the average 

 standard of ore in Germany, and that average 

 is 29 per cent, I think no particular alarm is 

 to be felt about Mmnesota ore. 



I realize iron is a different proposition 

 from that which we meet with in coal, for 

 instance, because the iron is not, after all, 

 destroyed. It is like some of the other min- 

 erals — always with us in some form or other. 

 When coal is consumed, it is gone forever. 

 It is not entirely so with iron ore. We are 

 not particularly alarmed with that particular 

 feature of it in our country. We are inter- 

 ested so far as the development of iron inter- 

 ests is concerned, and the conservation of the 

 natural resources, because the conservation 

 thereof, in my judgment, if it means anything. 



