MINNESOTA 



3834 



MINNESOTA 



under contract to various companies, but since 

 that time they have been employed in the prison, 

 chiefly in the manufacture of binding twine 

 and farm machinery. These industries, besides 

 paying all the expenses in connection with the 

 prison, as well as wages for the prisoners, which 

 are sent to the families of the convicts, net the 

 state a good profit. 



Government. The constitution under which 

 Minnesota is governed dates from 1857; a ma- 

 jority of all the members of both houses, as 

 well as a majority of the voters at an election, 

 is necessary to its amendment. At the head of 

 the executive department is the governor. Other 

 officers are the lieutenant-governor, secretary of 

 state, treasurer, auditor and attorney-general, 

 all elected for a term of two years, except the 

 auditor, who holds office for four years. The 

 veto power of the governor has been extended 

 to separate items in the appropriation bills, and 

 a two-thirds vote of both houses is necessary to 

 pass any bill which the governor has vetoed. 



The legislature consists of the usual two 

 houses, a senate of sixty-three members, elected 

 for four years, and a house of representatives 



of 119 members, elected for two years. The 

 legislature meets in the odd-numbered years, 

 and no session may be longer than ninety legis- 

 lative days. No new bills may be introduced 

 within the last twenty days of a session except 

 by the governor's request. 



. The judicial department includes a supreme 

 court of five justices, elected at large for a six- 

 year term, and two commissioners appointed by 

 the court itself; district courts, each with one 

 or more judges, as the legislature may decide; 

 and probate courts, one for each county. There 

 are also justice courts which try petty cases and 

 are presided over by justices of the peace. 



Special Provisions. Minnesota has laws regu- 

 lating the kind of employment in which chil- 

 dren may engage, and the length of their work- 

 ing-day ; a law forbidding the sale of cigarettes ; 

 minimum-wage laws, and a mothers' pension 

 act. The liquor problem is in the county option 

 stage that is, the legal voters of any county 

 may by a majority vote provide that no saloon 

 license shall be issued therein. Women may 

 vote only at school or library elections. See 

 MINIMUM WAGE; MOTHERS' PENSIONS. 



History of Minnesota 



Discovery and Settlement. Minnesota is the 

 old Ojibwa territory the land where those leg- 

 ends grew up which Longfellow embodied in 

 Hiawatha; but these were not the only Indians 

 who lived there, for over the rolling prairies to 

 the south roamed the Sioux. In 1678 the first 

 European visited the territory. He was a 

 Frenchman, Duluth by name, who built a fort 

 on the north shore of Lake Superior, though 

 not on the site of the city which now bears his 

 name. Two years later the famous missionary- 

 explorer, Hennepin, discovered the Falls of 

 Saint Anthony, and word went out that the 

 woods and the rivers of the territory held great 

 treasures for the fur traders. By 1700 several 

 posts had been established and the claim of the 

 French to the region had been recognized. At 

 the close of the French and Indian War in 1763 

 England received from France the title to the 

 eastern part, and twenty years later transferred 

 it to the United States, but the western portion 

 was not acquired until 1803, when the United 

 States bought from France the great territory 

 of Louisiana (see LOUISIANA PURCHASE) . Zebu- 

 Ion Pike explored the country in 1805, and then 

 began an influx of settlers, but not until 1819 

 was the first permanent American settlement, 

 the military post of Fort Snelling, established. 



Territorial Years. The part of Minnesota 

 east of the Mississippi was for a time part of the 

 territory of Indiana, then, successively, of Michi- 

 gan and of Wisconsin, but not until 1838 did 

 the Indians finally cede their rights to the terri- 

 tory. Development, meanwhile, had been steady, 

 though slow. A mill was built at the Falls of 

 Saint Anthony in 1822, in the next year a steam- 

 boat ascended the Mississippi to the Falls, and 

 in 1836 lumbering on a commercial scale was 

 begun, great rafts of logs floating off down the 

 river, guided by skilful logmen. In 1841 there 

 was built, not far from the Falls of Saint An- 

 thony, a little chapel the Church of Saint 

 Paul, it was called; and this was the beginning 

 of the present capital city. 



In 1849, when the region had a population 

 of about 5,000, it was organized as the Terri- 

 tory of Minnesota, with boundaries stretching 

 far west to the Missouri River, but all the west- 

 ern portion was still held by the Indians. In 

 1851 they ceded their rights to the lands west 

 of the Mississippi, and settlers poured into the 

 newly-opened region so fast that by 1860 there 

 was a population of 172,023. Three years be- 

 fore this latter date, however, Minnesota was 

 admitted to the Union as the thirty-second 

 state, with its present boundaries. 



