The Best Kind of a Monumemt 



SHORT shrift was given in the Legislature to the bill 

 providing an appropriation for a monument to the 

 men and women who perished in the fire that destroyed 

 Spooner and Baudette. It was decided to let the measure 

 die in committee instead of reporting it to the House. 



While the spirit that prompted the originating of the bill 

 was unquestionable, the fact remains there would have been 

 little to gain by the erection of such a monument. Those 

 who lived in Minnesota during the Northern horror are not 

 likely to forget it. Every community in the northern part of 

 the state saw living examples of the terror and suffering of 

 those days, and communities many miles from the flames 

 experienced the pall of smoke that spread from the burning 

 forests and homes. 



A monument of the finest marble erected to the memory 

 of those who perished in the flames could add nothing to the 

 state of the victims or to the lesson the state learned in their 

 fate. But there is another kind of a monument that would 

 endure fully as long and would be of practical value to this 

 and the coming generations, and that is the establishment of 

 a system of forest preservation and protection for settlers 

 that would make certain that no other such disaster as that 

 which overtook Spooner and Baudette will ever come to 

 Minnesota. 



Such a monument would meet with the hearty approval 

 of every section of the state. If the members of the Legis- 

 lature will make provision for work of that character they 

 will not only be doing honor to the fire victims, but will be 

 making their losses and sufferings worth while, by showing 

 that the state has learned a lesson from their fate a lesson 

 that will not permit of a repetition of the event Duluth 

 Herald. 



