The future fate of Northern Minnesota lies in the 

 hands of the legislature, as did the past. 



A TRIBUTE TO THE RANGERS 



PEOPLE have been so appalled by the horrible loss 

 of Iffe and the enormous destruction of property in 

 the forest fires in the North that few have stopped to 

 think how much worse it might have been. What if 

 those fires had started in the western edge of the 

 Northern forests and swept from Bemidji to Port Ar- 

 thur on a wide unbroken front instead of starting as 

 they did on the eastern edge and running compara- 

 tively short distances in very narrow strips ? Who can 

 even imagine the losses then? And why didn't that 

 very thing happen ? The stage was set for it and Dame 

 Nature had seen to it that no detail was lacking. But 

 there was one obstacle on which she had not counted. 



Perhaps she thought that little band of rangers and 

 patrolmen, pitifully few in numbers for the work in 

 hand, could be ignored? Perhaps, like so many of our 

 good citizens, she did not know that they existed? Be 

 that as it may, if she had planned to destroy the whole 

 North country, it was there that she made her fatal 

 mistake, for it was that little bunch of efficient, loyal 

 and determined men, neglected by the state and work- 

 ing against tremendous odds, who upset the plans for 

 state-wide destruction and converted it into a local 

 catastrophe. 



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