THE PRESIDENCY: Iron Country

President Coolidge celebrated the close of his fifth year in office with a short railroad trip. It is only about a three-hour journey from Cedar Island lodge to a place called Hibbing in the Minnesota hinterland. Thither the President journeyed in a special train provided by U. S. Steel Corp., a train that had been examined and guarded with utmost care for 48 hours before its great passenger went aboard. Steel Corporation guards were posted at switches and trestles. Some 700 American Legion men were mobilized for guard duty at stations. No spectator was allowed to approach within 300 yards of the train when it stopped. Dozens of persons suspected of discontent about Labor’s condition were temporarily deported from the region. Everything was prearranged so carefully that almost nothing happened to remember the event by. Yet it was an historic event.

It was Calvin Coolidge, apostle of Prosperity, visiting perhaps the greatest single source of Prosperity in the U. S. The low mountains of Itasca and St. Louis counties are, literally, mountains of iron. Near Hibbing, where the earth gives an enormous red yawn, is the Hull-Rust Mine, the largest open-pit iron ore mine in the world.

Thirty-six years ago, when Calvin Coolidge was a countrified freshman at Amherst, a train of cars creaked down from the Mesaba Range, where Hibbing was to be built, bearing the first shipment of blood-colored rocks and dust.* Today the Mesaba district produces 63 million tons of iron ore per annum, four-fifths the total consumption of the U. S. In 1892, the iron ranges of Wisconsin and the Michigan peninsula—Gogebic, Florence, Menominee—had been developed for over a decade. They were the first answer to Railroader James J. Hill’s gloomy prediction that the world’s supply of iron was approaching exhaustion. By 1902, the Minnesota deposits, almost unlimited, were yielding more than the mines, were outranking the Michigan and Wisconsin ranges. The Minnesota ore lay right at the earth’s surface, or buried only a few feet. The iron-bearing substance was earthy, not rocky. All that men had to do was shovel it up and cart it away to the smelters.

On the train with President Coolidge rode Pentecost Mitchell of Duluth, whose father organized the first mining company on the Mesaba. Mr. Mitchell, president of U. S. Steel Corp.’s potent subsidiary, Oliver Iron Mining Co., doubtless referred to the fact that a rich part of the Mesaba used to belong to the Federal-Government, before iron was discovered there. It was traded to the State of Minnesota and now is operated by U. S. Steel Corp. on a royalty basis. Township taxes on the mining properties have made Hibbing one of the richest communities in the land. The miners who live there pay a nominal price for the heat that is piped to their shacks and frame houses from a municipal heating plant. Their children go to high school in a $4,500,000 edifice.

When the party reached the Hull-Rust mine, the President walked out on a platform erected for the occasion and gazed down into the hole that the iron diggers had made after 36 years of steady work. It was a mile and a quarter in diameter and a quarter-mile deep. Small figures moved about at its bottom and all around the sides, operating toy machines—steam shovels which take 16 tons of ore ($100 worth) at a bite. Spiralling up around the sides of the hole were railroad tracks, with miniature locomotives dragging out trainloads of Steel Age protoplasm. The President stood and gazed, for five minutes. Then he inspected the Hibbing high school; proceeded to Virginia, Minn., to see more mining and the Rainy Lake Lumber Mill (world’s largest for white pine); returned to the Brule.

¶ Leaving Virginia, Minn., John Coolidge, who had accompanied his father and mother to see the iron mines, put on a black slicker, a red bandanna, a cap and goggles; climbed into the cab of the locomotive; handled the throttle on straight stretches of track.

¶Two sunburned young gentlemen in nobby sports clothes called at the executive offices in Superior and were introduced to President Coolidge as Johnny Farrell and Gene Sarazen, respectively, present and onetime (1922) national open golf champions. President Coolidge said: “John is the golfer in our family.”

¶ President Coolidge approved a schedule of pay increases, between $60 and $400 per annum, for some 5,400 employes of the Navy Department in offices outside of Washington—employes overlooked by the Welch Act, which Congress passed last Spring (TIME, April 2; May 21).

¶ President Coolidge made known that postal rates might have to be raised again in view of the Interstate Commerce Commission’s ordering the Post Office Department to pay to the railroads of the U. S. a 15% increase in carrying charges (retroactive to 1925). Rates were restored to lower levels by the Griest Act, passed only last Spring by Congress (TIME, April 16; June 4). This matter was one of many which the President wanted to discuss with Brig. Gen. Herbert Mayhew Lord, Director of the Budget, who arrived at Brule for a visit.

¶ Brigadier General Lord, Director of the Budget, personally gave the President his estimate of national expenses for 1930. It called for $3,700,000,000. The President spent a day studying it.

¶ Senator Porter Hinman Dale of Vermont asked the President questions. The President answered fewer than he asked himself. He told Senator Dale that he considered Nominee Hoover’s popularity with the electorate more than sufficient to elect him.

¶ President Coolidge was presented with stuffed animals to decorate his office in Superior—a deer’s head, a fox, a fisher, a wall-eyed pike, a white owl. The fisher (weasel family) reminded its recipient of an ancient trapper whom he had known in New England. The trapper had said he would catch a fisher, sell the skin for $10, buy a set of false teeth for his wife. The President’s reminiscence concluded: “He was successful.”

¶To King Alfonso of Spain went a message signed by President Coolidge conveying appreciation of a royal visit aboard the U.S.S. Detroit (cruiser) after the trans-Atlantic yacht race last fortnight.

¶ To Richard C. Callen, U. S. Marshal in Denver, Colo., went, a special warrant signed by President Coolidge and Secretary of State Kellogg for the arrest and extradition from France of Henry M. Blackmer, fugitive from justice. Mr. Blackmer was a partner of Oilman Harry F. Sinclair in the Continental Trading Co., of Teapot Dome ill-fame. After banking his $736,000 share of profits, he fled the country when the Continental Trading Co. was investigated by the U. S. He refused to return to testify. Tax liens and penalties of $8,498,935.78 were piled up against him by the Government. Last week, he had to flee France or submit to detention by French officials until Marshal Callen should arrive to fetch him.

¶ President Coolidge picked up one of his new gift shotguns, strode to his new gun butts (TIME, Aug. 6), broke seven of the first nine clay pigeons that were whirred in front of him.

* Red iron ore is called “hematite.” Magnetite, another iron ore, is black; limonite, another, yellowish-brown.