1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Minnesota

MINNESOTA (see ). The pop. of the state in 1920 was 2,387,125 as against 2,075,708 in 1910, an increase of 311,417, or 15% for the decade, as against an increase of 324,314, or 18.5% for the preceding decade. The total white pop. was 2,368,936, of whom 1,882,772 were natives and 486,164 foreign-born. Negroes numbered 8,809 and Indians 8,761. The density was 29.5 per sq. m.; 25.7 in 1910. The urban pop. (in places having over 2,500 inhabitants) was 1,051,593, or 44.1%, in 1920, 41.0% in 1910, and the rural pop. 1,335,532, or 55.9%; 59.0% in 1910. The following table gives the pop. and the percentage of increase of cities having more than 10,000 inhabitants in 1920.

Government.&mdash;In 1921 the state's machinery for the supervision of labour was reorganized. An industrial commission of three members appointed by the governor superseded the single commissioner previously controlling the Department of Labour. As reorganized, the Department consists of seven divisions: workmen's compensation, boiler inspection, accident prevention, statistics, women and children, employment and mediation and arbitration. The law creating the industrial commission vests it with special powers and duties: (1) to administer the workmen's compensation law; (2) to establish and conduct free employment agencies, supervise the work of private employment agencies, and deal with the problem of unemployment; and (3) to promote voluntary arbitration in labour disputes by

if desirable, temporary boards of arbitration or conciliation and by conducting investigations and hearings.

History.&mdash;The most important political movement of recent years was the growth of the Non-partizan League. The League, organized in North Dakota in 1915 by Arthur C Townley, aimed to secure &ldquo;state ownership of elevators, flour-mills, packing-houses and cold-storage plants, the central equipment concerned with the marketing of the farmers' products.&rdquo; The League's organizers began to work in Minnesota in 1916, and in Jan. 1917 its national headquarters were established in St. Paul. To enlist support from the urban population the League attempted to ally itself with labour, through the organization of a Working People's Non-partizan Political League. In June 1920 this movement nearly captured the Republican primary in spite of the fact that the regular Republicans held a pre-primary convention to choose one candidate on whom they should concentrate their votes. Organized labour has rapidly increased its membership, the figures of July 1920 indicating 717 labour unions with a membership of over 90,000. The members of over 80% of the unions reporting to the state Department of Labour received wage increases during the biennium 1918-20. In the same period the Department received reports on 74 strikes, involving 51,940 persons.

The following governors held office after 1909: Albert Olson Eberhart (Rep.), 1900-15; Winfield Scott Hammond (Dem.) (died in office), Jan.-Dec. 1915; Joseph A. A. Burnquist (Rep.), 1915-21; Jacob A. O. Preus (Rep.), 1921-.

During the World War the Minnesota National Guard, after serving on the Mexican border in 1916-7, was incorporated in the army, and a total of 123,325 Minnesota men by enlistment and draft entered various arms of the service. The 151st U.S. Field Artillery and Base Hospital No. 26 were probably the most distinctively Minnesotan units in the service. War training schools in Minnesota included the reserve officers' training camps at Fort Snelling, the U.S. Air Service Mechanics' School in St. Paul, the Dunwoody Naval Training Station in Minneapolis, and the Students' Army Training Corps, organized at the state university and at numerous smaller colleges and schools. In order that &ldquo;Minnesota might have, during the period of the war, a governing body capable of efficiently mobilizing its resources in men and property, and applying them to the war's successful prosecution,&rdquo; the Legislature in April 1917 created the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety, the first of such commissions in the United States, and appropriated $1,000,000 for its use. The people of Minnesota purchased $483,642,950 worth of Liberty Bonds and war savings stamps and contributed about $10,000,000 to war relief agencies. (S. J. B.)