better results, it can establish a general supervision over the
mining intelligence of the public, just as it does over the
agricultural intelligence of that public.


NEEDED: A FEDERAL BUREAU OF MINES

The enactment of good mining laws, punishing the proved intent to
commit a fraud as well as the fraud itself, and seeing to it that
capital stock shall be paid up, seeing to it also that all moneys
spent by a mining corporation shall be traceable from start to
finish, is the natural first step toward the purification of
American mining methods. Beyond that, the national government
could take a hand in the game through a federal Bureau of Mines.
There must be some clearing-house of intelligence and of values
in this country, some place from which our intelligence may start
and to which it may return. The public must have accessible
reports of engineers, state or federal, of a sort entitled to
confidence.

The nest of vermin in our large cities, inhabited by those who
make a living out of the ignorance and eagerness of small
investors, must be smoked out once and for all. In this work,
state and national governments, popular education and
intelligence, and the aid of the better class journalism of
America, all must be enlisted. The pages of our press might well
be far cleaner than they are. The publication which prints the
advertisements of a fake-mining enterprise is itself a party to
the fraud. A Bureau of Mines chief can sit behind the desk of
every advertising manager in the counting-rooms of every