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Show Billboards Doomed; Scenery Preserved Minnesota, the Land of Ten Thousand Thou-sand Lakes, is leading the way to ban the billboard. Last winter at the! request of numerous civic organiza- tions a law was passed requiring ad- vertisements be removed from public : highways before December 1, this : year, says the N. E. A. Bulletin. The ! agitation still continues and the pre-! diction is freely made that a bill ask- 1 ing for the removal of all advertising signs bordering highways will be in-J troduced at the next ession of the Legislature. Anticipating the trend of signboard sign-board legislation, Ray P. Chase, state auditor, in a letter to C. M. Babcock, commissioner of highways, has announced an-nounced his decision to refuse rent-1 jng state-owned land for signboard ' purposes. "Within the last few weeks," says Mr. Chase, "this office has received ! numerous requests for permits to! erect billboards on state lands. I j have ruled that no state lands shall be leased for billboard purposes, j This is in line with the legislative , intent, as evidenced by Section 11, j Chapter 439, Laws of 1923, which re- j quire that advertisement be removed j from public highways prior to Decern- j ber 1, and with the policy of your de-1 partment as I understand it to be." "I am certain that this ruling will work no hardship on advertisers," Mr. Chase continues, "since the newspapers news-papers of the state are entirely adequate ade-quate to carry their message to the public. "It will work no hardship on billboard bill-board companies, since it will prevent pre-vent the initial financial outlay for erection of the boards. "It will operate as a safety measure meas-ure to the extent that it will prevent the construction of billboards which obstruct the view and distract the attention at dangerous cross-roads and corners." That he personally is in favor of entirely- eliminating the roadside billboards bill-boards for esthetic reasons is indicated indi-cated by Mr. Chase in his concluding paragraph, when he says: "It will be another step to preserve pre-serve the scenic beauties of Minnesota Minne-sota and prevent their disgifuremeni by commercial advertisers. We have barely started the tourist industry ! in Minnesota. Tourists, in increasing ! thouands ,are coming into our state to admire its beauties, enjoy its climate cli-mate and partake of its hospitality. The entertainment of these guests will be an increasingly profitable business. The state is making every effort to produce highways which will make tourist travel in Minnesota a pleasure. So far as this department can, we shall make every effort to preserve and conserve our resources in timber, lakes and streams." Comment on this situation by papers pa-pers in other states may bring about similar reform in other parts of the country because it is certainly too bad to have the wonders of nature disfigured with ugly signs. |