I close this story with an illustration of where the money goes. One of the great mining kings of Montana is W. A. Clark, who bought himself into the United States Senate, and was kicked out again because it was proven that his agents had dropped thousand dollar bills over the transoms of the hotel rooms of state legislators. Senator Clark had to get this money back somehow, so he sold the city of Butte a site for the high school, at a cost of seventy-five thousand dollars. But there is no high school on this site, for the reason that the children would have to go through the redlight district to reach the school, and one mother publicly declared that she would burn this school down rather than have the children attend it. After this you will be prepared to learn that ex-Senator Clark’s newspaper, the Butte “Daily Miner,” forever proclaims the sacredness of the schools. One more illustration of the intense concern of the copper interests for education. You will suspect me of making up this story, because it sounds like a piece of symbolism—it might come straight from a play by Ibsen or Charles Rann Kennedy. The Anaconda discovered a vein of copper immediately underneath the Jefferson School, and has been occupied for several years in undermining the school. Now the walls of the building have begun to crack; but needless to say, the taxpayers are not getting compensation for the ruin of a school building. Nothing has been done about it, because this is an “East Side” school, where only the children of miners attend. When the building collapses, the Anaconda will head the relief list by a subscription of a hundred dollars. Butte now has a new superintendent, who comes from Columbia University, and writes me that he was appointed as an educator and not as a politician. He tells me that neither he nor the school board would attempt to control outside activities of teachers, and that they are perfectly free to join a union if they wish. I trust they will not fail to act upon this information; and I wish Superintendent Douglass good luck in keeping out of Butte politics! CHAPTER XXXI THE LITTLE ANACONDAS While we are in this mountain country, let us see what is going on throughout the state. The financial agents of the Anaconda, known as the Montana Bankers’ Association, passed a resolution to take charge of the schools; and Mr. W. J. Hannah, who lives at Big Timber, and is a member of the county high school board, also for a dozen years chairman of a rural school board, wrote to their educational committee to ask what they meant by this. In reply they informed him that they intended to appoint teachers, select text-books, and deliver lectures, and thereby inculcate respect for the money-changers of Montana.