AMERICAN SCENE: Minnesota: A State That Works

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carcinogenic asbestos particles in their drinking water. At the same time, the Reserve Mining Co. is dumping thousands of tons of taconite tailings into Lake Superior every day, polluting the once limpid waters. Contentment can sometimes amount to middle-class complacency. Once, in its years in the cultural wilderness, Sauk Centre, Minn., was Sinclair Lewis' Main Street, his symbol for a kind of porcine American self-satisfaction: "The contentment of the quiet dead . . . dullness made God."

Some argue that Minnesota works a bit too well and too blandly, that its comparatively open and serene population is a decade or two behind the rest of the U.S. The place lacks the fire, urgency and self-accusation of states with massive urban centers and problems. Minnesota's people are overwhelmingly white (98%), most of them solidly rooted in the middle class. Blacks rioted in Minneapolis in 1966 and 1967, but with only 1% of the state's population, they have not yet forced Minnesotans into any serious racial confrontation. Or at least, not an apocalyptic confrontation.

Minnesotans are proud of that. After the 1967 riots, in the intelligently direct style of most Minnesota politics, businessmen, civil rights leaders and educators met to organize the first Urban Coalition chapter in the country. Today blacks are often among the state's more enthusiastic boosters. Says Gleason Glover, executive director of the Minneapolis Urban League: "For a black, Minneapolis is one of the truly outstanding cities in the U.S. to live in. The problems here—housing, education, discrimination, unemployment—are manageable ... There just isn't the real, deep-seated hatred here that blacks often encounter in other cities." Two black state legislators were elected last fall from predominantly white middle-class suburban districts.

The state's other significant minority, its 23,000 Indians, most of them Chippewa, are clearly the most poverty-stricken residents. About half of them live in the Twin Cities, mainly in Minneapolis, in a tight ghetto that is the only really shabby area of town. The other half live on seven reservations, also in poverty, but with considerably more dignity. The Red Lake Chippewa are developing a logging industry, a sawmill and a small fish cannery. At Grand Portage Reservation in Northeastern Minnesota, the tribe is planning a resort complex. Says Ernie Landgren, 38: "Now we've got more opportunities. Sure, unemployment is high on the reservations, but things are improving."

Minnesota's economy is a fairly well-balanced mix of manufacturing, agriculture and services. Fur, northern pine, wheat and iron ore once were the dominant forces. Manufacturing displaced farming as the major source of income in 1952. Though farm and forest products remain a vital part of the economy, the gap has been widening. Over the past ten years, Minnesota has become one of the nation's leading "brain-industry" centers—more than 170 electronic and related technical businesses now employ more than 70,000 people. Food companies, however, still lead the state in employment. Minneapolis-based companies produce more than half the cakes in the nation, for example. Minnesota leads the U.S. in butter production, is second in dry milk, third in meat production.

The state's per capita income of