Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 63, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1913 — Another Editor Joins the Ranks of Progress Knockers. [ARTICLE]

Another Editor Joins the Ranks of Progress Knockers.

Editor John Bowie of the Kankakee Valley - Bumblebee-Telephone Jou rnal-Republiean-Gazette, Is now asking to be, reimbursed for his services and expense in getting that twice-a-month train on 7 the ragweed central from Goodland-to Lacrosse. Not much patriotism nowadays.—Remington Press. > The above paragraph is a sample of the injustice that is inspired in the minds of two or three jealous editors.' The item is aM false and malicious as any lie ever fabrieated and the writer, H. J. Bartoo, had -absolutely no excuse for printing it. It is false in many respects. In the first place, Mr. Bowie never asked to be reimbursed for his services, nor for his expense. He was paid his expenses by the Wheatfield Improvement Association, who had the enterprise in charge. He made three or four trips to Indianapolis and will make another trip Thursday of this week. The result which he obtained was one of benefit to the towns and country all along the route and there is no reason why he should have borne his own expense and there Is no reason why the Wheatfield Improvement Association should have borne it all and the patriotic people along the route were willing to bear their just proportion, judged by ths many good things that have bfeen said about it. But John Bowie did not ask any one to pay for his services, and Bartoo, without any investigation and without any sense of fairness, has joined in a lie perpetrated from a source that has little regard for the truth when the castigation of an opponent is undertaken. The paragraph is false in the crude effort at humor in speaking of the Kankakee Valley Review with a string of pseudonyms, for The Review is a paper of many years’ standing and will compare favorably with any paper in this locality, while its editor is a good businessman, a good citizen, a fairminded man and has never raised his hand against any of the 2 by 4 editors who have tried to traduee him. He has never had but one name to his papers, that of The Review. He has given it a standing and himself a business rating that might well be the cause of jealousy by a certain class of hand-to-mouth publishers. The item is false in speaking of the train as being a twice-a-month affair. The train makes one round trip each way every day between Goodland and LaCrosse. For years there was no passenger train at all on the same road. Had it not been for the (organization of the Wheatfield Improvement Association there would have been no train. The plan adopted by that organization was to secure petitioners for the train all the way along the route. They made automobile trips and circulated petitions at Goodland, Mr. Ayr, Foresman, Fair Oaks, Kniman, Virgie, Wheatfield, Rensselaer, LaCrosse, Wilder, Dunn’s, and people unanimously signed the petition. When the Wheatfield Improvement Association made its big auto trip along the route of the C. & E. I. a stop was made at Remington and the businessmen of that town gave the boosters a glad hand. A visit was made at the Press office, and now, when an opportunity has arisen for a kindly word, the editor joins with The Jasper County Democrat In trying to undo what has been accomplished. A hearing was arranged and Mr. Bowie was chosen as the spokesman. He presented the claims so well that the state railway commission ordered the train. At hearings later he continued to represent the association. He received no pay for his work, he asked none, but he did receive his expenses and there is no reason why he shduld not have received it It was no lack of patriotism to take it. Can Bartoo or any of the other knockers point to any occasion where they performed a public act and paid their own expenses? It is not probably for in the first place the public would never have entrusted tothem any Important duty. And there you have it. Why these few editors should feel so lily disjxjsed toward Mr. Bowie and the enterprise he is associated with, is beyong understanding, but we wish to prophesy that he will ■ be forging ahead when these snarli ing puppets are lost in the obscurity of their own jealousies.