Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 54, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1915 — WOOD BILL KILLS SUBSIDY ASSISTANCE [ARTICLE]

WOOD BILL KILLS SUBSIDY ASSISTANCE

Law Bearing His -Name Amended With His Approval Will Practically Kill Tax Aid. Representative Wood, of White and Jasper counties, aided by Senator Bellou, of Lagrange, has contributed to the defeat of an interurban project through Jasper and White counties in a way almost as effectually as though he had had a single vote in determining whether townships had a right to vote tax subsidies and had transferred his vote to Frank E. Babcock, editor of the Jasper County Democrat, who has always opposed the voting of subsidies and who recently even argued that the construction of an interurban railroad would not be of material aid in the development of Rensselaer.

We are not certain that Representative Wood realized fully the effect of his measure. Frequently representatives who introduce bills at the request of others are unaware of the purpose the laws are expected to carry out. That Representative Wood knew that Marion township had always favored the voting of subsidies as a means of inducing the building of a railroad and that he proposed his measure with the enthusiastic endorsement of- Editor Babcock of The Jasper County Democrat and that he used The Democrat on the floor of the house in support of his measure is true, and also that v he did this in the very face of the fact that Marion township by a vote of six to one supported the last subsidy measure offered. Also that it was done at the very time when a project for a road through White, Jasper and Newton counties was pending and which he knew would ask subsidies in Marion and Newton townships in this county and in Princeton, West Point and Round Grove townships in White county. The measure as passed provides that before the county commissioners can order a subsidy election a petition must be filed signed by 75 resident freeholders of a township, who must themselves give bond for the expenses of the election. It is not probable that there are 75 resident freeholders in Newton township, but if there were two hundred or three hundred it would mean that the boosters who undertook the matter of aiding their township by this means would have many days of hard work for which they receive nothing and then would have to give a bond for the election expense. An effort was made to have the provision for the bond changed so that the railroad or beneficiary under the subsidy should give it instead of the petitioner but this was not done on the ground that the railroad could protect the petitioner by bond, a very roundabout way and still leaving the petitioner, who is essentially a booster for his neighbors, still liable. The idea of a majority ruling in any matter affecting the public is one quite thoroughly woven into the general fabric of our laws and completely into the honest opinions of our people, but in securing the passage of his measure Representative Wood has ignored the fact that in Marion township it was the will of six-sevenths of all the voters that tax aid be given an interurban project. By the passage of the Wood bill, if there were 200 people living in a township and every one of them desired to support a subsidy proposition they would have no choice to exercise their will unless there were 75 freeholders to sign a petition. As originally framed the Wood bill provided that only 25 petitioners were necessary and this would not have been out of the way, except that the bond for the expense of election should have been required of the railroad seeking the subsidy instead of the petitioners. In the senate, however, an amendment was offered by Senator Bellou to require 75 petitioners and no one being advised of the purpose of the measure, the amendment carried. The bill then went back to the house for concurrence and Representative Wood, still failing to appreciate the fact that only onein seven in Marion township had voted against the last subsidy proposition, moved that the house concur

in the amendment. O. L. Brown, the promoter of the Lafayette and Northwestern railroad, had expected to ask subsidy elections in Newton and Marion townships, in this county, and in Princeton, West Point and Round Grove townships in White county. It is quite certain that the Wood law’will defeat a possibility of subsidy elections in any of the townships named, unless it should be in Marion township and Rensselaer and so far as the effect is concerned it would have been practically as well to have passed a bill entirely repealing' the subsidy law. If it was the intention of Mr. Wood, as it was of Editor Babcock, to defeat the general plan of subsidies, thus ignoring sixsevenths of the people of communities like Rensselaer, it would have been even better to have killed the subsidy provision by a direct blow than to have made the legislation purely class by making it impossible for people in sparsely settled townships to have anything to say at all about their own business. The booster has been given a rebuff, majorities have been ignored and Representative Wood has assumed a guardianship over people who should have a fair degree of knowledge relating to their own business and their own desires.