Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1899 — COMMUNICATED. [ARTICLE]

COMMUNICATED.

Charity is recognized as the greatest of all virtues, the greatest of all attributes that fit us for a home in the great beyond. There are three kinds of charity. A charity that begins at home for our own home circle; another charity that helps others who are in need, and still another charity that helps others who are neither entitled to it by law or morals. And that kind of charity has a limit when the other fellow recognizes only might as right, for the turn in the road will surely appear; and if there is a class of citizens who haye a better right to protest against a charity that has no legitimate standing in equity or morals it mustrbe the honest taxpayers of Union tp., silently protesting against unwnranted usurpation of positive law governing the building and maintaining of public highways in Indiana. The law is not only positive but plain on this point. When the proper proceedings have been complied with and a good road or roads been granted, it becomes the sworn duty of the trustee in the township where the road or roads have been granted by petition to immediately order said road to be opened, made and maintained the year round in a good passable condition, and according to the latest rulings of our higher courts, if the projier officer fails through carelessness to maintain said road in a passable condition at all times, any taxpayer can maintain action against said officer commensurate with his neglect in office. The fine is imposed upon the offending officer in the opinion of the court by the inconvenience or damage the traveling public sustains in going over a poorly constructed or illy maintained road. The piece of road in dispute is on a one-half section line 4| miles north of Rensselaer, where the Iroquois overflows about 4 mile of it. 1 " It is wholly in Marion tp., and by every consideration of right and justice Marion is bcund by the law as well as honor to maintain that part of the road within her borders the year round in a good passable condition. James Babcock is the trustee of Marion tp. and it is his sworn duty to maintain the road in good passable shape, and we presume he would take offense at us if we should say to him, you are knowingly and willfully violating the statute law you are sworn to obey. Marion has been persistently agressive against Union ever since the road was granted. Not only that, but unfairly and sneakingly agressive, for it has only been about two years since a petition was circulated in secret to throw the whole of that road “known as the Jasper county sinking fund” from Marion to Union in order to compel poor little Union to bear all the expense of maintaining same, when everybody knows that she is least able to bear it, while it is an indisputable. fact that Marion ai d the modernized hub of the universe, “Rensselaer,” gets the bulk of the benefits of said road, as six townships find their outlet to Rensselaer over it. Your wailing cry against the expense of maintaining a passable road wholly in your borders ns well as to shift the expense on Union, i-s not only a reproach on your intelligence but a reproach on your honesty, justice and good intentions towards your neighbor, Union. The excuse you make, that of spending so much money on your gravel roads to shift the expense on Union to maintain a road in your borders comes with bad grace. Union is making her roads in a permanent manner as fast as her means will allow, and we ask no odds from Marion on that score. But be do object to build and maintain our own roads and Marion’s, too, at our own expense. We make the charge against Marion that it does not object to the expense put upon it 3 own roadjin an honest spirit of economy but in a mean, measley spirit of might makes right. Sirs, if you are sincere in you flirtation with economy why did you allow Ben Farris of Gillam, ai chairman of the Hon. Board of Commissioners of Jasper county, to make and sign a contract for your gravel roads that enabled the contractor to net above all expense SB,OOO on his contract. (Abraham Halleekis our authority for the statement that SB,OOO clear money was made on this contract.) By straining at the knat you have probably swallowed the camel. We can’t conceive in our limited range of vision how an equitable and just contract between Marion and the contractor could enable the contractor to net SB,OOO on so small a contract as your gravel roads were. But experience teaches us that the amount of money paid out on your gravel roads with such a prodigal band can nowhere be spent only through questionable means and by the hands of bood-

lers. No, my advice to you is this; Do not despoil your taxpayers again by squandering thousands of dollars of their hard earned money upon a pet contractor, fin an excess of a reasonable amount and then act dishonorable and penerious in the extreme to a weaker neighbor who is your equal in the two general attributes, integrity and honesty, which go a long way towards building up civilized communities.

FRANK J. GANT,

Kniman, Jan. 8, 1899.