Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 May 1900 — Another Railroad Proposition. [ARTICLE]

Another Railroad Proposition.

Tbe Rensselaer Republican, a sheet that has always stood for and advocated every skin-game for bleeding the taxpayers of Jasper county for tbe past quarter of a century, and is now the mouthpiece of Railroad Promoter Gifford, says in its Tut s lay issue: B. J. Gifford is in town today, and petitions are being drawn up, asking for elections to vote on the question of aid for the C. & W. V. R. R. for Barkley, Marion, Jordan and Carpenter townships. It is proposed to ask for a bonus equal to one and a half per cent, of assessed valuation in each of these townships. This is with the understanding that if the railroad is built it will be over the new route direct from the town of Gifford to Rensselaer, and further, as we understand, to follow the wishes of Jordan, and Remington people as to where it crosses Jordan, and enters Remington. If these taxes are voted Mr. Gifford will at once proceed to survey the proposed line and find the cost of building a road over it, and the cost of right-of-way and if he finds that he r can afford to build the road here, for the bonuses offered . he will do so. if he finds otherwise he will say so and no one will be out very much. There you have it. Go to the expense of holding the elections, and, if the tax is voted, and Mr. Gifford finds he can build the road and have a neat sum left, why perhaps he will go ahead sometime and build it. If he thinks otherwise he will not. Will the people be fools enough to petition for an election and go to an expense of several hundred dollars on any such “heads I win, tails you lose” proposition as that? The Democrat long ago dropped Gifford and his railroad schemes and we believe a large majority of the people have at last seen that we were not far wrong when we did so.