Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1905 — NOW BE STILL, HARRY. [ARTICLE]

NOW BE STILL, HARRY.

Newton County Enterprise: The quiet and peaceful Kankakee river is a great source of trouble to the residents of Jasper county, and they keep plunging into it, first in one spot and then another. For seeming revenge the old river gets on a rampage occasionally and drowns a few of her tormentors, and washes out the crops of others, but the nagging goes merrily on. First is a scheme to tear out the bottom and rip off a few feet of its sides, but this project gets only well under headway when someone else comes forward with a plan to amputate its crooks and bends and make it flow in a straight and narrow way never intended by nature. The latest joke the people of that county are trying to perpetrate on the helpless stream is to have it declared navigable. But for what purpose the Lord only knows. It is already navigable to mud turtles and muskrats, and that is probably all it will ever be fit for. The last legislature passed a law by which Boards of County Commissioners are authorized to declare streams navigable on petition of 24 freeholders, but where in the world did they ever find 24 - freeholders in Jasper county brave enough to father such a seemingly senseless proposition. The Republican says there are already some thirty boats on the Kankakee that are propelled by either steam or gasoline, and probably the idea is to make the river a pleasure resort.’ But then when Tom McCoy gathers up his sporting vessels from around Jerry’s Island the charm of the place will have gone, and with it we see the death of the last scheme.