Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1909 — NOT A QUESTION OF BUSINESS RIVALRY. [ARTICLE]

NOT A QUESTION OF BUSINESS RIVALRY.

The Jasper County Democrat “picks a crow” with the Winamac Bridge company on complaint of Wallace Marshall of the Lafayette Bridge company. At this distance it looks like a “squeal” from a defeated bidder for bridge contracts.— Winamac JournalThe Jasper County Democrat doesn’t do anything of the kind. The charges of substituting lighter weight iron in the Milroy tp., bridge thus scaling it down all the way through so that there was a plain steal of S3OO to $350 in the contract, was openly charged by the president of the Lafayette Bridge Co. The Democrat simply published Mr. Marshall’s charges. If true, the officers of the Winamac Bridge Co-, have been robbing Jasper county and should be made to suffer the full penalty of the law. If untrue, the officers so the bridge company should be the first to ask for a thorough investigation of the charges in justice to themselves, and Mr. Marshall should be prosecuted for damages by them. Mr. Marshall, in making * the charges, stated that he was responsible for what he said, and that he stood ready to substantiate the truth of every word of the charges made. If the Winamac Bridge Co., does not want to rest under such grave charges—and no honest firm would —it would look very much to us as if it was up to it to “call” Mr. Marshall’s bluff, if bluff it was. The taxpayers of Jasper county are also interested greatly. If the Winamac Bridge Cot, has been underbiding other coucerns from SIOO to $l5O on each bridge and then

substituting material of S3OO to SSOO less value than that called for in the specifications, we have been paying for something we did not get, and the steal has been of more consequence than the mere difference in profit these people have madeIf, fori instance, it was necessary to have iron of certain dimensions to make a substantial and durable bridge across a stream or ditch, and iroi* of % or 1-3 lesser dimensions is put in, it doesn’t require a very active brain to figure out where the county has been buncoed good and hard. Instead of attempting tozlaugh these charges off, the Journal would better insist that its home concern clear its skirts of these charges.