Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1911 — PASSES UP RENSSELAER [ARTICLE]

PASSES UP RENSSELAER

Purtelle Says We’re Not Game Sports, and Will Go Hence With His Railroad. The efforts to raise SSOO by subscription last Thursday and Friday to assist promotor Eugene Purtelle in paying his debts in Rensselaer proved futile, and after two days of active canvassing for the filthly lucre the committee gave up in disgust with only half of the amount subscribed! Then Purtelle shook the dust of Rensselaer from his feet Saturday morning with the threat that he would pvt his railroad in his pocket and run from Mt. Ayr to Goodland —if Goodland was, sporty enough to put up the dough for him —and Rensselaer could go to Halifax or some other seaport town. In the meantime the holders of Purtelle checks in Rensselaer are still holding them, and are likely to continue to do so, as it was a condition of the subscriptions secured that none was to be paid unless the full SSOO was subscribed. It is said that a board bill at the Makeever House is also unsettled, and, if so, the slippery promotor can be dealt with pretty harshly if the hotel people desire to do so, it being a criminal offense to attempt to beat a hotel or boarding house. It is not now generally believed here'that Purtelle had any financial backing at all in his railroad scheme. What actual money he has spent he has no doubt secured from the sale of stock and cash contributions

from credulous people. It is known that he tried to get cash from monied people here, and tried St. Joseph’s College president to give him a thousand dollars in cash, which had the latter been easy enough to have done, the public would have been kept in ignorance of the fact[ and the promotor could have gone on a little longer and hood-winked people into believing there really was something behind him.: But he has evidently found, other people easier than Father Seifert; much as the latter wanted the road, and- this has been* the source of the “work” he has done on the line —that is, what work has been paid for. A i What little confidence remained in Rensselaer in Purtelle and his schemes has now been shattered and he is completely down and out here. That we will some time get an electric road through here, we have confidence, but it must be promoted by a different sort of man than Eugene Pur-, telle—someone who inspires confidence rathe r than suspicion. The Democrat has been consistent from the first, and people who have watched its course on all public questions must acknowledge that it is almost invariably on the right side.

While The Democrat wants to see an electric road built through Rensselaer and is ready to do all it can honorably to help the project along, it has known too much of Purtelle and his methods from the first to feel that it could conscientiously urge people to bite on his bait. It has said “give him all the moral support possible but keep your hand on your pocketbook.” Many people who have been misled by others no doubt now wish they had taken The Democrat’s advice.