Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 103, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 April 1915 — WILL ASK FOR SUBSIDES HERE [ARTICLE]

WILL ASK FOR SUBSIDES HERE

Promotors of Proposed L. & N. W. Railroad Change Front. "GRAB ALL YOU CAN GET" Seems Now to Be Motto of Promotors Who Formerly Denounced the Subsidy Scheme As Reprehensible. That O. L. Brown and his co-con spirators or promotors of the socalled Lafayette & Northwestern electric road are in about the same class of subsidy-hunters with which Jasper county has been harrassed for many years, would seem to be shown by the activities now being made in trying to get subsidies voted along the line of this proposed paper road, although it is not many moons back that he was denouncing the subsidy plan as a thing to be frowned upon by the voters; said that it was a relic of the “dark ages’’ and was no longer permitted in but three states in the union. It is generally known that he and his co-workers vigorously opposed the voting of subsidies to the defunct—at least, like all those before it, it is supposed to now be defunct—lndiana Northwestern Traction Company, and because of remarks they are alleged to have made in opposing same, the aforesaid company begun an action against Brow T n and several others for $50,000 damages in the federal court at Indianapolis, which case was later dismissed. We only mention these matters here because of the fact/ that the aforesaid Lafayette & Northwestern Railroad Company, of which Mr. Brown is the president and the general manager, as we understand, is now asking for subsidies in Jackson and Beaver townships, Newton county, where elections have already been called, and his agents are also circulating petitions for like elections in White county, and Marion and Newton townships, Jasper county, through which the proposed line has been surveyed. Mr. Brown had all along talked against any subsidy, and the first time he was ever in Rensselaer he called at The Democrat office and told us we could say that his company “would ask for no subsidies.”

The effort being made now, it is paid, is to get in ahead of the new subsidy law passed by the recent legislature, which carries no emergency clause and therefore does not go into effect until the laws are put in force by proclamation of the governor, which will probably be about April 15. It is the intention, it is reported, to get these petitions filed with the board of commissioners so that they can be acted upon at their meeting next week, and thus forestall the new Wood law. It is to be hoped tihat our commissioners will decline to be parties to any such slick work as this, and will refuse to accept the petitions because of the evident desire to defeat the provisions of a law which will be in effect when the elections would be held, if ordered. All this talk of some of our tinhorn financiers that an electric railroad through here would advance the value of real estate 75 per cent, or would even advance it 10 per cent, is mere buncomb. It never has done this in other places and never will. Another thing that should be taken into consideration by the people affected is this: Have the enthusiastic supporters of subsidy propositions ever shown any extraordinary business ability themselves? it is an old axiom that when one wants advice he should go to a man wiho has made a success in life, rather than to one who has always been a failure, and this is a good rule to follow, too. Xo one has any objections whatever to any of these enthusiastic supporters of a subsidy tax donating all they wish to every scheme that comes along, but they have no moral right to force others to donate against their will. This is not a public enterprise, such as the building of ditches or highways, but is proposed to take money out of the pockets of the taxpayer, whether he favors the proposition or not, and give it to a private corporation. As Mr. Brown himself has many times stated, the proposition ig entirely

wrong and the people should h<s' stand for it. f