Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1915 — WANTS $61,000 OF MARION TP. [ARTICLE]

WANTS $61,000 OF MARION TP.

Railroad Promotors Promise Little But Ask Much. T $15,787.22 ASKED IN NEWTON Only 28 Sign Petition for Subsidy Election in Marion and 34 in Newton—Election Set for May 7 in Newton Tp.; Continued as to Marion Tp. Petitions for subsidy elections in Marion and Newton townships, including the city of Rensselaer in the were filed with the county commissioners Monday. The Newton township petition was signed by some 34 freeholders and was a fairly representative petition. In Marion township, however, there were but 28 names to the petition, and Attorney Parkison, representing the socalled Lafayette & Northwestern Railway Company, admitted tihat two of these were not freeholders. Still another one is known to have sold his real estate in Rensselaer but the transfer had not yet been made. Counting this party, however, and it gives one more than the necessary 25 under the existing law to call a subsidy election. Every one of the signers to the petition in Marion township reside in Rensselaer, and as the following list of names will show, it is far from being a representative body of taxpayers, there being but very few on the list whom it would cost as much as SSO to pay the proposed 2 per cent levy, and many but a very small part of SSO. Sam Stevens George H. Healey H. E. Parkison Harvey Davisson -V ’*'• Long O. H. McKay Leslie Clark L. H. Hamilton J. A. McFarland Conrad Kellner P. M. Haskell Charles J. Dean Vernon Nowels W. L. Frye S. C. Irwin G. L. Thornton John Hallagan a. H. Hopkins D. G. Warner A. L. Padgett C. G. Spitler w. L. Bott J. F. Hardman E. D. Rhoades F. G. Kresler Rex Warner W. H. Kresler H. R. Wood There was no announced opposition to the election in Newton tp., and the commissioners set the election for Friday, May 7, to vote on the proposition. Newton township has heretofore voted down these subsidy propositions by a big majority, and it will no doubt do the same again. . Coming on top of the Irlquois ditch and two gravel road assessments, it is a pretty hard proposition for many of the taxpayers to, vote money'to a private corporation, of which, so far as anyone is able to learn, there is little more than hot air behind. It is doubtful if as many vote in favor of the proposition! as have signed the petition. In Marion * township opposition was made to the calling of an election, Attorney Leopold representing the objectors. Mr. Leopold showed the commissioners that under the law a township could not vote aid to exceed the 2 per cent limit more than once in two years, and that such aid had been voted in Rensselaer and Marion to-wnship in February, 1914, to the Indiana Northwestern Traction Company. This aid, he contended, was still in force, and that no further aid could be voted to any other company until the expiration of the two years at least. While it is now admitted by Attorney Parkison, formerly attorney for the Indiana Northwestern Traction Company, at present representing the opposition line, the Lafayette Northwestern Railway Company, that the aid voted the former company in 1914 was illegal, in tihat the petition did not comply with the law, etc., the matter has never been so declared by the courts, and Attorney Leopold argued that the subsidy was in full force and effect, and could be enforced at any tiifife by the aforesaid company until declared ■void by the court. As tihe Democrat’s forms were closed to go to press no definite decision had been made by the. board as to Marion tp., but Attorney Leopold had made a motion to dismiss the petition, and it was probable the board would -so decide or continue the mutter until the next term. The amount asked for in Marion township and Rensselaer is in round numbers, $61,000, and in Newton

township, $15,787.22, or practically SBO,OOO in the two townships.