Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1915 — ROUTE OF RAILROAD CANNOT BE CHANGED AT THIS TIME [ARTICLE]

ROUTE OF RAILROAD CANNOT BE CHANGED AT THIS TIME

Frantic Efforts of Promotor to Stay Tide Against Subsidy Proposition Is a Weak Device to Win Votes.

The election in Marion township and Rensselaer on the proposition to vote a gift of $61,000 to the so-called Lafayette & Northwestern Railroad Co., a paper corporation, will be held today. Seeing the overwhelming sentiment that has finally arrayed itself against the proposition, O. L. Brown, who signs himself as “general manager” of the company, comes out in ■« an eleventh hour statement in the Rensselaer Republican and says the route of the road will be changed to overcome much of this opposition. He states that the route will be changed to run nor-thwest from a point southeast of the Indian schopl half section of land, just south of town, to the Range Line road at a point near Mt. Calvary cemetery, and thence north along said road past St. Joseph college and thence on north, thence east and north to the south end of Cullen street, thence north on Cullen and Forest to Vine street, thence due west to the city limits and due west to Mt. Ayr. The petition asking for this elec.tion and made a part thereof is on file in the office of the county auditor. Omiting the immaterial parts of said petition, which have no bearing on this proposition, we copy the first and last paragraphs of the petition word for word below: TO THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OF JASPER COUNTY. “The undersigned petitioners, who are freeholders of the Township of Marion in the county of Jasper and the state of Indiana, would respectfully represent to your Honorable Body, that: The Lafayette and Northwestern Railroad Company is a corporation duly organized under and pursuant to the laws of the State of Indiana, authorized to construct, build, maintain and operate a railroad from the city of Lafayette, Indiana, to the State line west of Morocco, Indiana, and that said railroad when completed will pass through the said township of Marion and the city of Rensselaer, in said Jasper county, and that the said railroad will be of great benefit to said city and township. * * * * * “And your petitioners further pray that your Honorable Body may' make an order that the polls at the several voting places in the said Marion Township and the City of Rensselaer, be opened as directed by law on a day named in said order, to take the votes of the legal voters of said, Marion Township, including the City of Rensselaer, upon the question of making an appropriation of Sixty Thousand Seven Hundred Sixty-four and 26-100 (S6O, 724.26) dollars by said township and CITY FOR THE PURPOSE OF AIDING THE SAID RAILROAD IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF ITS RAILROAD IN THE MANNER AND UPON THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS HEREIN FULLY STATED AND SET FORTH, WHICH SAID RAILROAD IS TO BE BUILT UPON THE ROUTE OUTLINED ON THE MAP FILED WITH THE CLERK OF THE JASPER CIRCUIT COURT, and your petitioners will ever pray.” At the same time this petition was filed with the county auditor the map and profile above mentioned was filed with J. H. Perkins, clerk of the Jasper circuit court, and attached to and made a part of such filed papers was the following certificate:" j We, the undersigned, being a majority of the directors of the Lafayette & Northwestern Railroad Company, hereby certify that the attached maps and profiles are the original maps and profiles of the route adopted by 4 ,the above named railroad company as its permanent and final "That the line designated by "hito b’ne in said nraps is the median line of a strip of right-of-way 50 feet in width. That the maximum grade is 1.02 per cent and the maximum curve i s 6 per cent. That the termi of said road are Lafayette; Indiana, and Kankakee, Illinois. EZRA G. COLLINS, E. G. PERRIGO, . R. H. BRAINARD, O. A. ROGERS. * The law requires that such map and certificate be filed with such officer, where IT IS OPEN TO THE INSPECTION OF ALL INTERESTED PARTIES, AND THE ROAD MUST BE CONSTRUCTED ABSOLUTELY IN ACCORDANCE WITH SUCH MAP AND PROFILE. Otherwise any taxpayer could successfully enjoin the placing of the

tax on the duplicate and its collection. It doesn’t seem that it would require any superior amount of intelligence to understand this. If they can change the route to any point they choose regardless of this map and profile, they can just as easily go on some other line than that indicated by promotor Brown’s latest manifesto. They could bear off to the north and come through Pleasant Ridge and thence northwest past the “match factory” through Rensselaer and collect the subsidy, should it be voted, just as easily as cn any other route. If the promoters are not bound by the route as set forth in the petition and as certified to by the directors in filing the map and profile with the clerk of the circuit court, why did they mention the line on which they- proposed to build at all? If they can lawfully decide upon another route now, one day before the election, why can they not lawfully, decide upon still another after the, election?

Maps and profiles of the proposed road were filed in other counties, where subsidies have been voted. They show the line to be as previously stated herein: The road, if built at all, must go over the line of the profile filed with the clerk of the Jasper circuit court when asking for the election, and this profile, as previously stated by The Democrat, show’s that it runs in a diagonal direction across the county from Wolcott and cuts up all the lands through which it passes in such a way as to damage them many- times more than any value they would receive by the construction of the road. It runs several hundred feet west of the Indian school; about 14 mile east of St. Joseph college, and passes through Rensselaer nearly a half-mile west of the court house, crossing McCoy avenue near the old A. McCoy homestead, runs on north along the east side of Weston cemetery’, and its nearest point to the Monon railroad is several hundred feet west of the Monon depot. Does it stand to reason that the promotors would jeopardise the more than $100,600 already voted in other counties to save. $61,000 here? Should they not build on the line shown therein any anti-subsidy taxpayer of the townships in such other counties voting a subsidy could enjoin the collection of the tax.

Is this not the reasonable and logical conclusion? Voters of Rensselaer and Marion township, do not be misled by this eleventh hour change in the route of the proposed road. There is nothing to it and your own good common sense should tell you so without any help from the outside. The road will be of no benefit whatever to Rensselaer, if built at all, on the line that it must be built to collect this subsidy. It conects us with not a solitary town in Jasper county. It asks much and gives nothing in return. But iVwill have the effect, should this subsidy be voted, of keeping out for a term of years some real railroad which may want to come through Rensselaer and give us connection with Remington and the north end of the county perhaps. Also, should Mr. Brown’s road be" built—which gives us nothing—• it will be many, many years before we ever get another road here that would give us some conveniences. Make an X in the square at the left of the words “Against the Railroad Appropriation,’’ when you go to the polls today and thereby vote against the worst subsidy proposition ever put up to the people of this city and township.

A slight change in the time of trains on the Monon went into effect Monday. Under the new schedule No. 37, goes south at 11:17 a. m., instead of 11:20; No. 31, at 7:30 instead of 7:31 p. m.; No. 36, northbound, 4:41 Instead of 4:48 a. m.; No. 38, at 2:51 instead of 3:12 p. m.; No. 30, at 6:50 instead of 6:45.