People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1894 — The Facts and the Law. [ARTICLE]

The Facts and the Law.

The Three X in his “Political Points,** in the last issue of the Republican, says the petitioners have to pay back the money expended for the Iroquois and Waukarusa ditches. The proceedings for the construction of the Iroquois and Waukarusa ditches were commenced under the provisions of the act approved March 7, 1891, known as the Timmons Law, but it is generally conceded that the law was prepared by ex-Senator Thompson, of Jasper county, Ind. The law is taken from an Ohio statute, leaving out all of the good features and retaining all of the bad. This accounts for its many inconsistent and contradictory provisions which render its interpretation difficult. Under the advice of the senator the board of commissioners appointed viewers at two dollars per day, and engineers at three dollars per day, and chainmen, axmen, and rodmen were called in, at one dollar and twenty-five cents per day, and these parties spent months viewing the lines of said ditches and filed their claims against tin county, which were allow till eight thousand dollars the people’s money has hern

paid out But at last the own-i ers of lands affected by the proposed ditches became alarmed and opposition manifested itself. The Waukarusa was arrested in the commissioners’ court by the action of the board of commissioners of White county, who refused to proceed further. Public opinion was aroused along the line of the Iroquois ditch, and the farmers came in a body and plead their own cases before the board. The board became alarmed and summarily threw the whole proceedings out of court. It should not be forgotten that a year previous to this many of the petitioners asked to be released from the petition in the Iroquois ditch, but under the advice of the senator they were denied the privilege. The board decided that after an individual commenced -a case he could not dismiss it. A new decision in the annals of jurisprudence. The two ditch proceedings are now pending in the Jasper circuit court. Eight thousand dollars of the people’s money is gone and not a foot of ditch excavated and there is no prospect of them ever being completed. “But,” says the Three X, “the petitioners will have to reimburse the county.” Senator Thompson says that the board of commissioners having found infavor of the construction of the ditch that that finding releases the petitioners from the payment of all cost now

made. The senator has been tie trusted counsel of the board and if he is right and the ditches be not made, and the county reimbursed by assessments the people’s money is forever lost. But suppose he is wrong in his opinion, and the petititioners are liable? The supreme court will have to determine the question whether the petitioners are liable or not, and should the supreme court decide that they are liable, with their bondsmen, then suit will have to be brought against them and their bondsmen, and again the supreme court will have to declare they are, and an endless litigation will ensue. Every business man knows how difficult it is to recover money after it has once been paid out. But Three X may ask, how could the board of commissioners avoid paying out the money after the petitions are filed and the viewers appointed? Very easily indeed, by just simply refusing to pay any claim of any engineer, view er, rodman or axman.

The party aggrieved could appeal to the circuit court and then to the supreme court or possibly the party might be en titled to a writ of mandate. In either way the validity of the law could have been tested and every dollar of the eight thousand remained in the treasury. One of the most learned circuit judges in the state has decided that the law is so imperfect that it cannot be enforced. It is believed by a majority of the ’••ar of Indiana who have exam-■ ‘d the law that when the su- ; me court decides on its valid- i i y that it will send it where Judge Wiley sent the Gifford drainage district. But Three X may claim to have discovered a mare’s nest in section 14, where it provides for a criminal prosecution, in some . cases. Well, suppose they had i been arrested and fined they would only have been martyrs to thecause of the people. That would have been another way to test the validity of the law. That a court is criminally liable for an error in decision is something new in English or American jurisprudence. That sectic n was placed there as a scarecrow to frighten some board of commissioners who might hesitate to be lead by the senator. No lawyer considers it valid. The voters of Jasper county irrespective of party demand a board of commissioners who will hot squander the people’s money. The people are saying all over this county: “The eight thousand dollare are gone but where are the ditches?” The Republican evidently does not know that Joel F. Spriggs employed an attorney who filed papers before t the Board of Commissioners asking to be released from the Iroquois ditch petition, but under the advice of Senator Thompson, the request was not granted.