Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1883 — ANOTHER VICTORY [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER VICTORY

For the Fort Wayne, Peoria and Galesburg Railroad. (The Fort Wayne Daily News ) Yesterday another township (Liberty in Fulton county, Ind.,) voted SIO,OOO in aid of the new railroad—the Fort Wayne, Peoria and Galesburg. The building of this new railroad is emphatically a people's movement. All along the line the greatest enthusiasm pervails; donations are being voted, and a free right of way provided. This is the regular old orthodox way of building railroads, and where a straightforward, combined movement pervails all along the line, the construction of the road becomes almost a certainty. This is the way in which all the nylroads of the United, States have been built. When we' say all, we allow for an occasional exception which does but prove the rule as the saying is; but we are safe in stating that fully hineteentwentieths of all the railroads of the country have been built in just this way. First, the meeting in the country school house, resolving that they must have the railroad; then the resolution that they will assist the enterprise with material aid, and then the affirmative vote that follows: And thus are formed the several links in the chain of evidence as to the deinand and the necessity for the road that are so valuable to the capitalists who afterwards undertake the enterprise; valuable (above and beyond the money value) as evidence that the proposed road is wanted by the people; that it is actually needed, and that it will be supported after it is built. The voting of aid becomes valuable evidence to this effect; because it is a practical, tangibl* kind of evidence, each-vote carrying with it thermal! quota of money that makes it so. There is no sentiment in this kind of voting as in politics. It is a business question, purely; and as such is always acted upon by the people. The amount voted is usually small, compared with the actual millions which must be put into it by thoso who afterwards take up the enterprise of building a first-class railway with all the modern improvements, expensive out-fitting and equipment, locomotives, cars with airbreaks, stations, passenger and freight, water tanka, telegraphs, &c., A r c., and in no case is the money voted paid until the railroad is actually constructed and can running.