Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1906 — The C. I & E. Wants Free Right-of-Way. [ARTICLE]

The C. I & E. Wants Free Right-of-Way.

A railroad meeting was held in Medaryville last Tuesday, to take some action towards clinching an institution which seems to be clinched already, namely the location of the new C. I. & E. R. B. A representative of the company was present and stated that all the company was asking was a free right-of away and committees were appointed to secure the same. The committee for Gillam township is J. P. Ryan, Theo. Phillips and Elmer Pullins. This move for a free right-of-away may be all right, but it looks to us a good deal like a repetition of the Indiana Harbor case over west. In that case, like this seems to be, a big company was behind the move. They selected beforehand just the route they intended their road to take, and they built it on that route. They bluffed around and got all the free right-o >way they could, but what they could not beg, they paid good prices for. And what they could not buy they condemned by process of law. And probably a very large part of the value of the right-of-way which was given free went into the pockets of the smooth promoters who secured jit. If this other new road is the big and enormously well financed institution it is represented to be, and which representations we have no good reasons to doubt, they will pick the route they want and will build on it, irro j pective of whether their right-of-way meu beg, buy or steal the right-of-way, or condemn it in the courts.