Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 70, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1907 — KANKAKEE DRAINAGE PLAN PROGRESSING. [ARTICLE]

KANKAKEE DRAINAGE PLAN PROGRESSING.

There was a good meeting at Wheatflbld one day last week for the purpose of pushing along the Ka ikakee valley drainage plfin. It was about the first really harmonious meeting in the interest of the drainage ever held, and everybody is favorable tojoining in with the movement started in this county by Marble, Dunn and others, as all recognize that it is really a most admirable plan, and one which will give the land owners of Jasper and Porter county the maximum of benefits at a minimum of cost, and not compel them to assume a large extra amount spent in work on the upper part of the river which would benefit no "no except the land owners of other counties. This plan will also head off the schemers up iu Laporte county who piled up the enormous bill of costs in the work done there and were figaring on robbing the people of Porter, Jasper, Lake and Newton on a still greater scale. 1 '“Tn this connection The Republican is disposed to take considerable credit to itself for its share in defeating this wholesale hold up scheme, especially as expressed in a special Kankakee drainage ditch law that was before the legislature last winter, which would have been utterly useless for any honest purpose of drainage, whic i are fully covered by general laws, and which especially if passed m its original form, would have exposed the people of the Kankakee region to the risk of the greatest robl>ery ever consummated by means of a age project in Indiana. This paper was the only one in any of the region, which had the nerve to speak out boldly against this measure, and in so doing it necessarily gave offense to quite a number of we)l intentioned people who were so anxious for drainage of the region that they were led into favoring this LaPorte county plan, as nots.eineaoy hope for a better one. We are confident, now that a l etter and vastly cheaper plan has been found and the preliminary work to carry it thru is already in motion, that these offended parties will all recognize not only the good intention bat the actual wisdom and effectiveness for good in bur .ight against the LaPorte scheme.