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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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Struggle for Location 1865-1867 215 Champaign had recently appropriated five hundred dollars for the location of the agricultural college, and that a like sum had been donated by citizens of the towns for the same purpose. Meanwhile some newspapers in eastern Illinois were publishing articles in support of Champaign county. The Wabash Valley Times of Paris, Illinois, in a lengthy article favoring Champaign, propounded this question: " I s it possible that the people of the east half of Illinois are to be denied equitable rights in the dispensation of favors and the West and North to appropriate all?" 5 The Danville Commercial came up to the same general level in its issue of November 22,1866. It said: "Inasmuch as everybody else will grab, we are not in favor of standing back on dignity. We shout for Champaign. It is just as good as any other place—better than most. Let the entire fund be expended at one point, and let it be given to a portion of the State which is ready, to do as much as any other and which has never yet been granted the least crumb of public favor." The Champaign County Union and Gazette in commenting on the article in the Commercial made this statement, somewhat startling in view of the fact that the division of funds which it so uncompromisingly condemned had been attempted by Champaign county in the bill it supported before the legislature the year before: " We agree with the " Commercial" as regards the attempts of the Professors of the various colleges, to divide the funds, and thus rob the agriculturists of the benefit designed by the Government. No words of ours can express the contempt with which we regard the movers of this project. I t exhibits a selfish, grasping character, that stops at nothing short of the accomplishments of its own ends, the rights and interests of others ruthlessly disregarded, ?! e From this statement it is apparent that nothing short of the whole loaf would now appease the gnawing appetite of the Champaign contingent. The Chicago Journal, an enthusiastic supporter of Champaign, gave way to its imagination in the following: ''The general appearance of the county (Champaign) is unsurpassed in the West, for the beauty of its landscape, the richness and variety Wabash Valley Times, October 13, 1865. 'Champaign County Union and Gazette, November 30, 1866.
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