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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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Arguments of Three Counties 487 far as McLean county lands arc concerned, this estimate will stand the closest scrutiny. This effort to destroy the force of the committee's report by a process of reasoning so notoriously unreliable, demands at our hands no further notice. What we most desire to call your attention to is an important fact thus briefly alluded to in the Report of the joint committee. It is therein stated " McLean county offers in lieu of said lands other lands at the option of the State equally valuable." These "other lands are offered not merely in lieu" but in addition to the tracts therein specified, if desired; and consists of four separate tracts or parcels of real estate, lying in the vicinity of the proposed site of the University, containing in all about 1800 acres, and embracing some of the best improved farms in McLean county. These tracts are offered at low rates, ranging from $30 to $65 per acre, and written agreements are entered into and now held by the chairman of the committee, Mr. Enoch, by which the owners of these tracts agree to convey the same within a reasonable time to the Board of Trustees, if so desired at the prices now agreed upon. They further agree to take in payment for said lands any of the bonds offered to the State by the people of said county. Hence it will be seen, that if it is the desire of the Trustees to exchange some of the bonds offered for lands, and thus make a real estate speculation, as is proposed at Champaign, ample opportunity is here presented for so doing, even on a larger scale, and on more advantageous terms than at the last mentioned place. Whether the Board of Trustees, however, will be so inclined is quite another question. The statement about the "scarcity of water," and that at Bloomington and Normal "the only means of supply is from cisterns," is so absolutely and transparently false, as scarcely to need notice, were it not that by silence some might thereby be misled. How any set of men having any regard for truth, or self respect, could deliberately put forth a statement so notoriously false, so utterly destitute of facts, passes our comprehension. So far from this being true it is a matter of historg| established by a court of justice in a case appealed to the Supreme Court, that the only unfailing supply of water on the Illinois Central Railroad for twenty miles north and south of Normal
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