Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 541]

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500

History University of Illinois

house and senate without additional dime of value they immediately reappraised at the value of $500,000 in the editorials of the Springfield Journal, wholly under their control, as soon as the Bloomington bid was made amounting to that value. After the joint committee had reported their bid as valued at $285,000, they published and circulated a counter report running the value up to $555,400 (and estimated their land two miles out on the prairie, taxed at only $15 per acre at almost $300 per acre) their advocate, Hurlburt in the house, true to his word, to "write Champaign up above all possible competition" offered an amendment to their charter valuing the property the committee had appraised at ($285,000) at the modest sum of $450,000, or according to the Champaign ring- Thus without some explanation the people of the state would never know but that the Champaign bid was actually valued at the sum which appears in the charter of the University. When at Champaign the committee were informed that the abstracts of their titles were all correct but that they were up at Springfield, and believing their statement the committee so state in their report; but at Springfield the clear titles were never shown, and indeed as is well known, never can be, until the liens and mortgages are lifted from the property. It is in vain to say, that the legislature were not bound by their committee. That is exactly what we* complain of. They were neither bound by their committee nor by any other law or rule, of either honesty, or even decency. Now if a judge should appoint a commission to examine and appraise the property of rival claimants, which he never saw, and then assume the right to affix to the property of the favorite party, whatever value he chose, totally regardless of the report rendered, all men would unite in pronouncing him a scoundrel; or if an auctioneer of public property, should appoint a time and condition of sale—and then strike off the property or privilege to the lowest instead of the highest bidder—the conclusion in all minds would be inevitable, that the man was either a knave or a fool I and yet, with shame on all faces be it said, that this is exactly in principle what was done by our last legislature of Illinois in behalf of this corrupt Champaign ring.