Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 543]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

602

History University of Ulinoin

view than merely to speculate in town lots, and lift mortgages off from their old buildings and lands—but this loss of available funds and resources—heavy as it is, is not a small item in the category of our disasters. With the great central counties of the state thus outraged, and insulted and old friends of the cause all over the state utterly disgusted, while the North and West are thrown into a state of utter indifference, to say the least, no possible amount of funds can ever make the institution a success; and Champaign county will at last find herself cheated out of the taxes she has paid out for it and even the town lots of these sharpers will still rest unsold on their hands. So long as the institution remains under either the social or political control and management of these sharpers, these "Hon. Dogberrys" and "Dr. Duncaids" and "Patroleum Nasbys" of Champaign crossroads, no men of talent and genius will ever gather around it, as either teachers or professors; nothing above the level of the miserable scamps and scalawags, whose votes and services were bought up at the capital by promises of office or lots of cash—(some of them it was said for twenty-five dollars a head) most of whom could be named in advance of their formal appointment to the board. Already we begin to see these vultures scenting their prey from afar, and seeking some eligible position of trust and plunder either in or around the board. For two long years, the Champaigners have incessantly resisted the appointment of a commission of location by the legislature, because they pretended to fear that a commission might be influenced or biased or bribed; while at the same time they were practicing their arts as above described on the legislators themselves; if this is not the most arrant and persistent hypocrisy we need a new definition of that word: forever prating about the morality and temperance of their town, they have themselves besieged the legislature, and all the committees have fallen into their hands, with free liquors, even to drunkenness. Professing deference to the judgment of the legislature committees, they go bind their own committee, and impudently affix their own absurd prices, to their property; and clamouring for fairness, they everywhere practice the art of knaves and deceivers. As all know-all well l&ese selfish and detestable intrigues and plots and schemes, have been the sole cause of all this delay