lie immediately adjoining the city and portions of two of them embraced in the city limits. They possess every requisite for model farms, are supplied with never-failing water, and possess beautiful and commanding sites for the erection of buildings. The citizens of Logan county point with pride to their offer for the University, as being larger in proportion to the size and population of the county than any that has yet been made.

LOCATION

Lincoln is nearer the geographical centre of the State than any of the other locations that have been mentioned in connection with the University. It is situated on the direct line of road from Chicago to St. Louis, and is easily accessible to all parts of the State. A charter has been obtained at the present session of this Legislature for the construction of a Railroad from Decatur on the Illinois Central Railroad, through Lincoln to Pekin, a distance of only 70 miles. It is believed that this road will be constructed by the time the University shall be built and in actual operation.

OUR OFFER.

In brief we propose to give the State for the use of the University, a most eligible and desirable farm on which to locate the Institution. We propose further to give the State enough money to erect a building, better and more costly than the present Capital of the State, or the Normal University; and when all this is done, there will be the magnificent surplus of $100,000 left in the hands of the State, to be expended in the supply of apparatus, machinery, and appliances of every sort necessary for the successful operation of the University. The State cannot ask more. Believing that no other location has submitted a more generous or liberal proposition or one more advantageous to the State, the citizens of Logan County ask for their proposition the candid and just consideration of the Legislature.

DOCUMENT NUMBER 19

Jacksonville Journal, March 16 and 18, 1867

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON LOCATION OF INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY

The undersigned, as chairman of the committee appointed by the farmers and mechanics at the state fair in Decatur and reappointed at the State Convention, called at Bloomington in December, 1865, to secure the passage of a charter for the State Industrial University according to the instruction of said convention, would report upon their action and the causes of their failure to secure the passage of the charter proposed.

The friends of education, as well as the people of Illinois generally, had a right to expect and to demand that the foundation of an institution, originating from their munificent grant of public lands, and designed to become the heritage and blessing of posterity to remotest generations, should be laid in simple and solemn honesty and integrity of purpose, uninfluenced by either local or political combinations and corruptions.

To secure this result, before the opening of the session of 1865, the members of the committee assembled at the agricultural society rooms at Springfield, together with such officers of that society as were then present, unanimously agreed upon the outlines of a charter for the organization and endowment of the institution, embracing among other provisions, the following cardinal principles:

I. That the funds should be kept entire, and only one institution founded in the best locality the state could proffer, wherever that might prove to be.

II. That free competition should be offered to all the counties in the state, and the best proposals honestly accepted by a commission appointed by the legislature or otherwise for the purpose.

These propositions were so self-evidently just and fair, that they have everywhere received the unanimous approval and endorsement of all the industrial and educational societies and

conventions which have been called to deliberate on the subject. Nine tenths of the people of Illinois are today a unit on the above propositions. The charter proposed was read by Gen. Fuller at the opening of the present session of the legislature to the board of the State Agricultural Society and received their unanimous public endorsement and approval. But these just and most needful ends were at last defeated. We deem it indispensable that the societies and conventions appointing this committee, and that the people and taxpayers of the state should know truly how this was done, and why it was done. At the Agricultural rooms above mentioned, Dr. Scroggs of Champaign, for the first time appeared in our meetings, and spoke of a magnificent building which their people proposed to offer to the society. We were glad to hear it and freely admitted him to our counsels and plans. He was understood by all to assent heartily to the cardinal principles laid down as above stated; certainly he did not object to them.

Judge then our surprise when a short time after our meeting the "Champaign ring," as it was called, appeared at the capital in force of some twenty or more confederates and lobby members, backed as it was said, with five thousand dollars in cash, led by Dr. Scroggs and a wandering preacher by the name of Stoughton, and demanding the immediate location of the University at Champaign, in consideration of the unfinished buildings and grounds offered to the state, which they said were worth $120,000. They insisted that it should be done, before any enabling act should be passed, or any other counties invested with any legal rights or power of competition.

They still professed to wish to keep the funds undivided according to the previous agreement, and oftentimes renewed their pledges to that effect.

But before the session closed they virtually violated this pledge also, by admitting into their bill an agreement to locate one branch of the University at Chicago, and another in Egypt, so as to secure the votes of these sections. Still, true to their native instinct, however, they took care so to word the bill that they could cheat their Chicago and Egyptian allies out of the consideration, after they had secured their votes; as the bill

itself clearly shows. This was the first interest that any one of this ring ever manifested in this great cause of industrial education. Thus was the scheme inaugurated in perfidy, which was destined, at last, to end in a degree of corruption, hypocrisy, drunkenness and debauchery unparalleled in the history of Illinois legislation.

It subsequently appeared that this speculating ring, in order to sell the prairie lands lying between the two towns of Champaign and Urbana, had laid them off in town lots and begun to erect their so called seminary building, to aid in the sale of lots. But from sheer incapacity the whole thing fell through and left them with building, lots, and all, still on hand, and mortgaged or under lien at that, for debts they could not pay.

And as often happens to men who utterly fail in capacity to manage their own business, they at once most eagerly sought to take charge of the public weal.

Hence their distressing interest in behalf of University Education; at the last session they constantly alleged that their famous building was in such brisk demand that they could not possibly hold it any longer than till mid-summer of that year, and if not accepted at once, the legislature would forever lose the splendid offer. They took care, however, to prevent the passage of all enabling acts in behalf of other counties so as to preclude all competition from localities which did not happen to have an "elephant" all ready to offer on hand. It is needless to remark that both their mortgaged buildings and grounds have most remarkably withstood the siege of purchasers until the year of grace 1867. Their lots are still there, except those that have passed into the hands or pockets of their allies at the capital and elsewhere.

They still take wonderful care to reserve the town lots immediately around the buildings and grounds, wholly in their own hands, an to endow the University with naked prairie lands, some two miles out in the country.

After the last session of 1865 it became apparent that this Champaign ring, by their natural location, and other means applied, could control nearly one-third of the vote of the state in their interest. An effort was made to secure the direct endorse

ment of the State Horticultural Society of their plans during its session in Champaign in December. The effort failed; that society could not be made to stultify itself by retracting its committal to a free and fair competition among all the counties, Champaign included, for the location of the institution. The chairman of your committee became for the first time aware of the outline of the plot that has since been consummated. He was told at the time, by a member of the ring, that the whole plot was planned and irrevocably fixed, that it would be utterly in vain for him or for any of the members of the state committee to attempt to resist it. Their "arrangements were all made," as they said, "and the thing would certainly be put through." He was explicitly told that if he would turn in and co-operate with them, he might have the charter written just as he pleased, and they would elect him Regent of the University, which he said, they all desired, and we would all take hold and work in harmony and build up a splendid University.

On his replying that he had been a teacher for thirty years of his life, and had, years ago, left the employment with the determination never to return to it again; and that at any rate, he thought that such an act of perfidy to his own convictions, and to the various societies and conventions, in whose behalf and under whose explicit instructions he was professing to act, would ill fit him for such a responsible position. Their speaker then began to use threats, and distinctly declared that if such obstinacy was persisted in by the committee they should be compelled in the last resort, to do as they did at the last session, and go in with Chicago and Egypt for a similar division of the fund, and then they would be sure of success; and the responsibility of injuring the institution would rest on those of the state committee who should thus insist on the full rights of other counties. At the opening of the session of the legislature, their senator told the chairman, as a friend, substantially the same things and advised him not to resist them-for the same reasons, as it would only result in injury, or at least trouble, to himself, with no possible good to the state; as their ring was too strong to be broken.

This new ring in the legislature now referred to was understood before the legislature commenced-to embrace the fol