The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-05-02
ILLINOIS.
expectation of a Warm Debate in the Leg
islature on the State Hou,e Question.
Special to the indianapolis Journal

Expectation of a Warm Debate in the Leg
islature the State HousSe Question.
Special to the indianapolis Journal.
SPRINGFIELD, May 1.-The Illinois Legisla-
ture having apparently got over its dead
locks, hot time is just ahead on question
on which there is no party division. The &C.
casion will occur tomorrow, on the special
order in the House to submit to vote of the
people a proposition to complete the State
house and to appropriate 1851, 900 for that
purpose. This proposition has been twice
submitted before, and both times defeated on
account OF a popular belief that citizens of
Springfield had been guilty of bad faith in
connection with bond given by some thirty
individuals, about eight years ago, binding
them to make the State clear title to tract
of four acres of ground Immediately adjoin-
ing the present State-house grounds on the
south. The terms of that bond have never
been complied with, and thereupon has arisen
the charge of bad faith.
The debate on the question will be a very
hot one, and will canvass the whole subject,
several of the ablest members of the House
being loaded with speeches on both sides.
The obligors in the bond bound
themselves to purchase the title to the lands
in question and make the title to the State
at their own expense; or, in case of their
inability to purchase the title, then the State
was to proceed and obtain the title by con-
demnation, and these obligors would then be
bound to reimburse the State for the expense
of condemnation and for the condemnation
price.
1t turned out that several minor heirs had
rights in the land, and a title could not be
obtained by purchase and no purchase was
attempted. In 1878, the State brought suit
on the bond, and the question went up to the
Supreme Court, where it was decided in
favor of the obligors, the court holding that
the State itself was at fault in not having
made an appropriation for the condemnation
OF the land, and then proceeding to obtain a
title in due course of law; that the obligors
could not be held to peform a
legal impossibility; and that under the
terms of the bond, they were not held to do
anything Gf they could not purchase title)
until the State had incurred the expense of
condemnation, which the State never has
done
This is the whole question, as the Supreme
Court saw it, and out of this has grown more
discussion and more misrepresentation than
out of any other question which has been
before the people of this State in ten years.
Out of it grew the furore for capital removal
which filed the papers for a part of last
year. and still is heard in some quarters;
and because of misunderstanding of the
facts the State House. on which the magnifi-
cent sum of SIS, SOC, 900 has already been ex-
pended, stands in an uncompleted condition,
requiring an annual expenditure of about
Sl0, 900 to keep it from going to destruction.
The effort is now making to get the measure
again before the people, and to clear it of the
obscurties which have made so much mis-
represen tation possible.