Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-06-20
ABSURD.
The Suggestion That Gest BrOugh,
His suit Against tine City Entirely In
MOI for Personal s.ain


His suit Against tine City Entirely In
the Interest OF the Tax Payers and
Not for Personal cain.
The silliest, most laughable, and most
absolutely inconsistent assertion that has
yet been made in the connection with the
damage suit of W. b. Gest against the
city as the outgrowth of the permanent
improvement or Second avenue by means
OF paving is that it was brought with
view not of recovering money for loss, but
TO procure for the people fair and just
method of public improvement; one that
would operate on all alike" Such sug-
gestion while made no doubt, with a sim
gle motive and that to help Gest out of
the scrape he has gotten into in suing
the city, contains about as many fool
ideas as could possibly be crowded
into the language in which it is couched,
and is In itself presumptous insult to
the public whom it attempts to stuff with
the veriest rot, while to merely intimate
that the proposition had come from Mr.
Gest himself would be to make very bad
matter worse and would be all that is
necessary-lf indeed anything is necessary
to establish the Inconsistency of his at
tack upon the city.
To assert that a man who demands
$4,000 of the tax payers 20 make good
what he considers personal loss to his
property suffered in consequence of an
improvement in which all our people
share sis not trying to force money from
tax payers" and that in this matter he
has proved himself the friend of the peo-
pie, is preposterous. What does the idiot
who makes such botch of his attempt
to excuse Mr.. Gest, take the people of
this community for? Does he regard
them as being so deficient in mental de-
vel opement and conception as himself?
been actuated by a thought single
to the interest of our tax payers, he
would have demanded IS 600 of the city
for his alleged damages. But no, he
merely wanted to place the city under
obligations 10 him, to win If were possi-
BILE, hold the result if it were favorable
to him over the heads of the city and
say, Il don't want your money gentle
men, in the language of BERTHE the
Lamb. take this penny can get plen-
ty more" II is so natural to presume
that anybody going to the trouble of sn>
ing the city should stipulate his damages
at 50 600, for the one purpose to estab>
fish great legal principle. 1t is very
strange that of all the other prop
erty holders affected by the
re-establisbed grades no other should
think..enough of the city to. teach tia lesson
by suing 1t. Neither is it in the highest
sense complimentary to the mayor, city
attorney end couucilmen that citizen
shou d feel i: his duty to teach them as
TO whether they knew their business in
establishing the system of public improve
ulGulS uuuGI " ulCu Jul SllCSlS Ouk DGluS
paved.
The simple truth of the matter is that
Gest's suit was a part of the soreheaded-
ness that he manifested toward the city
and all its people over his overwhelming
defeat for reelection, 1t was
brought in vindictive spirit
rather than in disposition to do the tax
payers favor, ard had he at the time
been favorably inclined toward the city or
had he at the time any idea of being a
candidate for congress he would no more
have thought of suing the city than of
submitting himself TO decapitation.
The ARGUS believes the city's system
of street Improvement is right, it looks TO
be general good and not to how it may
affect individuals. and no one man is call
ed upon to teach it its right it the premi-
SEES. If Mr.. Gest is particularly DESTROYS Of
doing so much for our tax payers he will
withdraw his suit against them. The
city should make no compromise, but as
long as the case stands, fight it out on that
line if it takes all summer"