Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1904-08-17
4 Case Of q Told YOU So. Y

ard has decided that Ninety Six
township must pay the railroad
bonds voted by the township some
years ago Notwithstanding, the Leg.
islature destroyed that township by
an act which was ratified and APP
proved by the Governor. A consti-
tutional amendment was also adopted
10y the people of the State to help
! the people of Ninety Six ont of their
trouble by relieving them of this
debt. The columns of the Medium
will sho that we said no such expe-
dent would discharge the debt.
When Ninety-Six township first
exs6ed upon the business of issning
bad bonds the editor of The
Medium was member of the House
OF Representatives and opposed the
bill TO authorize bonds. Several
Ninety-Six men were in, the hall
when we voted against their hill.
They came up to us and said, "W.nl
mark you for that" and "a long as
we were in politics Ninety-Six went
against us. b fore that we had
many political friends and supporters
around Ninety. six, but we were
never able to regain the support we
lost by telling the truth in order TO
save the people from trouble. DR..
w. "A. Lembeckar, j. p. Phillips and
few others never went back on us
and We certainly appreciated their
backbone in uot being overawed nv
the Indignation Of what was called
the progressive element" of the
township.
When the Ninety-Six promoters
made the threat in the hall of the
House of Representatives we had
the foresight to spread upon the
Journal of the House our reasons for
voting against the bill to issue bonds.
Among these reasons tho third
was "'rhe bill does not provide that
the bonds issued by the township of
Ninety-Six shall be put upon the
market only after the railroad has
been constructed to the line of that
township"
When the bill came up for consid-
Grafton we succeeded in having the
bond feature stricken out by vote
of 43 to 90 This vote, however,
was reconsidered by vote of 83 to
9. Two of the were colored men.
On the final passage of the bill 20
voted for it and only four against it.
The four men who were right should
be remembered and we give their
names, as follows {: George w. Dargan,
of Darlington; r. r. Hemphill, of
Abbeville; II. E. Jennings, of Edge
field, and Charles H. Simonton, of
Charleston.
The bonds were issued and sold.
OF course they got into the hands of
innocent purchasers who had nothing
to do with building the railroad.
Failure to build the road is no de-
fense to the claims of the bond
holders. The railroad has not been
built and the people of Ninety Six
township have been trying for
score of years to get out of paying
this debt. They have employed
good lawyers to fight the case, while
we gave them the law of the case
when member of the Legislature
and made no charge.
The decision of Judge Pritchard
takes up fourteen typewriter pages
and we have not sufficient space to
publish it in full, but will give the
conclusion, which is almost in the
same words used by us when we op-
posed the bill
Judge Pritchard, in conclusion,
said:
the property owners now occupy is
due in large measure to the failure
on the part of the Legislature at the
time OF the passage of the act to
provide that the bonds should not be