The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1905-10-19
OLD FOGIES IN PEORIA.
Pleasing Ways of Graft Did Not
Suit Them and They Forced
An Investigation.

Will lOllS dllu SuCSCSSlul CdlCC
of graft, on indictments enough
to keep him in prison for two
hundred years, if sustained on
trial, is a story of municipal care
lessness unlike anything within
the ken of the people of the pres
ent generation. The landing of
Dougherty is not, as has been
declared in the newspapers, the
result of a wave of reform that
is rolling over the country. 1t
is simply the result of the city
OF Peoria's coming to its own, of
the city of Peoria's awakening
to realization that it was held
in thraldom by the political
banks, the corporations, the gas
company, the water company,
the street car company, aided
and abetted by the distilleries,
the brewers and as fine bunch
Of political grafters as ever stay
ed outside the walls of Joliet pen
itentiarv.
In the first place, Peoria is
dominated by whisky. Every day
an average of 10000 bushels of
corn is converted into whisky
there, and Peoria pays the second
largest revenue tax in the United
States-in some years more than
S35,000.000. And the distillers,
and their followers have domin-
ated politics so that whichever
way whisky went in politics, its
side was pretty sure of success.
Blended with whisky were the
corporation and the political
banks.
The school affairs of Peoria
are managed by a corporation
separate from the city a good
deal on the plan of the schools
in Indiana cities. But whisky
elected the members of the school
board just as it did the city Off
GERS, and twenty-five years ago,
Mr.. Dougherty was elected to
superintend the schools. He was
a poor man then. He said he was
not politician and he apparent
ly took no part in politics. Pol
itics should not, in his opinion,
have any. connection with the
schools. He was a scholar, not a
politician. But by the aid OF
whiskey, political banks and cor
porations he managed to elect
his own creatures to the school
board year after year. They were
mere puppets-he was the whole
thing.
! OF course, it was known that
he began his career with the
school board as a poor man. And
when he dressed in fine raiment,
when diamonds flashed in his
home, when his coachman's liv-
cry was the wonder of Peoria,
when his children were educated
in Europe, and when he lead the
race in social matters, there were
few old fogies in Peoria who
wondered where the money
came from. But he was so far
above suspicion and so free from
the elements that bring disre-
ipute to those who associate with
them that the fogies were laugh
ed down. The very idea of even
suspecting Newton c. Dougher-
| ty of wrong-doing-what citizen
was safe from the venomous
tongue of slander. what citizen
could escape the thrusts of defa-
nations crusted dagger?
/ Members of the school board
were asked about it. They said
that Mr. Dougherty was a mag
nihcent speculator-not on the
| Board of Trade. but in real es-
tate. etc. Everything he touch
ed turned to gold. He became
interested in various enterprises
and owned lots of stocks. bonds
and chattels. He was president
of one bank and was interested
in others. He owned blocks II
St. Louis. farms in the West
mines in Illinois. everywhere he
had investments they were pay
ing ones. And all the time he
was one of the leading citizens
of Peoria and one of the foremost
educators of the country.
But the old fogies continued
to shake their heads and there
were so many lines out between
the city administration and The
school board that from a mere
shaking of the head there came
. a brisk murmur, and finally al
uproar. The grand jury of TWEEN
ty-three good honest mer
of the county were impaneled
The rumors that all was no
right with school board affair.
/ percolated through the walls o
. the grand jury room. Dougher
t tvs friends insisted that these
) rumors were the spittings of en-
J emies who were jealous of hi
/ success.