"the brutal threats and snaky entreaties of the corrupt gas ring." For one of the associate editors the position of Deputy State Inspector of Oil was obtained--an appointment which cost the Governor who made it many votes in the next election, and did much to defeat him. Such an appointment might give a versatile employé the chance to do double duty: as editor to brand as bad good men who could not be bought, and as inspector to brand as good bad oil for sale.[522] One of the means taken to defeat the pipe line was the publication of very discouraging accounts of the "failure" at Indianapolis, where the citizens had refused to give a natural-gas company belonging to the oil trust the franchise it demanded, and, forming an anti-monopoly trust, had undertaken to supply themselves. Some "influence" prevented the Common Council of Toledo from sending a committee to Indianapolis to investigate. A public-spirited citizen, prominent and successful in business, came forward, and at his own expense secured a full and accurate account of the experience of Indianapolis for the city. This proved that the people were getting their fuel gas at less than one-half what Toledo was paying. The contest against giving the Indianapolis franchise to a corporation of the trust had been a sharp one. Its success was due to the middle classes and the working-men, who stood together for freedom, incorruptible by all the powerful influences employed. "We will burn soft coal all our lives," one of their leaders told the Toledo committee, "rather than put ourselves in the power of such men." In Indiana the Legislature meets only once in two years, and when this issue arose had adjourned, and would not meet again for a year. The people, not being able to get authority for a municipal gas pipe line, went to work by voluntary co-operation. Every voting precinct in the city was organized and canvassed for the capital needed. The shares were $25 each, and they were bought up so rapidly that the entire amount--$550,000--was subscribed in sixteen days by 4700 persons, without a cent of cost to the city. When subscriptions to the amount of $550,000 had been raised, $600,000 more was borrowed on certificates of indebtedness. Gas lands were bought and 200 miles of pipe lines laid, all at a cost of about $1,200,000. The income in one year, during a part of which the system was still under construction, was $349,347. In the first year of complete operations the Indianapolis people's trust paid off $90,000 of the principal. The income for the year ending October 31, 1892, was $483,258.21, and the bonded debt has been paid. The stock, since January 1, 1893, has been paying dividends at the rate of 8 per cent. a year.