The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-10-27
THE SUITS AGAINST THE CITY
FOR DANA GES ARISING FROM
TIE DROUTH

cation Company, and to Boatmen and Ship
pers, for damages caused by the action of the
city in stopping the navigation of Paramount
Pool in August and September, 1869" The
able lawyers whose names are appended to
this document-R. @. McMurtrie and w.
Strong-do not state by whom they were en-
ployed but the conclusions they have reached
plainly indicate they are in the service of the
Schuyllill Navigation Company. The law
and the facts, as they expound them, are all
in favor of that corporation. 1t cannot be
sued. say the counsel, by boatmen or ship
pers for damages arising from the delays in
transportation during the drouth; but, on the
other hand, the city of Philadelphia is liable
to the boatmen and shippers, individually, as
well as to the company. 1t is even claimed that
the DIST section of the charter of this corpo-
ration entities it to recover from the city
''dou5le the damages" it has sustained and
Philadelphia is threatened not only with this
extortionate demand, but with innumerable
suits, based on the opinion that ''the ship
pers as we'll as the boatmen, must resort to
the city, and each must sue for himself"
Under these circumstances it behoves the
CITY Fathers to see whether a valid defense
to this ravenous raid upon the impoverished
treasury of tax-burdened community cannot
be discovered. The ablest lawyers should be
employed with instructions to make not only
q determined resistance to the proposed de-
mands but to probe to the bottom the pre-
tensions on which they are based. 1t may
perhaps be found, when the whole subject is
considered, that, despite the opinion of the
company's lawyers, million of people have
certain rights as riparian proprietors which
are not wholly unworthy of the respect of
Judges and iuries.
If the city is to be pushed to the WALL we
trust that no defense will be deemed COM
plete until every point connected with its con-
tract with the company, and with the alleged
rights and privileges of the latter, is tho
roughly examined.
The whole claim for damages rests on the
stoppage of the navigation of Fairmount
pool, or that portion of the river embraced
between Fairmount dam and the Falls of
Schuylkill. 1t is a curious fact that this por-
ton of the river was only made navigable by
an expenditure on the part of the city, in con-
structing the Fairmount dam The munich
pal history of this transaction is substantially
that when Councils resolved in April 1919,
to erect water-power works at Fairmount, the
Schuylkill Navigation Company had built their
canal from Pottsville to the Falls of Schuyl-
kill, where a0ant Of funds had compelled them
to stop tie a0OTk, and that the committee re-
solved to erect dam at Fairmount with the
design of beneftting the cOmpany as we'll as
ipnraacino, fba cuppliac of Dhilo1alnh;o
They not only extended helping hand in
this manner, but we are told that they entered
into an agreement '.for the purchase Of tie
sOater- -poaOer at the Falls Of SchuyzkiH destroyed
By backing the aoater By tile nelO dano," and
''also with the Schuylkill Navigation Com
pany for the use of the water granted to them
by their charter" The city has therefore a
double claim to the surplus water supplies of
Fairmount pool She created them by
erecting the dam at Fairmount, and bought
the right to maintain them by compensating
the loss of water-power. If she consented in
an evil hour, to an abridgement of the use of
her own property, there is no court In Chris
tendon which will not at least lend willing
ear to any plausible excuse or defense she
may offer for temporary violation of her
stipulations with the corporation to which she
extended generous aid.
If the canal company, instead of the city,
was the defendant in the proposed suit, it
would need no better plea than that which
similar corporations have successfully made
in this Commonwealth-tha it should not be
held responsible for an act of Providence.
When defective canal dams have been swept
away by freshet, carrying ruin on every
side, the claimants for damages have been
defeated by this potent arguments and il
remains to be seen whether the people of g
great city will not be declared guiltless fol
using something more than the prescribed
quantum of reserved water supplies, created
by their own means, during the providentia
prevalence of the most stringent drouth tina
has ever been known.
1t is also a legitimate subject of inquiry
whether the whole theory on which the alleged
exclusive rights and privileges of the cana
company is based is not fallacious In SOM
countries, and in some portions of the Union
1t would be considered an unwarrantable in
fringement of the rights of the citizens o
Philadelphia as riparian proprietors, and
remains to be seen whether the apparent ad
vantages derived by the company from judicia
decisions and legislation peculiar to this Stat
have an impregnable foundation. 1t ma
turn out that the corporation has no righ
whatever to restrict the city, at any time
from using as much of the water collected a
Fairmount dam as she pleases.