, 1870-05-07
TIE WAREHoUsE ARTICLE.

subscribers look for in The SUNDAY TRIBUNl
viii be found in The Supplement-
THE WAREHOUSE ARTICLE.
Mr.. Turner. of Stephenson County, mem'
her Of the Constitutional Convention. Is
evidently '1bad egg We endeavor to
treat all the members Of the convention. by
whatsoever party elected, according to :kei:
true dignity, and, keeping this principle in
view, we are compelled to describe Mr.
Turner as above stated. He has distin-
guished himself during the convention in
two ways; first, bs taking the side of the
Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County,
against the people; On the fee question-foz
which, We presume, he got his own fee, rs
We can conceive of no other reason for his
couse; and, second, by making an attack
on TEE CHICAGO TRIBUNE in reference to
tbs warehouse question.
We shall not condescend to reply to Mr..
Tuners attack upon US. Il the reasons
We have given for our course on the ware
house question are not satisfactory to the
> public, the public vii, undoubtedly, let Us
know it in due time But We embrace this
opportunity to make q brief rssuzne of the
course Of opinion, (not merely our opinion,
but that of the convention as well, on this
important subject
Some ten or fifteen years ago, the first
grain elevators were built in this city, for
the purpose Of handling, transporting, and
storing grain in bulk They were, de .5acto
as well as dc .ju7e, the freight depots Of the
railways for receiving and delivering grain
The idea. of making an extra charge for
handling grain at the depot it did not enter
into The heart Of any railway oficial to con-.
ceive, until some time Later, when the ques-
ton of storage beca1ne complicated with
the question Of handling. The right to
charge for storage, after reasonable time
{the consignee OF grain having been not-
fed Of its arrival in the depot), cannot be
gainsayed Here was q new revelation
Storage, the railway men said, was not in
How could they be warehousemen and car
17e1s at the same timee Impossible! So
they invented wa1ehouseman, who should
not be carrier at the same time, and put
him in charge-of what? OF their OWL
depot for receiving and delivering grain
allowing, or enabling, him to charge, not
merely for storing, but for handling the
grim, which the railway men were bound
to do for nothing. The next step was to
deliver ererybody's grain to these ware
housemen, willy ni1ly-tl,at is, to establish
q toli- gate between the fatmer and his mar-
Iet, on free road, giving to the toll-gath-
erers the right to fir the rates of TOLL,
Things went On in this way for many
years, going from bad to worse, of course,
until it came to be generally conceded By
all parties that these tou-gates were
lawfully established nobody had
right to travel without paying the tolls,
and that the only possible ground for dis
pute was as to the amount Of the tolls and
the mode of collecting them, whether they
could be collected twice of the same person
for the same trip, etc. It WIS question,
as Bastiat says, "between robbery, half
robbery, and quarter-1obbery." When this
venerable abuse became matter OF, public
controversy, short time since, we adopted
the opinions of those members OF the Board
of Trade in WHOM We had been accustomed
to place most confidence. They were 60
ing in for quarter-zobbe1y, and 50 We went
in for quanez-rubbery. But, as the contest
warned up, and We had occasion to inFestl-
gate the grounds upon which qnnrter-roo-
l,ery was based, we found that the Su-
pre1ne Court had preceded us, and had de-
cided, in substance, that these toll~gates
were Illegal altogether, that they were
3 common nuisance, and that it was only
necessary to use the axes and other
edca tools which the common law
had abuudanf1y and conveniently provided
to our: hand, to demolish them altogether.
1t appeared, also, from this decision that the
leeislatioa which had been Ind on this sub
iect, IN the interest Of grain producers,
had somewhat impaired and blunted the
implements of the common Law, and had
really put the farmer and traveller Oh the
public highway in worse position than he
was before So We rehaced our steps and
determined to go IN for no robbery at all
Meanwhile, the gentlemen who were 60
ing for qua1ter-robbe1y had, in conjunction
with Nh. Cary, of 10 Davies County %
very honest gentlenanl, proposed an arti-
Gle. to be inserted in the constitution, based
upon the idea that these gates had a
right to exist. They either conceded the
right of the railway to deliver the farmers
grain to irresponsible parties without bis
consent and against his protest, or pro
ceeded to legislate upon the idea that that
assumed right WAS not to be called in ques-
tion-it makes no difference which They
commenced their Legislation at q period Of
time Immediately after the grain had been
taken away from the owner and delivered
to his enemy. We maintained thnt, if there
was 10 be any 1egislntion at ali (the ex-
pediency of which we doubted, since a
constitution could no more enforce itself
than the common law,), this Was not the
proper place to begin We pointed
out the danger, clearly set forth in
the Supreme Courts decision, of
lights, already e1ishng at com
mon law, by putting the proposed article
into the constitution. We also showed
that the phrase, "public warehouse, en-
ployed in Nj. Cary's article, had both a
statutory definition and mercantile deflnl-
lion, signify ing warehouse where the grain
of different owners is mixed, and that the
,nixins az araiz., ---ssles4t 1ne consent of the
owners, WIS at the very bottom Of the diff
culties which it was proposed to cure. A
yueue idea eeems to have possessed the
trainers of this article, that, If they could
declare all warehouses to be "pubhc waze-
houses," the public would have more rights
in them than they now have This was
akin to the absrdity Of dispuhng with the
keepers Of the toll-gates as to the amount
of toll they should levy, and how they should |
levy it, instead of attacking the ton-gate
srstem and demoliiEhiag it ct once
We expected to be accused of changing !
cur ground in the interest of the ton-gate
keepers, and Of being bought by them, be-
cause We had abandoned the position of
aunrter-robbery, and gone IN for no rob-
bery at all. But We could not allow these
ncll-meaning slanderers to divert us from
our purpose Of going to the root of the evil
We have the satisfaction, now, of obserr-
ine that the convention have, in the min,
adopted orr Eie1A~ The Warehouse article
hey have adopted Is no more Like
Nj. Carys article than chalk is Ike
rhcese. Some of the original words and
phrases have been retained, bat the whole
theory of the article has been changed.
Ihe central idea of It nov is that the owner
OF grain may decide for -A5xuseH whether
his property shall go into elevator or mt.
II Il lsoes in, It goes with his conzapt :a,a