The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-07-30

The Iabors of Governor TildeD'a canal In
vestigating Commission are likely 10 come 70
an unsatisfactory close if the deeSlA Juss
made Ly Judge Learned of Albany be- SUI
tered to stand. III. D. Denison, of SyracUA G,
canal contractor, having been subpcsnaeA
as witness before the Commission. was re-
quired to produce the books and papers re-
lating to his contracts. He refused to obey
the order of the Commission, and an attach
ment was issued against his person for con-
tempt. The case was taken before Justice
Learned under habeas corpus proceedings.
The Judge discharged the relator, holding
that the law creating the Commission, while
it gives authority to the Commissioners, or
either of them, to issue subp@nas requiring
the attendance of witnesses and tho produce
ton OF books and papers, omits to confer the
power of Furnishing witnesses for disobedi-
ence. Such power, the Court holds, must
be found in express enactment, because i'm
prisonment Tor contempt is quasi punish
ment for crime. Looking at the matter from
a common sense point Of view it certainly
seems contradictory and absurd that a
committee clothed by law with the
power of subpenaing witnesses and Of
demanding the production of books and
papers should be impotent to compel obedi-
ence The one power would seem to en-
brace the other But Judge Learned decides
that a man cannot be deprived of his liberty
under authority claimed by implication The
right to inhlct punishment by imprisonment
can be derived only from express enactment.
The point that must strike every one who
reads this decision is the evidence it conveys
of the stupidity and incapaoity of our legisla-
tors Here is law enacted for the express
purpose of bestowing extraordinary powers on
a commission of investigation, and, by
laundering omission, 1t fails to give any
powers at all that can accomplish the end in
view. 1t was known that the canal rings
and their creatures would not voluntarily give
evidence eliminating each other; that every
artiice would be resorted to for the defeat of
the investigation; that tie men with whom
the Commission would have to deal were
sbrewd, bold and INSCRIPTIONS. A committee
raised by simple resolution of the Legislature
could not hope to drag testimony from such
witnesses, hence the necessity of law
creating commission and clothing it
with full power to discover the
truth. Slch law was supposed to have
been passed, but it is pow discovered that,
through the stupidity of our lawmakers, it is
as valueless for the purpose as one of Mother
Goose's nursery tales The wise men of the
Senate and Assembly, many of them calling
themselves lawyers, failed to understand that,
in order to compel the obedience of witness,
it was necessary to clothe the Commission
with the power to punish disobedience Even
the legal acumen of the Executive Chamber
was unable to discover the fatal blunder in
the bill 1t might be suspected that some
thing else than stupidity was at the bottom of
the singular OMISSION but, as there must
have been some representatives who honestly
favored an effective investigation Of the canal
frauds and as the Governor, at least, must
have desired to see his commission made
something more thaa laughing stock, the
wiltul and intentional emasculation of the
law ought not to have been possible. The
blunder is only another proof OF the evils
resulting from the election of blockheads to
the State Legislature