The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1884-05-14

road companies restraining the commits
ssoners from interfering with them in
any manner, there win Be NOTHING At all
for them to do, and il viii be impossible
for them to Farm their money. although
the State Law permits them to DRAW their
salaries At the invitation of the Post,
We named the railroad companies which
had complied with the Law and had not
determined to resist the Commission, As
an answer to its suggestion that the
Commission under the circumstances
stated BY the Post would have ''NoTH-
rSG" to do. The Post now says, not that |
the Commission has SoTHIE6" to Dc, but |
that it has not Is much to do Is the law |
contemplated, and therefore the mem
bers Of the Commission should not draw |
their salaries. Life is too short to waste |
words in the effort to convince one who,
like the possum, when you dislodge him
from one point catches on another.
Especially is life too short to warrant
US in spending much time in enlighten-
ing contemporary who says that the
'.principle' of supervision is not involved
in the pending controversy between the
Commission and the railroads, and then
quotes Judge Hills declaration that he
has nothing TO do with the ''poliey' Of
supervision, in support of its position.
We do not know what order Judge
Hill will finally make in the pending
cases. The prayer of the bill filed by
the Illinois Central Railroad Company
for the temporary restraining order is in
the following words:
/ There being no adequate remedy in the
courts of law for the injuries which the
| said defendants propose to infiict, orators
appeal to this court TO avert them by its
process of injunction; and they pray that
such injunction may be forthwith issued.
directed to the defendants, and Command
ing that they absolutely abstaiH from all
acts of Interference with the management OF
. orators business in operating the Chicago,
ST. Louis and New Orleans Railroad; thai
they particularly abstain from revising, or
establishing, or promulgating, any tariff o.
; rates for that road, or your orators operat-
ing the same and from every attempt so to
interfere Herewith; and that they and their
agents and attorneys absolutely abstain
from institnting or prosecuting any suit or
suits for the penalties prescribed by th'
said act of the Legislature entitled, etc.
There is also prayer that on final
hearing said act BE- declared in0pera-
tive and void"
The order of Jldge Hill il that t he
injunction issue '.as prayed"
If on final hearing the injunction is
prpetnatsd as prayed, and on appeal tC
the Supreme Court the decision of the
lower court be sustained On the grounds
stated by Judge Hill in his opinion
then We admit that the Commissioner
could not earn and therefore should mo-
draw their salaries.
But to say that because an inferior
court awards an injunction at the sui
of two out of ten or more railroads, by
: decree which is not final, that there
/ fore the Railroad Commission SHOULD
abdicate, is too much for even a railroac
man to ask. The Commission, in our
view, would place itself in ridiculous
" absurd attitude If it followed the sug
gestions of either one of our Vicksbure
contemporaries, who seem to be "pull-
ing together" in this one issue.
Judge Hills opinion does not NEE
the expectations of his friends, and fol-
good cause as we have endeayored else
: where in this issue to show. Beyond
question he has, in manner most un
satisfactory to the legal mind, endeayor
ed to explain away decision of tn
highest Judicial tribunal decision b.
which he was III much bound as if il hat
been embodied in the statutory law gov
erning his court. He cannot plead tina
he did not understand the decision re
ferred to because his efforts to get rid O
its binding force as precedent show tina
he understood it only too we'll.
Under such circumstances so impor
tant part of the government as thu
Railroad Commission should not be ex
pected to go to pieces, because there are
those who in the prosecution of deter
mination to oppose every obstacle to th'
Experimental operation of the super
vision law, seize every pFetext to deby
the Commission, and among other pre-.
texts the remarkable utterances of judge
Hill.
!. It will be remembered that the Attor-
ney General was paraded with much
ado, by some of the State newspapers as
! having declared that the supervision
law was unconstitutional. After Mr.
Catchings' letters were published, in
which he stated his opinion very clearly,
| we said that there was no material diff.
ference between the Attorney G eneral
and the writer. That is to say, we both
agreed that the act was not unconstitu.
tioaal on its face, and, as the Commits
sion had performed no official act indi-
eating an intention to enforce the pro
| visions of the act in an unconstitutional
manner, the bill for injunction was i'll.
advised. The Post now twits us as being
easily consoled," because the Attorney
General said in his letter to the Gov
ernor that he was Of the opinion "tnat
| the State cannot interfere with tariffs
for the transportation Of any freight
i except such as is to be carried wholly
| within the State, and that the act in
50 far as 1t seeks to create the offence of
| extortion is wholly incapable of enforce
ment by reason Of its vagueness and I'M
certainty Promising by saying that
the offence of extortion, 20 noaline, as de-
| fined by the act, has no sort of connec-
ton with any of the duties Of tie Com
missi1a. hut Is a if It were in another
statute, we append the language Of the
Attorney General upon which we rely
for the statement that there Is no ma
teriaI difference between the views of
the Attorney General and of the writer,
and as evidence that Ee are not so
darned easily consoled' Is 3 body might
imagine:
viii say in this connection that did
not advise the Goyernor that the law was
unconstitutional On tie contrary, ! ad-
vised him that il was not unconstitutional
upon it, face. said to him that If it should
Be- construed 50 as to embrace property
shipped frou this to another State, Of rice
sxsa, ii would be unconstitutional but
that such construction vas sol required
By the terms Of the Law. ! said u him
also that did not think that any railroad