Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-08-26
SvEeKLv lNTELLloENcER,
tMoM Fuess.,
eUllnl<ep EvERys "WEDNESDAY MoaNIno,
no Dollars Year sn Adrones.
LANCASTER. August q, lsss.
ne Law and thc rartr.

/
The Law and the Party.
4 The Attorney general has filed bills be-
fore TIE court at Harrisburg, demanding
that tho transfer of the Scnth Penn and the |
Beach Greek railroads to the Pennsylvania
railroaslbe stopped ,and he has been granted
= temporary injunction in accordance with |
his prayer until the eighth day Of Septem-
her.
The movement thus inaugurated we
need hRrdly say is of the most important
character. 1t will lead to q definite SETTLE
ment Of the relations of railroad corpora
tions to the state. They hitherto have felt
free to do pretty much as they pleased,
and have had no scruple TO
avoid the halter of the law and
to drive in coach and four, or rather in
palace car, through any hindrance seem
ingly offered by the law to their aims. The
old corporations have avoided control Of
the new constitution by claiming that they
were not under its provisions, being pro-
tected by their prior charters. This pre-
tense Is probably the foundation stone upon
which the Pennsylvania railroad will rest
its claim that it is free to buy the control
Of competing lines, which the consti-
tuition plainly forbids. 1t is high
time that it should be decided how far
the railway corporations chartered before
the adoption of the constitution are con-
trolled by it, though a decision in this
case that the Pennsylvania railroad was
froo fror,, ;fa nonfrnl vpo,ild ef;I not opahIo
ii to consolidate with new railroads that
are unquestionably under the restraint of
the constitution, as the forbidden consoli-
dation would be the act Of both.
No doubt great many fine legal points
will be raised in the issue and the lawyers
1Ufill he in clover in arguing them and the
5ddges ,in trouble in deciding them
2 But to the plain sense of the peo.
pie there is nothing complicated in the
issue and nothing difficult in its determi
nation. They will assume that the people
have a right to control their corporations
while doing them no wrong and they dc
not wrong them in refusing to permit them
To consolidate. 1t seemA clear enough tia
the nsePle 2,sss 2 - = Ase9si:i ant
Z 2 .... ase the companies that they incorpo
rate, if they deem it best for the public in
(terest. III they have not this power it i
not easy to conceive what power they ma.
4 have.
The courts will never decide tina
the people have deprived themselves o
the power to keep separate, corpora
y tions which have been chartered separately
When the people are declared to be thu
bound around, it will be time for revolu
tion and reorganization. IL will not be
democracy, when corporations which tn
people create may unite themselves TO
gether against the peoples prohibition
and become stronger than their creator.
An issue of this vitality raised at tn
opening of political campaign passe
necessarily into it to control it. 1t canno
be kept before the judges. 1t must g
before the people, for it is
political as well as a judicial question
and whatever the decision of the courts, il
is absolutely certain that the decision o
the people, which will be the final one, vii
reserve TO them the right to control thei
creatures. If they have not done it alread,
under their legal forms, they will do i
hereafter. 1t is simply impossible that il
this great state competing railroad corpo
rations shall he able to unite when th,
people forbid il. And that is the onl,
question in the issue now raised.
The Democratic party, whose governor
and attorney general have cast the power
of the state against the impudent railroad
attempt to deride the constitution, throws
itself hotly and heartily and wholly into
the effort to preserve the people from rail
road corporation domination.
Its convention meets to-day, and enthu.
siastically ratifes the stand its state OIL,
GERS have taken. The political thrust and
the legal thrust are made in unison, and
it is as well that it is SO. 1t is to be
understood plainly that the Democratic
party has made its final Interpretation of
tile law in this matter. 1t asks the court
for its decision, although its own mind is
made up /; for it is party of law. If the
law is construed not to be what it deems it,
then it will reform the law and make il
agree with its view of what is demanded
by popular sovereignty. There is no dis
puto about this at ALL. The law must for
bid railroad consolidation, says the Demo-
cratic party. That is its stand. 1t be-
lieves that the law now does this ; and If
it does not, then it will reform it I;
but the result it demands must come.
Upon this it takes its position and asks
the support of the people.
Woe be unto the Republican party
IL it stands aloof 1t will go
down amid the mighty rush of
3 waters. II the Democratic party is left in
undisturbed possession Of the issue it de-
fends, there viii be an.absolutely certain
reyersal Of the political majority in the
STATE.