Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1886-10-19
Gbe canfastet 1ntelliaeutss
LANCAsTKR. OCTOBER 10, 1856.
Under the Constitution.

The supreme court at Pittsburg has sus- /
tanned the Dauphin court in the Beech |
Creek and South Pennsylvania railroad
cases and has dismissed the appeal taken by |
thePennsylvania railroad without, however,
accompanying its decision with an opinion.
The decision is made upon motion for
preliminary injunction, but the argument
was made upon the merits, and there is no
opportunity for any other decision upon a
final hearing, should the Pennsylvania rail-
roads attorneys ask for it; which they say
they will do and doubtless will for pur-
poses of delay, if for no other.
The Importance of the decision as thus
rendered can hardly be over-estimat d,
putting as it does the great railroad cor.
porations of the state under the control OF
the constitution and making it impossible
that there should ever in the future be
consolidation of the independent lines OF
railroad that now exist or that may here
after bebuilt. The very plain purpose of the
constitution is to prevent such consolida-
tion, and the law will not tolerate any ef-
fort to evade the spirit of this
supreme mandate. And We may even
assume that any conspiracy to that
end would be apt to bring the con-
spring parties within penitentiaTy walls.
The vigor of the new constitution has long
been suppressed through the control which
the politicians of the Republican party,
which has been the governing party of this
state, have held of the law-making power,
ha x.,biah ha railroad
mates have had of them. 1t is fact not
to be challenged successfully, that the Re
publican party has been under the control
of the railroads, through their control of its
leaders. 1t is so to-day and most nota.
bic fact to be observed in the royal tour of
Blaine, now progressing, is that !he and
those with him have no word to say of this
absorbing issue Of tie restraint of corporate
power, but Blaine needs to go thirty years
back and declare that the issues of
Buchanan are the issues of Black. In the
senility of his age this delusion has come
upon him, that the people of Pennsylvania
will accept such declaration without con,
tempt.
1t is only since the Democratic party
chose governor for Pennsylvania that re,
spect for its constitution has been CON-
PEELED and since then it has grown apace,
until now that instrument is no
longer derided but has come to
have made itself a force to be re-
spected and obeyed by the most powerful
and the most law defying institutions OF
the state and this has come without legis-
tion to help it. We have waited in vain
for Republican legislatures to pass laws to
enforce the constitution. Its defense has
came wholly from the Democratic state ad-
ministration, which stepped forth through
of the constitution the Pennsylvania rail-
road in its brazen effort TO defy the prohbi-
tion of consolidation which it plainly made.
The Dauphn county court stood true to
what was the undoubted spirit of the law,
and its judges have given the people a
profound confidence in their upright intel
ligence. The supreme court has obtained
like confidence in sustaining their deci-
sion, though the decision may not, and
probably was not, unanimous. II is right
to remember that the judges of the Dau
phin court and the majority of the supreme
court are Republicans and that the Re
publican party can not in its masses
but only in its leaders and politicians, b,
charged with subserviency to corporation
influences. The great mass of the people
of all parties, are hostile to these influences
but the Republican party in this state is S,
held and bound by its leaders that it il
there voice which it always EXPIRE sses wher
it is in power; and it would be well, there
fore, if these leaders would in their ad
dresses now to the people, explain wherefor
it is that they have done so little to enforc
the constitution by the laws; and perhap
Mr.. Blaine might more proitably have pai
attention to these later ISSUES in the car
vass than to have gone back to the Bu
chanan-Stevens era for his thunder.