Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1888-05-09
THE LAW OF THE APEX.
II Is Becoming Generally Unpopular
With the Mining Community.

" WV AiuiuS community,
Mining and Scientific Press
"A long pending suit for a valuable
mining property. located in Aspen,
Colorado, has just been settled, not by
the finding of court or jury, but by
an agreement come to between the
parties contestant. This suit has ex-
cited great interest in mining circles,
not so much on account of the value
OF the property in controversy, esti-
mated at between ten aud fifteen
millions, as for the reason that the
case involved the consideration of the
Apex law IN its application to miner
al bearing lodes. When we read the
dispatch announcing that the case
has been settled by compromise, we
were almost led to exclsim: "Of
course; how could it have been ra-
tionalIy disposed OF in any other way,
seeing the Interpretation of this en-
igmatical law was involved ia its
settlement" Contemplating the ju.
dicial proceedings had in this case,
there looms in our thought a cloudy
and shapeless form, the incarnation of
ambiguity, perplexity and doubt
something growing out Of the frantic
efforts Of the court and the jury to
reconcile the irreconciliable and adj
just the inadjustable.
Presumably this Aspen trial was
attended by the incidents and events
common on occasions Of this kind, all
here reproduced, maybe, in aggra-
waited form. There was, we may sup
pose, the usual array Of witnesses and
experts on either side, the testimony
of one set SO nearly Contemplating
that Of the other, that it would be
impossible for even the most expert
enced jurist to detect a pIeponderance
either way, this diversity of opinion
SO going to every fact connected with
or having the remotest bearing on the
case. The frame of mind induced
by attempts at reconciling these con-
1,cting views and through long
wrestling with this apex proposition,
with its end,line and side-line con-
comitants, were easier conceived than
described. "Confusion worse con
founded" fails to express it. Little
wonder these litieants, after several
years experience in the courts, con-
cluded to settle their differences in
the extra judicial manner related.
And yet such defeat of legal remedies
is not due so much to Incompetence
on the part Of these legal function
aries or other defect in the machiuery
of justice as to the inperfec'ions Of
the state itself, the very ground rrin-
cipIe Of which there is reason to fear
is radically wrong. How could the
judicial mind comprehend the in
comprehensive, or the bcwildered
Jury houndcring in a sea Of uncer-
tainties arrive at en- intelligent con
clusion or any conclusion whatever?
The expediency of this so called
Apex law has, from the time of its
enactment, been seriously questioned
in the most authoritative quarters,
some of those best qualified to Judge
of it's fitness having condemned it in
the strongest language. That its en-
forcement has in many instances been
attended with great Inconvenience
and even much hardship, cannot be
denied, nor is there much doubt but
it is becoming generally unpopular
with largo portion of the mining
community. 1t may we'll be in fact,
that in adopting this new and I'M
usual method in taking up lode min
ing claims instead of the square ioca
ton, as is the practise In al! other
countries, we grievously blundered.
If so, the mistake, should it become
clearly apparent, ought to meet with
early correction.
William N. Stewart, Senator from
Nevada, himself, by the way. author
of this Apex Bill, introduced into the
Senate day or two since a number
of amendments to the existing mining
law, all jadicious and much needed.
We suggest now that he go further,
and reconsider the policy of repeating
this statute with which there is such
wide discomfort, and substitute IN its
stead the plan of square locations,
that elsewhere has been SO generally
alopted and found to work SO we'll.