St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-09-06


streets of st. Paul, yet the improved
means of transporting passengers,
whether by cable or electricity, could be
employed by it only after gaining per-
mission of the common council. Button
the face of a grant of franchises
which is
SILENT AS To EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS,
and where existence can only be in
ferred by implication, would not court
of justice hesitate before pronOu ncing
q decree that would stop the march of
Improvement in this young and growing
city, exclude rapid transit and maintain
in perpetuity the ascendency of street
cars propelled by animal power"'
1t would present singular spectacle
If, while the supreme court of the
United States and the courts of other
states are restraining within the street
ear limits the spirit of monopoly and
exclusive privileges in the nature of
monOpolies, and are combining corpora
lions to the privileges plainly given
them in their charters, the courts OF this
state should be found enlarging. these
privileges by implication and conStru-
ing a statute more unfavorably to the
public and to the rights of the COM
munity than should be done in like
ease by the United States supreme
court, and the courts of other states OF
the union.
A case in many of its main features
almost identical with that of the city
railway was decided by the supreme
court of the United States XI. Peters
419. In that case, as in this, the
charter was silent as to exclusive
privileges. but the aid of the court was
invoked to maintain a monopoly and to
establish the exclusive nature of the
grant by implication. Chief Justice
fancy, as the organ of the court, said:
''The object and end of all govern
ment is to promote the happiness and
prosperity of the community in which
it is established, and it can never be as
sumed that the government intended to
diminish its power of accomplishing the
end for which it was created. And in a
country like ours-free, active and en-
terprising, continually advancing in
numbers and wealth, new channels of
communication are daily found neceS-
Sary both for travel and trade, and
are essential to the comfort, con-
venience and prosperity of the people.
A state ought never to be presumed to
surrender this power, because, like the
taxing power, the whole community
have an interest in preserving it I'M
diminished. And when a corporation
alleges that state has surrendered for
seventy years its power of Improvement
and public accommodation in great
and important line of travel along which
q vast number of its citizens must daily
pass,
THE COMMUNITY HAVE A RIGHT
to insist, in the language or the court,
that its abandonment ought not to be
presumed in case in which the delib-
crate purpose of the state to abandon it
does not appear The continued exist
ence of government W ,uld be of no
great value if, by implications and
preSumptlOnS, it was disarmed OF
the power necessary to accomplish
the ends of its creation, and
the functions it was designed to per-
form, transferred to the hands Of priv
LEGGED corporations. The rule of con-
structioh announced by the court was
notconfned to the taxing power, nor is it
so limited in the opinion delivered. On
the contrary, it was diStinctiyely placed
on the ground that the interests OF the
community were concerned in preserY-
ing undiminiShed the power then in
question; and whenever any power of
the state is said to be surrendered or di-
minished, whether it be the taxing
power or any other affecting the public
interest, the same principal applies and
the rule. of construction must be the
same. No one will question that the
interests Of the great body of the people
of the state would i'll this instance be
affected by the surrender Of this great
line of travel to single corporation.
with the right to exact toll and exclude
competition for seventy years. While
the rights of private property are sa-
sQr n q Nun forget thai
the community also has rights, md the
happiness and well-being of every citi-
zen depend on their faithful preserva-
-tinn y