Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-08-01
In the |. & G. NJ, investigation
Files Its Brief in the Case.
GEN. ROBERTSON WRITES IT.
II Has Something to Say About Hon, Horace
ChiitOn's Ability as Lawyer,
Judge McCord Attacked on One Point
Only-The Brief Evidently Intended
for the Eeneit of the Pablo.
Judge Geraids Statement.
The Prosecutions Brief.

! the prosecution in the matter of the Inter
| national and Great Northern investigation
was si"ned by Felix H. Robertson, attor-
/ ney for the Farmers loan and trust COM
! pany.' 1t can hardly be called a brief, as
! ii is but little more than an eX-parte state
ment OF the several facts or alleged
facts thought TO have been estab-
| lished by testimony taken before the
! committee, with such incidental comment
| as an attorney would naturally indulge in a
| curSOry review of the case. II Is really
| but little more than recapitulatiOn of the
| evidence published while the committee
| was in session at Galveston, modified by q
! partisan construction that might have some
weight in influencing jury, but that could
| have 10 effect on the minds of the
committee. mo are themselves lawyers
as well able to weigh evidence as the at
torneys for either side.
Mr.. Robertson's brief begins with a
cursory recital of the historic features of
the receivership from the filing of Jay
Could 5 petition against the International
and Great Northern. February 4. 1889, in
which he asked judgment for S496,OO0, in
Judge McCord court in Smith county, on
down through the various interventions and
al. the steps that Succ eeded. The several
meetings and cOnfabS between the gentle
men interested in maintaining the receiver
ship are reLearSed i'll substance, and what
Chiffon, Bonner. HerndOn, Duncan,
Finley, Campbell and McCord
said is set forthin man
ner more or less CARRIED. II is the strongly
partisan statement Of certain portions of
garbed testimony, rather than any attempt
to explain or enlarge upon it, that gives
tone and character to the brief
The absence of the usual lengthy argu-
ments of the advocate evinceS settled belief
IN the mind of the attorney that an exhaus-
tive. or any, discussion whatever of the case
from the standpoint would be useless, rs
his side had failed to make out their case.
The statement, or brief, or whatever it may
be called, has all the marks of perfunctory
Job. done more for the public than for
the committee. CARRIED testimony ard Ge-
tached incidents set forth in partisan col
Oring, and made to masquerade as unques-
toned evidence or established facts may
deceive the public unfamiliar with much o.
the testimony brought out at the investiga-
ton. That this brief was intended more
for the public than for the commit
tee appears from another Circum-
stance, to-wit: the sending of but
a single copy OF it TO the chairman of the
committee. Neither AlesSrS Crane or
Brietz got glimpse of it until that copy
arrived yesterday with Judge Mckinney's
vagrant trunk. The other side sent copies
OF It's brief to all the members of the com
mittee
An unmistakable interior evidence that
the document was aimed At the public, ap-
pears in the unusual amount of space given
to the injunction and Intervention suits of
Acknowledgement HOgg. Perhaps fourth
of the entire paper is devoted to an alleged
statement of his connection with the cases
mentioned, and the inference made inevlta-
bic from the biased and distorted allega-
tons that the injunction served on the Mis-
souri,, Kansas and Texas, April /, 1889, and
the intervention suit February 1890, were
~, ba int of no n
and of Mr.. Gould, who, it is claimed, de-
sired the continuance of the receivership
after the appointment of Eddy The in
junction proceeding might have been favor
able to Gould, but ii would puzzle u Phila-
delphia lawyer TO discover how an interven-
ton suit that sought to cancel as flaudu-
lent several million dollars worth of stocks
and bonds, could benefit him or anybody
else connected with or interested in
the road. Besides that part
of Charles Bonner's testimony in
which he stated that he concealed from the
attorney At that Sunday morning
conference in March, 1889, the fact of his
employment as an attorney by Gould. and
concealed also the real purposes which he
had in view-in pressing upon the attorney
general the need for enjOining the Missouri :.
Kansas and TeXaS-alI this was gu ietly g-
noced i'll the brief, and the bald effort made
to show that the only purpose the attorney
general could have in enjoining was TO pre-
vent the meeting of the Missouri, Kansas
and Texas directors at Palestine
in April, 1883, and the consequent reOrgani-
zation of the International and Great
Northern and overthrow of the Tyler re-
Ownership. The fact is that the injunction
brought to prevent the Missouri, Kansas
and Texas from sobbling up The 1nterna-
tiOnal and Great Northern, a competing
line. is still III force in the Travis county
district court. and no effort has been made
by the defendant to dissolve it.
1t is urged that the Tyler crowd got to-
gether after the fling of Jay Gould'S petit
ton, and agreed among themselves TO
trump up claims on which to base de-
mand for receivership. when there was
erS mad been appointed, the aid of
the encouragement was sought and OBJ |
tanned TO maintain it by driving on the |
Missouri, Kansas and Texas hawks /,
from the Tyler dove cote" These things |
are stated with all the positiveneSs war
ranted by direct and unreputed testimony. |
Each of the principal personages con- |
nected in one way or another with the re- |
Ownership, beginning
WITH JUDGE MCORD
is taken up in succession, and his relations |
to it SET forth just about as they were pic |
tured in Cone JohnsOn's editorial in the |
Texas Farmer last spring, with some addi- |
testimony of Naldsrt and Johnson, Whit |
aker & Bonner thrown in.
The allowance to Finley and also to |
Campbell both as master and re- |
ceiver. and the circumstances connected |
herewith, are detailed, and the intimation
made that they We're excessive.
The brief goes on to state that Judge |
McCord appointed receivers without notice
TO the owners of the road and that he APP
pointed Campbell against the written pro-
tests of the representatives of the parties
in interest. 1t is further held that ne used !
the money of the road in improvements
and the purchase of betterments with
out notice TO the parties at interest.
His action in depositing money in other
banks than that of Bonner & Bonner is
criticised, but the statement is made that |
there IS no proof that Judge AIcCord made
the deposits source of pecuniary profit TO
himself. 1t does appear that he controlled
them for his personal or political advant-
age" The proof of this is no more tangi-
BILE than Of the idea that he derived pc
cuniary profit from the deposits, but
the statement OF it can be more
safely made. II is the calv imputation in
the brief that Judge McCord was not actu-
ated at all times by worthy and incorrupt
motives.
The observation is yentured with re-
spect to Mr.. Chiffon, that his opinion that
ne had 'good grounds for a receivership"
IN the Gus Taylor intervention, does not
Indicate that he is entitled TO very high
place in the legal profession of Texas" II
$ -.