Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-08-02
THE BUSINESS WORLD.
Court Refuses to Appoint a Receiver
for the Lehigh R. Z. Co.
NO INJUNCTION WILL BE ISSUED.
The Evidence Given Shows No Conspiracy
to Ruin the Company.
FIRES, FAILURES AND RAILWAY NEWS

EAsToN, Pa, Aug. lin the North
ampton County Court this morning an
opinion was handed down In relation to the
Philadelphia and Reading and Lehigh
Valley Railroad deal. The case came up
on motion for a receiver for the Lehigh
Valley Railroad Company, and for pre-
liminsry in junction. The motion for q
receiver is based on a number Of allegs-
tions, the purport of which is that the
directors of the Lehigh Valley Railroad
Company are engaged in conspiracy to ruin
that company in the interest of the Phila-
delphia and Reading Company. The Court
states that from the high character Of the gen.
tlemen concerned aside from the inherent
absurdity of such charge, there is not the
slightest evidence to support it. The mo-
tion for receiver is therefore denied. The
opinion runs thus:
Are the complainants entitled to q prelin,-
mary injunctionP The present controversy
is the ourgrowth of a lease by the directors
Of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company of
that company's property, including all its
franchises except the franchise Of being
corporation to the Philadelphia and Read
ing Railroad Company.
The Contentious That Were Made.
The contention Of the complainauts is that
this lease is Illegal first, because 1t was not
within the powers Of the directors to make
1t, and in the second place because. as the
complainants allege, the lines of the Lehfgh
Valley and Philadelphia and Reading Rail-
roads were, at the date Of the lease, parallel
Or competing" and therefore the lease was
in violation OF the Constitution.
1t is one Of the peculiarities Of tile case at
bar that the lease was in violation OF the
Constitution. 1t is one of the peouliarities
binder Of the complainants' complaint, in
stead of being an injury, has been positive
ben eft to them. On this point we have afd-
dayits Of the Directors of the Lehigh Valley
nearly six months since the lease was made.
and the stock has steadily advanced in price
ever since and is still advancing.
Here, then, we have the anomaly OF set
Of complainants without grievance assert
ing doubtful right and asking for an in
junction that would do them no good, while
to the defendants, but to the public, by the
Interruption of travel and transportation on
all the lines of the Reading system.
An Injunction Would Be Urjust.
To grant an Injunction under such cir
cumstances would be to invite revolution or
rather it would be to inaugurate revolution
by ourselves leading the way i'll showing
contemps for the authority of the law. The
present motion must therefore be dismissed.
We are free to admit that we would willing
ly have reached different conclusion If we
could have done so without trampling the
safeguards which the law has thrown
around the exercise of the most excellent,
but at the same time most dangerous juris-
diction by injunction.
II reports be true, and we have no reason
to doubt them the workingmen, anxious to
work, with families dependent on their
earnings, are being turned out of their
places by scores and hundreds with as little
ceremony and apparently with as little
thought as If they were so many cattle. No
one denies the right of the stockholders OF
the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad to
receive dividends on their stock. At the
same time the claims of long continued
faithful service have been recognized the
world over, and is it not worthy OF consider
alton whether dividends earned in con-
tempt of these claims may not be achieved
at too great cost. But 1t Is merely by tho
way the. bill before Us has been filed by
private parties for their own private ends,
and the equities alone are in the balance.