The record-union., 1893-02-03
a REVOLUTIONARY AND IDIOTIC
PROPOSITION.

up arms, than this, that neither life nor
property shall be taken, nor the person
be deprived of his liberty, without due
! process of law.
That is understood by every schoolboy;
It is written into every Constitution of
every State; it is the substructure of the
Declaration of Independence; it is the
bulwark of free government; it is the
shield against which autocracy cannot
prevail, and the blade before which des-
potism goes down.
Every man owning anything, be it the
rudest cottage that shelters his family,
the palace roof that covers wealth, the
thatch that protects the beggar, or the
domes that arch over the galleries of art
every man knows that his human right
is buttressed by this proposition, craven
upon the tablets of all law and written
indelibly upon the hearts of men. No
power shall invade or take the property
of person, sole or corporate, without
due process of law.
A municipality cannot do it; a State
cannot do 1t; it is beyond the supreme
power of the Federal Government and
impossible by DEGREES of courts.
A legislative body cannot take property,
though it is the representative power in a
State, except by due process of law.
What due process is, the Constitution
itself declares-no property shall be taken
for any use without due compensation.
and not then except it is for public use
In time of war only, when the law is
suspended and the rule of might and
arms sets aside and dominates all right,
can one be deprived of his possessions
without invoking the process of the law.
which must be fortified by constitutional
declaration.
When we have said that all men know
these truths-that the schoolboy is famil-
lar with them, that the beggar in his rags
and Croesus in his silks alike know them.
we are in error; there is one man in the
State who does not know of these funda-
mental principles of free governments;
he soberly declares and puts into print,
that the world may know of his amazing
ignorance, that he is unaware of the
foundations upon which the fabric of free
government rests that protects him in his
right to make consummate ass of him
self.
Hear this idiotic expression from Leeds,
whose constitutional amendment to cinch
railroads is before the Legislature. We
quote from Mr.. Leeds in the Bulletin of
Wednesday-the italics are ours:
One OF two things must be undertaken.
Either 1t Is necessary to put in a protective
clause in the bill to fix a rate which Will adj
NIT OF the small roads doing business on a
living basis in order to fix q schedule that
will put the Southern Pacific Company on
reasonable schedule, or you must place the
small roads on the basis of the Southern Pa
cific Company to their detriment. But the ar
gitA1elt reported 10 be nor IN use at Sacramento
IS q hU1iOug. In the first place the Southern
Pacific Company said that rates could not be
fixed that would contScate property without
due process of law. If you do not discrimi-
nate for the small roads you are obliged 10
take their property without due process of
law or permit the Southern Pacific Company
10 rob the state as IL mas been doing hereto
fore. II the United States Supreme
Court has held that you cannot contiscate the
property of the roads without due process of
law; in other words, that you cannot fix IN
remunerative rates on the small roads; that
you must discriminate III their favor or per
NIT the southern Pacific Company to proceed
as it has been doing; if you cannot discrimi-
nate you must make schedule for the South
ern Pacific Company, and II The result IS tax
ing the property Of the small roads, that cannot
be helped.
Mr.. Leeds adds that he has no know
ledge of any such decision as one that
holds. to use the Bulletins statement
of what is claimed by the railroads and
which it communicated to Leeds, "that
the provision excepting railroads
earning under $4,000 per mile per
annum is a discrimination such as it
is held by the Supreme Court of the
United States that the State cannot en-
force between competitors in regulating
charges"
However, the public is not responsible
for Mr.. Leeds ignorance-it knows if he
does not, that it is fundamental princi-
pie that there shall not be discrimination
in taxation between owners of property,
the laws shall be uniform; they shall not
tax one to confscation of his property;
they shall not burden one with obliga-
tons that are not imposed upon another,
and so on.
But here we have the perfectly cool and
deliberate declaration of the manager of
the Traffic Association, that the non-dis-
elimination argument is "humbug';
that if is not humbug, but verify, and the
Traffic Association scheme injected into
the Constitution will'result in taking the
property of the thirty odd small railroad
owners, sit cannot be helped"
This is revolutionary; it is anarchistic:
it is the desperation of the Ired hand and
the voice of idiocy. Fortunately the
rights of men in property are not de-
pendent upon the Interpretation of the
substructural laws of lsociety by Mr..
Leeds. His absurd declarations neither
alarm nor excite; they awaken indigna-