The San Francisco call., 1895-07-19
THE CHURCH, STREET SUIT
Finance Committee of the
Supervisors Applied To
for Help.
Improvement Club Asks That $500
Be Appropriated to Cover
Expenses.

The Church-street Improvement Club
met last night in Duveneck's Hall, corner
of Twenty fourth and Church streets, and
talked over the prospects of the suit
brought by its attorney, A. P. Van Duzer,
in the name of the People of California
against the Market-street Railway Com
pany, to annul the Church-street fran
chise.
Mr.. Van Duzer said he had noticed some
change in the advertisement published on
Monday, respecting the Ingleside franchise,
as to the time limit, from that of the
Church-street franchise, but in the main
both advertisements are of the same i'm
port, he explained; that is, in both in
stances the new lines were to be considered
system. This, of course, was the most eff
fective method that could have been
chosen of barring out completely all COM
petition. He said he proposed to stay with
the legal fight begun, and promised that if
defeat be possible in the Superior Court
he would take an appeal to the Supreme
Court.
But think we will have walk-over," :"
he observed, ''when the court looks into
the law and considers the means by which
the Church-street franchise was obtained.
According to the law the franchise should
be bid for and go to the highest bidder,
and there should be no hedging in the ad-
vertisement. Resides, the order ought to
go to the Mayor for his signature. Now,
if we can get favorable decision an appli-
cation for new franchise will have to be
made, and I feel confident that Mayor
Sutro will not sign any new order unless
it is for a line all the way down Church
street to Thirtieth. We propose to see if
we can get the courts to put stop to this
farcical giving away OF valuable fran
chises."
Mr.. Van Duzer then explained how the
Ocean House road ana Sunnyside avenue
franchises were advertised as being mere
extensions of the Mission-street system to
bar all competition.
A resolution was Immediately adopted
asking the Finance Committee of the
Board of Supervisors to devote $500 toward
the prosecution of the Church-street suit,
and the following request will be presented
to the committee at its next meeting:
WHEREAS, The contest in which we are en-
gagged with the Market-street Railway Com
pany is for the purpose of obtaining judicial
construction OF the statutes regulating the
sale of franchises and to prevent the fraudu-
lent methods now practiced, whereby the pur-
pose of the law is entirely defeated and the
City ts defrauded of large sums which these
privileges would bring if honestly sold;
Therefore, we respectfully ask that the
appropriate the sum of $500 toward the pay
ment of the necessary expenses attending the
conduct OF the suit commenced by this club to
forfeit the pretended franchise by which the
Market-street Railway Company holds posses
sion OF a portion of Church and Ridley streets.
J. P. Locke presided over the meeting
and Secretary Joseph II. McCloskey re-
viewed the history of the treatment of the
Church-street property-owners by the
street-railway companies and the Boards
of Supervisors in the past, and demon
strated that the Church-street Club was a
pioneer organization in the agitation for
popular rights.
From his and other speeches made it
was manifest that the club was of the
opinion that the aid asked for of the FL
nance Committee was reasonable enough,
seeing that it had been with $500 of the
clubs money that the right of way which
the Market-street com bine had grabbed
had been purchased through the Leroy es-
tate for public thoroughfare.