St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-05-28

ton thereof?
Second = If authority exist, as
authority in governmental affairs i'm
plies both power and duty, has court
of equity jurisdiction to issue an in
junction in aid of the performance of
such duty?
First-What are the relations of the
general government to interstate COM
merce and the transportation of the
mails? They are those of direct super
vision, control and management. While
under the dual system which prevails
with us, the powers of government are
distributed between the state and the
nation, and while the latter is prop
erly styled a government of enumer-
ated powers, yet within the limits of
such enumeration it has all the at
tributes of sovereignty, and in the ex-
ercise of those enumerated powers acts
directly upon the citizen, and not
through the intermediate agency Of the
state.
Second-Under the power vested in
congress to establish postoffices and
post roads, congress has by mass of
legislation established the postoffice
system of the country, with all its de-
tail of organization its machinery for
the transaction of business, defining
what shall be carried and what not,
and the price of carriage and also
prescribing penalties for all offenses
against. Obviously these powers given
to the national government over inter
state commerce and in respect to the
transporta ton of the mails were not
dormant and unused. Congress had
taken hold of these two matters and
by various specific acts had assumed
and exercised the powers given to it,
and was in the full discharge of its
duty to regulate interstate commerce
and carry the mails. If the inhabitants
of a single state or great body of
them should combine to obStruct inter-
state commerce or the transportation
of the mails, prosecutions for such
offenses had in such a community
would be doomed in advance to failure.
And if the certainty of such failure
was known and the national govern
ment had no other way to enforce the
freedom of
INTERSTATE COMMERCE
and the transportation of the mails
than by prosecution and punishment
for interference Herewith, the whole
interests of the nation in these respects
would be at the absolute mercy of
portion of the inhabitants of single
state. But there is no such impotency
in the national government. The en-
tire strength of the nation may be
used to enforce in any part of the land
the full and free exercise of all ma
tianol powers and the security of all
rights entrusted by the constitution to
its care. The strong arm of the nation
al government may be put forth to
brush away all distractions to the
freedom of interstate commerce or the
transportation of the mails. If the
emergency arises, the army of the ma
ton and all it's militia are at the serV-
ice of the nation to compel obedience to
it's laws. In the case before us, the right
to use force does not include the right
of appeal to the courts for a judicial
determine ton, and for the exercise of
all their powers of prevention. Indeed
it is more to the praise than to the
blame of the government that instead
of determining for itself questions of
right and wrong on the part of these
petitioners and their associates and
club of the policeman and the bayonet
of the soldier, it submitted all those
questions to the peaceful determination
of judicial tribunals, and invoked their
consideration and judgment as to the
measure of it's rights and powers, and
the correlative obligations of those
against whom it made complaint. And
1t is equally to the credit of the latter
that the judgment of those tribunals
was by the great body of them respect
ed and the troubles which threatened
so much disaster terminated Neither
can it be doubted that the government
has such an interest in the subject as
enables it to appear as party plaintiff
in this suit. 1t is said that equity only
interferes with the protection of prop
erty, and that the government has no
property interest. A sufficient reply is
that the United States has property in
terest in the mails, protection of which
was one of the objects of this bill. Up
to a recent date commerce, both in
terstate and international, was mainly
by water, and it is not strange that
both the legislation of congress and the
cases in the courts has been concerned
principally Herewith. The fact that
in recent years the interstate COM
merce has come mainly to be carried
on by railroads and over artificial
highways, has in no manner narrowed
the scope of the constitutional provis-
ion, or abridged the power of congress
over such commerce. On the con-
trary, the same fullness of control eX-
lists in the one case as in the other, the
same power to
REMOVE INSTRUCTIONS
from the one as from the other Con-
stitutional provisions do not change,
but their operation extends to the new
matters as the modes of business and
the habits of life of the people vary
with each succeeding generation. That
the bill filed in this case disclosed spe-
cial facts calling for the exercise of
the powers of the court is not open to
question. The picture drawn in it of
the vast interests involved, not merely
of the city of Chicago and the state
of Illinois, but of all the states and the
general confusion into which the inter
state commerce of the country was
thrown through the forcible in
reference with that commerce;
the attempted exercise by in
dividuals of powers belonging
only to government and the
threatened continuance of such inva-
sions of public right present a con-
dition of things which called for the
fullest exercise of all the powers of
the courts. If ever there was special
exigency presented, one which de-
manded that the court should do all
that courts can do. it is apparent on
the face of this bill, and we need not
turn to the public history of the day,
which only reaffirrns with emphasis
all it's allegations The difference be-
tween public nuisance and a private
nuisance is that the one affects the
people at large and the other simply
the individual. The quality of the
wrong is the same and the jurisdiction
of the courts over them rests upon the
same principles and goes to the same
extent. The argument in opposition
does not question the Jurisdiction of
the court, but only the expediency of
the action of the government in apply
ing for it's process. 1t surely cannot
be seriously contended that the court