Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1897-10-20
IT'S A CONTRACT.
Ana at sasa Is Binding aaa No, Co he
 Broken


 Broken.
 The Jerome News. a democratic
 paper, believes in the binding force
 of a plain contract, as is evidenced bY the following:
 "Various contemporaries through
 out Arizona are indulgin gin a great
 deal of cheap satire and hnncome
 flap doodle ia attacking the funding
 of tha F. & A. C. bonded debt, ia
 the front rank of whom is our friend,
 the Prescott Courier. With won
 derfui logic, acumen and profuse
 display of legal lore 1t is endeayored
 to be shown that an honest debt,
 legitiniatelY incurred. may be repu-
 diated first, because the JcraNAL-
 MINER is said to be & Journal-Mur-
 phy'; second, because the purpose
 for which the bonus was offered has
 been accomplished, the road built
 and also another and better one.
 Third, becausE tfse act creating the
 indebtedness fails to state that the
 road shall not be operated continu- ously, and fourth. because We caD't afford to pay the dsrned old debt, anyhow.
 A simple illustration should sui fee to put the real state of affairs within the grasp of any citizen a round in the intellectual ladder above a burro: Smith owns valuable agricultural property, but no means to cultivate it. Jones has money, but no land. Smith and Jones get together and agree that if the latter will put in a crop, Smith will pay $l0 an acre to Jones-say in fifty years alter the crop is harvested. Jones gets this agreement in black and white, and hies himself of to the bank and discounts the paper for enough money to pay for putting in | the crop and puts it in.
 Now, what may happen to that crop the ultimate pecuniary result i to Smith or Jones does not ID the | least affect the nature of the con- tract. Innocent parties have put their good money into Smiths promises to pay, and on the maturi- y of that obligation, is 1t just that | Smith should eyad epayment7
 ''One of the most eminent legal iu the territory once filed an opinion pronouncing the bonds valid. That opinion is now on file, and part of the record. The fact that the same attorney now under takes to demonstrate their invalidity proves the inssduous influence of a contingent fee, rather than it alters the merits of the case.
 Apart from the honesty of this debt, which no honest man will gainsay; apart from the legal quib- bic and pragmatical hair splittings of fee hungry attorneys, there is a question of policy which enters into he matter of these bouds, so grave as to over shadow all other consider ations. Capital is requisite to de- seiop the vra:ed aud immense re- sources of Arizona even the Cou- -ier will admit this, and capital is .iaid bird. It gingerly looks about before 1t builds it's nest, and is quick 70 take alarm. The senseleSs repu- iiaticn slogans of our misguided will work more grie- iious harm to this section than all be anti-silver legislation that has been jammed through Congress in he past twentY-four years.
 "Moueyed men will not invest in he development of a country which e-eehOes with attacks on capitalists md whose suppositious mouth pieces advocate repudistion of just lebtS. All this bother and chatter bout tsxless roads, plutocracy and noneyed corruption is worse than enseless. 1t is absolutely suicidal, md the quicker the people of Ari- ora awaken to that fact, the sooner Eill the Courier and others change heir tune.n