The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1898-03-18
SUPREME COURT DENOUNCED
Arraigned by the Kansas Pop
ulist Administration.

Il
ulist Administration.
MAXIMUM FREIGHT RATE LAW
Governor Leedy Declares the Recent
Nebraska Case Decision Was PaIpa-
bly, Wrong-An Address Issued.
Topeka, Kan, March 14.-The Popu-
list administration of the state of Kan
sas gave out a startling public address
today, one bristling with severe criti-
cism of the recent decision of the
United States supreme court in the Ne
braska maximum freight case. The ad-
dress is significant in that Governor
Leedy has already taken steps prelim-
mary to calling the state legislature in
special session, with the especial pur-
pose of enacting maximum freight
rate law. While the address is given
out over the signature of Governor
Leedy, it had first been approved by
Chief Justice Bosler, of the state SUI
preme court and other prominent Pop
ulists. In giving the address to the
reporters. Governor Leedy said:
How long do you suppose man can
write treason like this without getting
into Jail? You may put my signature
to it and make it a signed statement, so
that if anybody goes to Jail it will be
me-"
The governor begins his address with
the statement that for year the press
dispatches have said that the opinion
In the Nebraska case would be adverse
to the state. Then he says:
| The opinion has been handed down,
and the Associated Press dispatches say
that it is clean victory for the rail-
roads, On the contrary, it is an un-
clean victory In every respect of the
case, showing that no matter how care
fully the robes of Justice are folded
about the personnel of the supreme
court, the robes can no longer conceal
the cloven hoof of official malfeasance
and usurpation. As this decision was
due year ago, and as there was no
known reason for the delay, and as the
decision as rendered confirms the state
ments made in the Associated Press
color is given to the suspicion that
the press dispatches emanated from
some person in touch with the court,
and were for the purpose of feeling the
pulse of the public and preparing it
for the decision which goes much fur
ther in the direction of usurping power
than any that has been made.''
The governor declares that the con-
stitution of Nebraska gives the legis-
lature power to establish maximum
charges for transportation, and de-
clared that the supreme court has tried
to abrogate 1t. He challenges Justice
Harlan's declaration that corporation
is person under the 14th amendment
to the federal constitution, and says:
81 deny it, and SO will everybody
but a corporation lawyer or a subserv-
lent judicial tool of corporate inter-
ests."
Governor Leedy then quotes the 14th
amendment, and says:
"How, in the name Of God, can this
apply to corporations? Corporations
are not born; they are created-made
by law. They cannot be naturalized;
they can take no oath of allegiance;
only human beings can do that
After more in the same strain, the
governor, still referring to the 14th
amendment, says:
"Who are the persons who shall not,
according to the provisions. be deprived |
of life, liberty or property, nor be de-
MED equal legal protection? Every
body outside the asylum and off the
judicial bench knows them to be-and
to only be-natural persons. They are
those who, beside the capacity to
hold property and enjoy legal protec-
tion, also have life and can enjoy lib
erty, and that means human beings"
Continuing, the governor quotes
Hare on American Constitutional
Law" and decision by Justice
Woods, of the United States circuit
court, afterward supreme court justice,
to prove that the 14th amendment does
not refer to corporations, and declares
that the Woods decision had been fol-
lowed in California, Rhode Island and
other states from 1870 to 1882, "when
Justice Field and another federal JUS
tice of the peace named Sawyer decided
the other way, and since then, when
ever a corpoI0ion starts out to commit
robbery, pick a'man's pocket,
or loot public treasury, it diguises it
self as person and goes out on its
mission of plunder. Nobody but a
slave or knave will yield assent to the
hideous distortion of meaning which
Judge Harlan gives to the word per
son, as used in the 14th amendment,
and upon which he bottoms his infa-
nous decision, and which shows to
what depths of iniquity the supreme
court of the United States has de-
81 DESIRE" the governor said, "to
quote some of the decisions of the su-
preme court of the United States before
it went into partnership with Morgan,
Gould & Co., in opposi-
tion to the opinion they hold in the
Nebraska CASE" CLong decisions by
in 1860 are quoted).
In conclusion, Governor Leedy states
that his maximum rate bill will be
to the Kansas legislature, in
such shape that to decide against it the
court must reverse it's decision in the
Nebraska case, and he states that "if
the court still pursues the corrupt and
'otten practice that it has heretofore.
BY changing its decisions to suit the .
shifting interests of the railroad corpor-
ations," the remedy will be with the
people in their dealings with the courts
,r in building railroads of their own.
In 1860 the manufactured product Of
st. Louis only amounted to s27,OO0,- 8