The San Francisco call., 1898-10-19

The interest that has been created among the progressive citizens across the bay, by the announcement of the Realty Syndicate of their intention to establish a competitive ferry system between San Francisco and Emeryville, has aroused a large tribe of the genus obstructor. who would feel deeply grieved if such an en- terprise should be successfully inaugu- rated.
 Aside from their animadversions upon the financial status of the corporation that proposes to build this line, they have c pet hammer" that Is being used in dustTiouSly on all possible occasions.
 This Is embodied in the allegation that @ competitive ferry cannot be. established by reason of the alleged fact that the Oakland Water Front Company, other wise known as the Southern Pacific, con trols the wharf outlets to the bay.
 The fact that the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States prac- tically brings to Oakland and Alameda freedom from the despotism of the Water Front Company, and has opened up vast possibilities, has been carefully lost sight of by a large proportion of the people over the way, who still believe they are bottled up" by Uncle ColIis' once deadly grip upon the water frontage of the mod ern Athens
 This judgment of the court makes all Buch statements as to the powers of the Water Front Company nonsensical and the sooner the people of Oakland are con- vfnced of the fact the better. Under this Judgment on 8 retrial the city Is now putting in evidence to secure still further advantage over the once despotic corpo- ration by taking more water frontage away from 1t in addition to the nine tenths obtained through the former Iitiga- tion. The meat of the decision is the fact that 1t assures public instead of pri- vate control of the actual shipping front age of Oakland and the eastern shore of the bay for all time.
 William R. Davis senior counsel for Oak land in the famous case, referred yester- day to the fact that the people of that city do not realize the importance of their victory, and gave a concise resume of the results of the decision, which will be of particular interest at this time. He said:
 Horace w. Carpenter and the Water Front Company, his successor, claimed for over forty years title to the Oak land water front. which, as described in the ordinances and deeds under which they claimed, included twelve and a half square miles of navigable waters and shore strip up to ordinary high tide line. About nine-tenths of this area lay water ward from ordinary low tide line. That ancient claim extended under and in- cluded the whole bed of the estuary of San Antonio, the whole bed of the salt water basin opposite East Oakland, and the triangular area opposite Oakland and twenty-five feet of water and along a ship channel frontage seven miles long in the bay.
 The Supreme Court in the recent de- cfsion decided that the title to about nine tenths of this whole area still remained in the State. as 1t never had been grant ed to the town of Oakland by the Legis- lature and therefore could not have been granted by the town to Carpenter or the Water Front Company. That conclusion was reached by holding that the words ship channel meant low tide line, be- yond which the grant did not extend. So the Water Front Company obtains only the narrow, irregular strip common ly called tide land-really water lots-ly- ing between ordinary high and low tide lines. This comprises about one-tenth of what was originally claimed by the com- pany.
 How does this leave the city of Oak