Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1898-03-18
ATTACKED BY LEEDY.
KANSAS GOVERNOR ON
THE SUPREME COURT.
Tho Recent Decision Against the Me-
braska Maximum Railroad Rates Do
nounoed In Most Bitter Language
Corruption and Chicanery Charged.

court in the Nebraska maximum
rate case. 1t is carefully prepared
document, every line of which has
been closely scrutinized by the gov
ernor and several of his friends, in
GLIDING Chief Justice Doster, G. G.
Clemens and, of course, Ed Little. 1t
may be regarded in the light of an
official document.
The governor declares that for a
year the press dispatches have said the
opinion would be adverse to the state.
Then he says: 1.-The opinion has been
handed down and the Associated Press
dispatches say that it is a clean VIC
tory for the railroads. On the contrary
it is an unclean victory in every
matter how carefully the robes OF
justice are folded about the personnel
of the Supreme court, these 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 req
son for the delay, and as the decisio
as rendered confirms the statement
made in Associated Press dispatches
from time to time, strong color is given
to the suspicion that the press dis
patches emanated from some person
in touch with the cour. and were for
the purpose of feeling the pulse of the
public and preparing it for the decis-
ion, which goes much farther in the
direction of usurping power than any
that has yet been made"
The governor quotes the constitu-
ton of Ne braska, which says that the
has power to establish
maximum charges for transporta-
ton, and declares that the Supreme
court has tried to abrogste it. Tho
governor challenges Justice Harlan's
of the federal constitu-
ton, and says that he attempts to
make corporation q person under
the fourteenth amendment.
81 deny it," Governor Leedy con-
tinues, land so will everybody but
lawyer or a subservient
judicial tool of corporate interests"
Referring to the effect of the decis.
ion on his own bill, which he asks
members of the legislature to vote
for, he repeats what he said several
days ago, that this bill was
drawn on the theory taken by the
court that the rate question is ju-
iicial one. TO decide against his bill
If it should become law. the court
Governor Leedy then quotes the
;4th amendment and says: How in
ne name of God can this apply to cor
,orations? Corporations are not born,
hey are created-made by law. They
.annot be naturalized; they cannot
take oath of allegiance; only human
beings born elsewhere can do that"
Continuing, the governor quotes
Hare on American constitutional law
and a decision by Justice Woods of
the United States circuit court. after
wards a supreme court justice, to
prove that the fourteenth amend
ment does not refer to copora-
tions, and declares that the Woods
decision had been followed in
Rhode Island and other states from
1870 to 1882, "when Justice Field
and another federal justice of the
peace named Sawyer decided the other
way and since then, whenever cor
poration starts out to commit highway
robbery, pick mans pocket or loot
a public treasury, it DISCUSSES itself
as person and goes out on
its mission of plumber. Nobody
but slave or knave will
yield assent to the hideous distortion
OF meaning which Judge Harlan gives
to the word person. as used in the
fourteenth amendment, and upon
which he bottoms his infamous decis-
ions, and which shows to what depths
OF iniquity the supreme court of the
United States has descended.
II DESIRE" the governor continues,
''to quote some of the opinions of the
Supreme court of the United States
before it went into partnership with
Morgan. Vanderbilt, Gould &C Co, in
opposition to the opinion they hold in
the Nebraska case"
Long decisions by justice Jonn Mar
shall in 1880 are quoted. In conclu-
sion Governor Leedy states that his
maximum rate bill will be pre-
sented to the legislature in such
shape that to decide against
it the court must reverse its
decision in the Nebraska case and he
stetes that ''if the court still pursues
the corrupt and rotten practice that it
has heretofore done by changing its
decisions to suit the shifting interests
Of the railroad corporation" the
remedy will be with the people in
their dealings with the courts, or in
railroads of their own.
The address is particularly signifi-
can't in that Governor LeedS has al
ready taken steps preliminary to the
calling of the state legislature in
special session, with the especial pur
pose of enacting maximum freight
rate law.
In giving the address to the report
ers Governor Leedy said: How long
do you suppose man can write trea-
son like this without getting into jail2
4