The San Francisco call., 1898-03-11
SAYS JUSTICE IS IN LEAGUE
 WITH CRIME Kansas Governor As sails the Supreme
 Court. Declares It's Mem berS Are the Tools of
 Corporations. Have Gone Into Partnership With Morgan, the Goulds
 and Vanderbilt.
A REMA ARK ABLE ADDRESS
Decision in the Maximum FreiS hi Rate Case Most Bitterly
 Denounced.
Special Dispatch to The Call.

TOPEKA, March 10-The Populist administration of the State Of Kansas gave out startling public address to- day, one briStling with severe crlu- cism of the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Nebraska maximum freight rate case. The address is particularly significant in that Governor Leedy has already taken steps preliminary to the calling of the State Legislature in special ses- sion with the especial purpose of en- acting a maximum freight rate law. While the address is given out over the signature of Governor Leedy, it had first been approved by Chief Jus tice Doster of the Supreme Court and other prominent Populists. 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 1t a signed statement, so that if anybody goes to jail 1t will be me-"
 The Governor begins his address with the statement that for year the press dispatches have said that the
 
 adverse to the State. Then he says:
 ''The opinion has been handed down. and the press dispatches say that it is clean victory for the railroad. On the contrary, it is an unclean victory in every aspect of the case, showing that, no matter how carefully the robes of justice are folded about the personnel of the Supreme Court, the robes can no longer conceal the clOven hOof of off, cial 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 staten entg made in the press dispatches from time to time, strong 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 feel ing the pulse of the public and prepar- ing it for the decision, which goes much further in the direction of usurping power than any that has yet been made"
 The Governor then declares that the constitution of Nebraska gives the Leg islature power to establish maximum charges for transportation and declares that the Supreme Court has tried to abrogate 1t. He challenges Justice liar lan's declaration that a corporation is a person under the fourteenth amend ment to the Federal constitution and says:
 II deny it, and so will everybody but a corporation lawyer or a. subservient Judicial tool of corporate interests"
 Governor Leedy then quotes the four teenth 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; H. ka1r T., Af 1lafr rfnrx Only human beings born elsewhere can do that"
 After more in the same strain the Governor, still referring to the four teenth amendment, says:
 "Who are the persons who shall not, according tc the provisions, be de- prived of lire, liberty or property. nor Everybody outside the asylum and off the Federal judicial bench knows them to be-and to only be-natural persons. They are those who, besides the capa- city to hold property and enjoy legal protection, also have life and can enjoy liberty, and that means human be- ings."
 Hare on American Constitutional Law" and decision by Justice Woods of the United States Circuit Court, aft erward a Supreme Court Justice, to prove that the fourteenth amendment does not refer to corporations, and de clares that the Woods decision had been followed in Rhode Island and other States from 1870 to 1882, when Justice Field and another Federal Jus tice of the Peace named Sawyer decid- ed the other way, and since then, whenever a corporation starts out to commit highway robbery, pick a mans pocket, or loot public treasury, 1t dis guises itself as person and goes out on it's mission of plunder Nobody but slave or a 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 bot toms his infamous decision. and which shows to what depths of iniquity the Supreme Court of the United States has descended"
 'I desire'' the Governor said, ito quote some of the decisions of the Su- preme Court of the United States be- fore 1t went into partnership with Mor- gan, Vanderbilt, Gould & Co., in op- position to the opinion it holds in the Nebraska case"
 Long decisions by Justice John Mar shall in 1880 are quoted.
 In conclusion Governor Leedy states that his maximum rate bill will be presented 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 rotten practice that it has hereto fore by changing it's decisions to suit the shifting interests of the railroad corporations" the remedy will be with the people in their dealings with the courts or in building railroads of their own.
 Fred Schwabacher Dead.