The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-10-05

may seek to evade responsibility by say
ing that they included in the bonded debt
all bonds in existence, save in the treas
ury of the Seaboard, others retired and
to be returned under the announced plan
OF organization, but this will not save
them from the brand of dishonesty they
have put upon themselves by their own
act The allegation that certain stock
holders of the Seaboard Air Line Rail-
way have entered into void pooling ar
rangement is also false. Whoever told
it or wherever it was told, it is contrary
to the facts and there is no evidence oil
fact to support or suggest it, and no rea-
son why anybody should believe it,
1.-THE allegation that the Seaboard rep
resentatives have tried to delay the
taking of testimony is flagrantly false ana
contradicted by the facts and records.
We welcomed the appointment sevefal
months ago of commissioners to take tes-
timony. and have been ready all that time
to begin with it, but Thomas F. Ryan,
who had begun the suit made no move
to have the testimony taken until after
The filing of his application for a sup
Elemental bill. Then the commissioners
and Ryan's counsel agreed that testimony
should not be taken until the question of
he supplemental bill had been decided.
If the history of the organization of the
Greater Seaboard system and all the
transactions connected with it can be
recorded under oath and cross examina
ton Mr.. Ryan will be discredited per-
sonally and out of court. and we will
be impregnably and forever entrenched
against all the falsehood and malice he
can devise: and he knows it.
The allegation that the new issue of
the first mortgage bonds of the Seaboard
were not first mortgage, but were col
lateral trust bonds. is stupid untruth
designed to iniure our securities and is
contradicted by the faces of the bonds
themselves by the opinion of the best
lawyers and by the actual facts. If these
are not first mortgage bonds, there are
no first mortgage bonds in existence. The
suit against myself and others brought
by Mr.. Ryan, and neglected by him for
months, is not intended to protect any
rights. He has no rights in the Sea-
board Air Line Railway and represents
none. He has never owned share of
stock or a bond in the Seaboard Air Line
Railway of the $95 900, 900 of the securities
u ILC OSdUOdIu All lJluc OyOlSlu, WAiSh
embraces the securities of all component
parts thereof. Ryans only interest as
shown, in addition to less than $4,000
worth of stock in the Raleigh and CASTOR
and Raleigh and Augusta roads, is his
alleged ownership of about $500 shares OF
stock in the Seaboard and Roanoke road,
eighty-o ne miles long, which cost him,
according to p statement made in my
presence by his attorney less than a
year ago, less than 500 per share. His
talk of annulling the Seaboard mortgage
or it's new issue of stock is twaddle. He
has the same right and hope for annulline
L first mortgage on the Pennsylvania CT
New York Central.
Il have long believed that he was in
all his succession of suits and publica-
lions against us conducting a blackmail-
ing operation on large SCALE He is the
same man who was connected with the
State Trust Company's troubles a few
months ago. According to the newspaper
reports of that time. he was guilty Of
forcible coercion of minority stockhold-
ers and borrowed $2.O0O,O 900 on his office
boys note from the company of which he
was TRUSTEE, being more than the en-
character is interesting because he is the
chief witness of the plaintiff. In this
case he has done the Seaboard a service
because by his persistent attacks he has
forced practically every move of it's re-
organization TO be made under the scru-
tiny of the courts and to receive judicial
sanction. The system has been literally
built under the eye Of the Judge, and
every rivet in it has been tested by all
the strain of the law. 1t stands estab-
lished as the most thoroughly known and
tried railway system in the world. We
ire not afraid of the courts for Mr. Ryan
has led us through them all, nor of pub
licity, for we have nothing to hide and
every reason to desire that the public
should know all the truth about us.
fortunately, our securities have sc
commended themselves to investors and
men of large means that they are not to
De made footballs of on the exchanges
believe that Mr.. Ryan procured the pub
lication os the falsehoods / have reeited
and refuted for the purpose of injuring
our securities, having failed to accom-
plish that purpose, by his legal proceed
ings.
ANOL odbiohSo viii Tic
ton of such false statements, he sent
out, or caused to be sent out through the
mails, marked copies of the New York
FINES containing his contemplate article
with no other purpose than the hope OF
inflicting injury.
81 will welcome theeopportunity to meet
him in the courts on direct issue, giving
him the opportunity to prove, and myself
the opportunity to disprove, all the asser-
lions they have made While / have nc
doubt they. have endeavored to shield
themselves with cuibbles and evasions
from the general criminal and civil law
and the statutes of New York State
directed against this very class of crime
i have good reason to hope that they
have miscalculated and will be as badly
deceived in their supposed immunity as
they have heretofore been in some other
positions in which they trusted.
1.-The charges implied and directly laid
in the reports upon which the articles I'M
der discussion were based, amount to ac-
cusations that a large number of men OF
the highest character, and representing
great interests in Richmond, Baltimore
New York and elsewhere, have conspired
with me to make Incorrect statements and
to mislead the public and our own friends.