The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-10-28
OWNS THE NEWS.
Z. s. Court of Appeals in Chi
cagO Decides
That w. U. Telegraph Company
Has Property Right.
A PRINCIPLE OF LAW.
Having No Precedent the Court
Makes One.
Served and Servant Should Both
Get Their Dues.

Chicago, Oct. 28-An important prin-
e1ple of law was Established today when
Judges Jenkins, Grosscup, Baker and
BUM or the United States court of ap
pealS handed down an opinion to the
effect that the Western Union Telegraph
company has a right of property in the
news which it gathers and that such
right does not cease when the news is
published on the tickers rented to its
patrons. In laying down this principle,
the court of appeals affirms two decis-
ions of the lower court and forever en-
joins the National Telegraph News COM
pany, the Illinois Commission company
and other defendants from using the
quotations in question.
The court says:
THE business of appellee is that of a
carrier of information. The gist of its
service to the patron is, that by such
carriage, the patron acquires knowledge
of the matter communicated earlier
than those not thus served The ticker,
with its printed tape, is an implement
or means only to this commercial end
which the patron. or the patrons patron
may utilize to the end intended. but
may not appropriate to some end not
intended, especially if such appropria-
ton result in injury to- or total de-
struction of, the service In short, the
law being clearly inadequate to that
purpose, equity should see to it that the
one who is served and the one who
serves, each gets what the enga cement
between them calls for: and that
neither. to the injury of the other, shall
appropriate more.
The immediate business of appellee
brought to our attention cannot arouse
any great solicitude. 1t relates to the
gathering and distributing of news, not
looked upon perhaps, in all quarters, as
essential to the public welfare. But the
questions raised are of much wider
significance. They involve, among
others, that modern enterprise-one of
the distinctive achievements of our day
1T. @l~t-
accumulations of men, with the forces
of electricity, combs the earth's surface
each day for what the day has
brought forth that whatever befalls the
sons of man shall come, almost instant
aneously, into the conscientiousness of
mankind. BY such agencies as these
the world is made to face itself un-
ceasingly in the glaAs, and is put to
those tests that bring increasing help
fulness and beauty into the heart of our
race.
rs service like this to be outlawed? :?
! Is the enterprise of the great news
agencies or the independent enterprise
| of the great newspapers, or the great
! telegraph and cable lines, to be denied
appeal to the courts, against the in
| roads of the parasite, for no other rea-
son than that the law fashioned hitherto
| to fit the relations of authors and the
/ public cannot be made to fit the rela-
tions of the public and this dissimilar
class of servants? Are we to fail our
plain duty for mere lack Of precedent?
/ We choose rather to make precedent
one from which is eliminated as imma-
terial. the law grown up around author
ship-and we see no better way to start
this precedent upon career than by
| affirming the order appealed from
BLOW TO BUCKET SHOPS.
Chicago, Oct. 2S.-The United States
court of appeals today affirmed the de-
cision of the district court that the Chi
cago Board of Trade can control its
quotations and that no one has the
right to use them without complying
with the regulations of the board re-
garding their distribution.