The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-06-06
TIE WILKES AND STANLY PEG.
PLIES SIDE OF THE CASE.

E
the United States that the bonds voted
by Wilkes and Stanly counties to branches
of the Southern Railway are valid ard
must be paid, settles a contention
that has long been in the courts.
These suits have been the occasion of
much denunciation of the people of those
two counties. who have been charged
with having had no reason for bringing the
suits except desire to repudiate an honest
debt. If this were true, they would de-
serve the severest criticism. But is such
the case? Discussing the matter the
Wilkesboro Chronicle says:
1.-The decision is peculiar and unjust, too.
in that it compels the county to pay for
stock which she does not own and cannot
possibly get. When the county attempt
ed to get the stock for which it is paying
by action in court, the railroad company
answered that the railroad to which the
county voted bonds in payment for stock
had ceased to exist and that the county
could not therefore receive certificates of
stock IN road that did not exist The
county now has no stock interest what
ever in any railroad, and still it must pay
for stock that doesn't exist
The Stanly Enterprise, in a long edi
torial. closes as follows:
Briefly stated, the county was promised
100000 dividend bearing stock. 1t was
given so much in watered stock. The &C.
crecy and mystery surrounding the Rail
road COmpany's every act after the bonds
cot IN 70 fitt foha Of
suspicious, and there are facts that have
yet never been printed that would at
least remove the stain from Stanly's
skirts, and show to the public that she
voted honestly and conscientiously with
desire to pay the entire bond issue, but
that she did not get what was promised
THE county has been grossly imposed
upon and it is safe to assert that if the
Railroad Company had laid bare before
our people its intended course of action.
that We might have voted until doomsday
and no bonds would have been issued.
1T is thought there is an honest
cause of action open to the county. Many
of our citizens favor testing the matter
fully, and it would be only a matter OF
justice that this be done The end sought
for should be not to repudiate the indebt-
edness. but to compel tthe issuance to the
county Of 100000 bona fide stock and that
this be made to date from the COM
pletion of the road. This and only this
would place the county and Railroad
Company on mutual grounds of under
standing as before the contention arose.
for without this the county must suffer an
injustice for which the Railroad Company
Is entirely responsible
If Wilkes county voted for stock and
got nothing. there ought to be some legal
road it helped to build, without repudiat-
ing the bonds in the hands Of innocent
purchasers for value. If Stanly county
was defrauded, there ought to be some
method of giving it value received for its
100000, without regulating the bonds in
the hands of investors who had nothing
to do with the wrongs charged. But the
probability is that the men managed the
transactions. whereby each of these coun.
ties paid out 100000 for which they
received nothing, In such a way as to
leave no loop-hole for equity proceedings
to compel them "to do equity People
who honestly and regularly issue bonds
for which they get what they were prom
Used, even if it turns out worthless, have
no right to complain. But if either of
these counties were deceived or defraud-
ed, there ought to be a remedy against
those guilty of the deception or the
frauds Justice Brewer once said of bonds
issued to build railroads that at first they
were hailed with Joy, but at the last they
bite like a serpent and sting like an
adder. 1t is even so.