The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-03-16
RULED AGAINST
The DEMURRERS
FEDERAL COURT HAS POWER
TO TRY MEN INDICTED FOR PEoN-
AGE, RULES JUDGE SPEER.


Mcclellan and CrawIey Must Stand
Jury Trial-POwer of Congress to
Regulate Matters of This Kind and
Enact Laws Directed Against 1t
Is UnQuestiOnRble, in Opinion of
CONGRATULATIONS to Contend That
Legislation Must Be Directed at
state ActiOn-Tried by Georgians.
An opinion overruling the demurrers
of Messrs. Toomer, Wilson and Nc
Donald in the peonage cases was hand
ed down yesterday morning by Judge
Emory Speer.
In his opinion Judge Speer ruled
against the contention that Congress
could legislate only against states, and
held that the statute in question was
broad enough to cover the offense and
give the United States jurisdiction.
The system of peonage was roundly
scored, the court stating that it was
leveled at the liberties of the people,
and that, in time. it would not be
applied to negroes only, but to the poor
whites. Attention was called to the
cries which had been raised against
convict labor. and yet, said Judge
Speer the labor of poems was even
worse.
The opinion was broad and compre-
hensive and intensely patriotic. Each
argument brought out by the attor-
neys for the defendants was fully dealt
with and the constitutionality of the
acts questioned fully affirmed. Among
other things the court said:
officials Seemed Interested.
THAT a chairman of penitentiary
committee of the Georgia Senate APP
peared for the prisoners; that mem
Der Of the House Judiciary Committee
in Congress from the district of the
prisoners contributed a brief in their
behalf; that a solicitor. general of the
State Court in their judicial district,
charged with the prosecution of equiv
alent offenses under the state law, sat
with the prisoners and their counsel
during the hearing, taken, altogether,
is somewhat persuasive of the conclu-
sion that if there is no system of peon-
age de jure to which the statute APP
plies, as contended by the prisoners,
there is yet a de facto system of some
equivalent sort, which has evoked the
participate in its operations and emolu-
ments, and others whose feelings to-
ward it are not wholly antipathetic.
AbOIishing Peonage System.
ut is, however, urged that the de-
bate in the Senate shows Congress
started out to abolish the system of
peonage which existed in New Mexico.
This is probably true. But Congress
may start out to do one thing and do
another thing. How many provisions
of law are there which are enacted
on appropriation bills. Congress sets
out to appropriate money for the sup
port of the War Department and may
attach a measure giving the Secretary
of War primary jurisdiction over the
Philippine Islands. Innumerable are
the provisions of positive laws which
are enacted upon. appropriation bills.
1t is quite possible that when the Sen
ate of the United States began to
frame this statute it had in mind the
hapless condition of the New Mexican
poems, but reflection, the wisdom of
which subsequent history has unhap-
PLY made manifest, may have con-
WINGED them that there might be peon-
age, or involuntary servitude, which
is but another name for the same thing
elsewhere in this land of the free. But
whether this is true or not there is
the unequivocal denunciation of the
crime and the court and the country
cannot look beyond it. to ascertain
what was in the breast of the legisla-
tors.
Is Involuntary Servitude.
'It is, however, insisted that while
the conduct described in the 1nd1ct-
ment may be within the letter of the
statute, it is not within the statute be-
cause not within the spirit of the law,
and a quotation from Lord Coke is
cited: Acts of parliament are to be
construed as no man that is innocent
or free from injury or wrong be, by a
literal construction, punished or en-
damaged
How can it be contended that the
conduct of the prisoners, as described
in this indictment, is not inimical TO
the amendment of the constitution,
which defines involuntary servitude.
rs it not involuntary servitude to
seize by force, to hurry the victim
from wife and children, to incarcerate
him in a stockade, and work him in
range of the deadly muZZle of the shot
gun, or under the terror of the lash,
and continue this servitude as long
as resentment may prompt or greed
demand.
Slavery Was a Paradise.
There the statute was construed in
favor of liberty. But what parallel
is there between the holy ministration
of the man of God, though serviceable
and laborious, with the conduct of
lawless and violent men who would
seize helpless and pathetic negroes and
for their own selfish purposes con-
sign them to life of involuntary servi-
tude compared to which slavery of an
te-bellum days was paradise.
=
But it is urged that the courts of
the state have jurisdiction of this
crime under the name of kidnapping
and false Imprisonment.
$50 they have, and no word we say
ought to discourage their officers in the
performance of their duty to prosecute
and convict.
80 they have jurisdiction of the
burglary of a postoffice, but that does
not nullify the jurisdiction of the ma
tional courts in the same crime. The
Jurisdiction of both courts is concur