Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1905-06-01
COLEMAES ANSWER.
Kansas Attorney General Completes
Brief in OIL Refinery Case.
LEGISLATORS BTEBT 70 GOVERN.



Topeka. Kan, May 25.--Attorney
General Coleman completed his brief
in the state oil refinery case Wednes-
day. He brought suit to compel the
state treasurer and warden Of the PEN
itentiary to sign the oilrefnery bonds.
The treasurer and warden, through
their attorneys, Gleed, Ware & Gleed,
and Mulvane & Gaut, and David Over
myer filed answers and the. attorney
general filed a motion to quash the
answers. This practically brings the
case up on its merits for argument be-
fore the supreme court on June 5.
In their answers the defendants at
tackled the constitutionality Of the law
establishing a state oil refinery and
branch penitentiary on several grounds.
They claimed that the branch prison"
scheme was simply subterfuge and
that the state could not operate a re-
finery because 1t was an internal i'm
provement.
The attorney general says in his
brief:
"If 1t were not permissible for the
courts, in constructing law and apply
ing to 1t the test Of the constitution,
to enter into extraneous and outside
matters, to inquire into the conscience
of the legislators, to investigate and
determine whether or not the legisla-
tors acted with integrity and good faith
In enacting the laws which they have
promulgated, it will be apparent that
there would be no end to the inquiry,
and that no enactment could be con-
sidered settled law until the court Of
last resort had passed upon and ap-
proved these elements which lie at
the fountain heads of legislation. For
these reasons, and wisely, 1t has al
ways been held that the intention Of
the legislature must be read from
what the legislature has stated.
1.-THE courts uniformly II possible
give to a law construction which will
make 1t valid although 1t may be rea-
sonably susceptible las this law Is
mott of a construction which would
render it invalid.
"And yet in this case we have the
remarkable spectacle of distinguished
counsel making an attack upon a law
whose declared object is to establish a
necessary and an undeniably public
penal institution, and attempting To
support the assault by asking the court
to inquire whether in good faith the
legislature meant what 1t said: wheth-
err the state needed the institution;
whether the means adopted by the law
makers would be adequate, and suit
able; whether dozen or a hundred
convicts can be employed under 1t;
whether the purpose Of the legislators
may not have been in come covert way
to assail by indirection, and clip the
claws of some great Red Dragon or
pierce the plethoric abdomen OF some
many-tentacled octopus, or put gall
and NORWOOD in the cream that some
foreign money-fattened human hog
hopes to guzzle from the Kansas
trough. And they cap 1t all by gravely
placing upon the witness stand a news
paper reporter to prove what some en-
thusiastic legislator said about 1t. And
upon testimony-7such testimony--they
ask this court to convict the legisla-
ture Of a petty fraud, and for that
reason to declare this law invalid.
=; Upon the whole view, then. Of the
evidence submitted may 1t not be said
with more than reasonable assurance
that the lawmaking body had fairly
reasonable grounds for believing that
a branch and additional penitentiary
was needed; that 1t adopted reasonable
means for giving employment to its
inmates; that 1t expressed its purpose
In fair and legal form and strictly
within the domain Of its powersT'
CARACAS REPORTS CONFIRMED