The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1907-08-02
WILMINGTON. N. G.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 2. 1907 90


Will some one please toll us by
what constitutional power the gov
of this state can suspend a
criminal statute? What authority
he has for instructing the judicial
department to ignore open violations
of the states criminal law?
A few days ago he was announc-
ing to 1.-The people" that his oath of
office required him. to see that a
certain law of the state was obeyed
and that all persons who violated
it were punished and that he was
going to enforce that law at all haZ~
ard. Now we find him, by proclama-
ton, in the way of a letter address,
to the public" suSpending for a
certain period that criminal statute,
the enforcement Of which to the
fullest extent the people" have
been clamoring for.
Furthermore, after one of the su-
perior court judges had charged the
grand jury in his court that every
sale Of a ticket by a railroad in that
county at more than a rate of two
and a quarter cents a mile was q
criminal act and that The company
and the agent committing the act
should be indicted, and the Southern
Company and it's agent were indicted
tried, convicted and ~fined--the con
Duct of that Judge being laudeI to
The ski t2-after another SUPERIOR
court judge on coming from a CON
that at the next court he was to hold
he wOIid charge the stin1 jury to
indict all persons Violat: & that law
and had, t. implicati N. Cea'ared
for the holding of an extra session
Of the legislature for the purpose of
giving one of the railroad corpora
the charter of the other. After all
this, on the governor sec ring a con-
cession from the railroads lie greatly
desired the neXt superior court judge
~ OIu SoulI, III = loA1 \tlN'Ao
from the goVerA2:, i%nstructs the
grand jury lot to make Indictments
for any violation IF that law known
to any Of IS ElenntIs, IT being un-
derstood ihat Judges ard grand u
rors are, under orders from the gov
ernor, to ignore the open violation
OF the law.
This is the state OF affairs We find
existing today: The governor n
day declaring it his sworn duty to
see that all persons who violate a
certain criminal law are prosecuted
and giving instructions to the supe-
rior court judges to carry out his or
ders; one judge boasting as to what
he will do in this line at his neXt
court. On the next day, the govern
or, having attained a certain end de-
sired by him, declares that he viii
not enforce the law that the day
before he had declared was his
sworn duty to enforce and the jul
dietary, following the governors ex-
ample, declaring from the bench
that no notice is to be taken by the
grand jurors Of violations Of the
law, ..x
Can any n deny that all this
looks like the governor has made use
OF the machinery of the criminal
law and the criminal courts of the
state to coerce the two railroad cor
porations into a course of action
they were unwilling to pursue and
which they honestly believed to be
detrimental to their interests and in
violation of their rights under the
law of the land? What other con-
striction can be put on his conduct?
He, through the superior court
Judges, acting under his instruc-
lions and orders, had the railroads
where they we're liable { o suffer
great loss if they stood by their
rights, and with the power ne had
forced them to give up those rights.
He used a criminal statute Tor a pur-
pose which the courts would not al
low on the part Of n lndlV1dual
against another. That is the whole
case in a nutshell.