The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-29
BOWIE TALKS ON
 RATE DECISIONS Tells of Probable Effect on Ala
 bana Laws REVIEWS THE LITIGATION Maintains That It Is Error To Say Recent Decision Is An Attack On Doctrine of States Rights.
 Purely Judicial.
REVIEWS THE LITIGATION

Former Congressman S. J. Bowie has given out the following interview on the recent supreme court decisions in rail rGad rate cases setting out the effect the decision will probably have on the laws os Alabama:
 g'he decision of the supreme court of tine United States in the Minnesota and North Carolina cases will, in the end, p,ove far more beneficial to the people of Alabama end they are far more to be congratulated upon it than any railroad system within its borders The principles underlying those cases are vital to the existence of free republic, and the con- tention of the railroads in those cases was for the preservation and conservation of rights regarded as fundamental ana inalienable from the very foundation of this government until within the last few years.
 In very recent times a notion has sprung up, not in Alabaam merely, but in vari- ous states in this union, that because the legislature has the power of regulation ever corporate interests and corporate
 
 and final and that it was treason to re- sist it even though it could be shown that the measures proposed were utterly confiscatory and destructive of their lights.
 From the very earliest period of the formation of this government it has been held that legislature was not supreme, but that it exercised all of it's powers in subordination to the constitutions that 1t could not finally decide upon the consti- nationality of it's own enactmelts, butthat that was judicial function and that 1t was the privilege and the duty of the courts of the country to declare any act void which was in conflict with the con- stitution. And 1t has been held that even justice of the peace, on a preliminary hearing, could declare an act of the legis- lature unconstitutional and that it was his duty to do so if sufficiently convinced upon the subject. It is not only the privilege of every citizen but in many cases it may be his duty to resist with ell the strength at his command in every legal way, the enforcement of any act that is contrary to the constitution An act is not void from the time it is declared SC by the supreme court, but if void at Gli is void from the very moment of it's enactment; and no officer of the state and no citizen of tue state is afforded any protection when lie seeks to enforce an unconstitutional statute
 Is Purely Judicial Question.
 hoe hold
 ter of century, without any conflict whatever on the subject, that the ques- ton of whether a rate fixed by the legis- lature was reasonable or unreasonable was judicial question exclusively with in the cogniZance of the courts of the country, and which the legislature, by no sort of enactment, could foreclose or de- termine. The power of the legislature over the subject of rates is limited and not absolute. The limitation upon the power of the legislature is that it's rates must be reasonable. If the legislature could not only fix the rates but could conclusively determine their reasonable ness, its power would not be limited, but would be absolute. Whenever the legis- lature has attempted to make rates and
 
 to declare the same final and binding upon all parties such attempt has been held to be unconstitutional The enforcement of such statutes has been prohibited, and upon this point there has never been any conflict in the authorities, except in one case which was subsequently, over ruled 50 years ago. Of late years the notion has sprung up that while the leg islature could not make a rate conclu- sive directly, it could accomplish the same purpose indirectly by declaring fixing such enormous penalties for the violation of the rate, both upon the cor poration seeking to test the same and upon all of it's officers and agents as to terrify them and make them afraid to risk the consequences of a contest over the rates. Such was the attempt in Minnesota and in North Carolina, and in a more ag- gravated form in Alabama And it was such an attempt that met the condemna- ton of the supreme court in an opinion written by states rights democrat con cured in by all of the democratic mem- bers of the court, one of whom was a southerner, and by all of the republican :, except Judge Harlan. It has been stated that the supreme court of the Uni ted States in this opinion overturned many of it's, former decisions. The fact is just the contrary There has never been a single case before the supreme court of the United States where the ques- ton was squarely presented that it was decided differently,
 Entitled To Protection.
 The railroads of this country are owned by it's stockholders and bondholders. whose money built them. Their property is entitled to all the protection afforded other kinds of property, and the legisla- ture of the state or the Congress of the United States has no more constitutional power to transfer by legislative decree the property of these railroads to people w1lo do not own them than to transfer the property of private citizens without trial and without day in court to other pri- vate citizens. The right to the protec- tion of life, liberty and property is guar anteed to every citizen in exactly the same words and under exactly the same circumstances, and this right is no more sacred in the case of private citizen with of business, purchased for private gain, than it is to corporation whose prop erty is simply impressed with a public use. The right to the use of ones prop erty is as much protected by the consti- 4..tf t1,z x-ferIk &D 4t.-