The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-01-17
MIR. BOWIE CLOSES
 ARGUMENT FOR ROAD
Speeches May Be Concluded
 By This Evening
SUIT AGAINST THE STATE
Attorney General Garber and Mr. StrinofeIIow Agree That Prose- cutlon of Suit Is Against
 Federal Constitution.

Montgomery, January 16.-(Specia1.) J.
 With the progress made today the argu-
 ment on the first two points in the rail-
 road-state litigation in the United States
 court should end by Friday afternoon,
 though Gregory L. Smith for the rail-
 roads and former Chief Justice s. D. , Weakley for the state have yet to speak.
 MT Smith will open the first thing in the morning, and is expected to finish with to Judge WealSley, who is not thought to desire more than that amount of time. Former Congressman s. J. Bowie, for the railroads, finished this morning. He
 was followed by Horace Stringfellow for
 the state, and he in turn by General Counsel T. M. Cunningham of the Central ! of Georgia for the railroads. Because he was suffering from his recently injured | shoulder, Judge Thomas G. Jones, who is presiding, adjourned court at 3;3o p. m.. | just after the end of MT. Cunningham S ] address. It is expected now that former | United States Senator Spooner, who is of | the counsel in the Central Trust company of New York, will speak Saturday. This company is resisting the new rates on the l Central of Georgia because it holds the bonds of the line.
 Argument For State. For the state, Attorney General Garber and MT. Stringfelow argued that any fur ther contest of the new rates would be a suit against the state and in violation of | the constitution of the nation. The first points being argued involve two grand divisions of reply, one that the supple | mental bills asked by the railroads can- not be allowed because the acts upon which the original bills were based have l been repealed, thereby abating the suits; l the second, that the right of the officers of | the state to enforce the acts being TO- moved, the suits are direct against the | state.
 MT. Stringfellow made this point very 1 strong in his address. He argued that l there could be no other conclusion, as the state is the only one to be sued, and this, too, in connection with the fact | that the state has a right, recognized by all, to regulate rates on the railroads within its borders.
 | The argument of MT. Cunningham was much in the same line as that of Mr. | Bowie, contending that the new laws are | confiscatory and unconstitutional in that they do not give way for court reviews
 and making it impossible to fight them | without great risk because of the pen. | alties.
 Cunningham's Argument. | Opening his argument this afternoon | Mir. Cunningham said:
 If the question before the court is whether a legislative act or not can de-
 stroy constitutional provision and with draw the protection of the court from the
 rights of property, then I am here to ar que the negative
 He refuted- the claim that the attorney general and the members of the railroad commission had been certain of all power In the enforcement of the railroad acts. He quoted sections from the laws to show that they were not only invested with the power of raising and lowering rates, but that they were given part in all suits brought in the state courts according to the plans laid down in the railroad acts.
 According to the peculiar laws of the Alabama legislature the officers had power in every particular except where they might be drawn into the federal court litigation.
 MT. Cunningham recalled the several de- cesions in which the fourteenth amend
 ment was sustained by the supreme court
 of the United States. In their decisions 1t
 was held that the state could not take the property of a citizen nor could it authorize any other agency to take 1t.
 He analysed the position of the state
 and asked what redress the road would
 hold if the legislature could directly or in- directly take charge of private property
 and the roads be forbidden from bringing any kind of suit