The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-01-16

I - A lin the courts of this country be per
 mitted to defend his own It is a ques ton Of whether or not a Governor is
 in the language of Louis XIV, tn
 state, or whether the Legislature Il
 the State, or rather it is a question O
 whether or not the immortal principl
 or liberty grounded into us from ou
 stitution shall be maintained and pre-
 servedr'
 Horace Stringfellow will speak at tn,
 opening today. He will be followed b. T: M Cunningham. IT.. of the Centra
 of Georgia.
 The railroads opened their side al the beginning of the afternoon session Former Congressman Sidney J. Bowie was given the first position behind the serried line of law books to open the argument. Again the court room was filled. There were some out of town lawyers and a number of railroad men in the audience.
 In beginning Mfr. Bowie touched Nightly upon the argument of Mir Gar Der that the court had no Jurisdiction under the Fourteenth Amendment, or under the Eleventh Amendment. nor was there any remedy for the roads in the State.
 "In other words. said Mir. Bowie, under that argument we are in the position of the logician who tried to | reconcile the words of the old couplet, We can and we can't. We will and we won't. We are damned if we do and we are damned if we don't" 1 Mir. Bowie first gave his analysis of the nature of the supplemental bills and outlined the position of the roads on this division of the general agree ment. The one difference. he said, be- tween him and MT. Garber was that hn bel ho hA ION 9ql Gq polBqg sIsM slIns IBuISIIo vember session. while he held that the said old suits were not abated by any Legislation adopted since they were brought
 "They admit that the original bills were properly brought end the in- functions properly issued. or May 8, and we hold that those suits have not had their validity affected by any leg islation adopted at the last session." said MT. Bowie. s"The Legislature nev- CT repealed the original acts. The Leg islature only passed few amendments. We say that the Legislature cannot repeal set of laws with one hand and on the same day re-enact the same laws and by that means throw US out of court. The new Group Acts increas- ed our rates on several. articles about 5 per cent. That is all. When we attack the new acts we attack them with the same evidence, the same affl- davits and the same facts. Our only and proper recourse was the. filing of supplemental bills to meet the slight changes that were made. !"
 The Alabama rate. laws, Mir. Bowie declared, were unconstitutional for three reasons:
 First-Because the rates were fixed so low that they deprived the roads of their property without due process of law.
 Second-The Classification adopted by the Legislature of the various roads make the laws null and void, because under 1t one road was compelled to charge a lower and cheaper rate than were allowed other roads.
 Third-The acts give only one means of getting in an equity court and if would be crushed and overwhelmed by prohibition penalties.
 A Hopeless Position.
 At this jnucture Mir. Bowie empha- sized the hopeless position of the roads under the Statee4aws. The roads had asked. he said, what recourse to the courts had been allowed the roads. They were told to go to criminal court ana as an indicted defendant. And if they did that one road alone would be subject to penalties amounting each day to $10,O0O.0O0.
 The Legfslature MT. Bowie said, had the right to fix rates, tbut that right was not arbitrary. The Legislature had that right but it had to be exer- cised within the lines laid down by the Constitution. The Legislature was not permitted by the Constitution to take away any of the property of rall- road by means of confiscatory act.
 MT. Bowie, just here,, emphasized an- other point of importance. The con stitution not only reserved the right of a man to his property but 1t re- serves to him as well the right to an income or earning of that property.
 ..I say to you that any system Si laws which provides that should railroad company have recourse to the courts it shall be subject to fines ana penalties of $1O000,00O a day Is nun and void, declared MT. BoWle. In the original bills, MT. Bowie at- tackled the constitutionality of the Commodity Rate Act, the Court he- view Act, and other bills adopted al | the January session. The only at- tack made in the original pills was an attack upon the reasonableness oi the rates named in the Dill. In re spense to the bills filed by the roaos l the attorneys for the State had come | into court and had admitted that the | injunction should have been lssueo' They stated in court that the Court Review Bill gave the roads the right to file a bill in equity and have their wrongs lighted.
 But they have taken that away. said MT. Bowie, they have taken II away. They have taken away our right to go into the court and when | they did it they passed an uneonstitu- tional act. My only criticism of the Legislature is that it has taken away our only remedy and if it has, 1t mas passed an unconstitutional bill" Read Rate Laws.
 MT. Bowie read sections from the rate laws passed at the November session showing that certain powers were conferred upon the Attorney General and the members of the Rail- road Commission. Therefore, he ar gued that these officers were still with bower for they would not claim power | in Chancery Court and deny 1t In a Federal Court
 ''The plain. evident purpose of the acts. which are claimed to deprive | these officers of power, was to legis- late us out of the Jurisdiction of this | court" t.,
 In discussing the unconstitutional l. | ity of the Alabama Rate laws MT Bowie referred to the Minnesota case | in which the acts of a State Legisla- | tura were declared unconstitutional