Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-04-29

| within the last thirty years, have prac-
| tfcally become embodied as corner stones
In the temple the Supreme Court mas
built for safeguarding our corporate hVeS'
liberties and properties, as Will mere
| after more fully appear
Corrects Prevalent idea.
The first point which want you to ital-
icizo in your minds I'm this decision. to
prevent it being overlooked. is the fiat
declaration by the court that reason
ableness'' is eminently a question for jul
dicial investigation, thereby negativing
the idea prevalent-tf I may be allow
ed to say soyat the capital that 1t is a
political problem that may be and ought
to be solved by congressional inquiry.
The second is the statement that the
fundamental power OF every pubic Serv-
Ice company, without which corporate
life itself is impossible, Is the power OF
charging reasonable rates for the use
of what the court concisely but compre-
hensively defines as its property. Not
for the use Of its stocks or bonds or other
capitalization. real or fictitious. but
broadly for the use of its property-that
Is to say, for the use Of everything 1t has
| OF owns or employs in it's business that Is
OF value and contributes directly or indi-
rectly to the production OF the product or
service the company devotes to the public
use. Is not this analysis almost too plain
for argument? Would it not be imput-
the United States to imagine for a mo-
ment that it meant to imply, when it said
property, the cOmpany's securities, which
are liabilities-not assets-that have
long since gone out of its power and
| wholly beyond it's use or control? The
use Of it's property as here defined means
docs it notD the use of all the COM
pany's assets, tangible and intangible.
employed at the time in its business, en-
ployed not five or ten or twenty years
ago, but at the time the inquiry Is made
that is the invariaIble rule in all the
cases. Franchises are assets, not liza
bilities, and therefore property, and the
Supreme Court has over and over again
| In its every decision. from the case we
are now Analysing down to the last case
on the subject-the Consolidated Gas case
| has defined them to be not only prop
erty, but property that at fair valua-
ton is just as sacred as 1t is essential
| to the conduct Of the business. and
therefore just as much entitled to wages
| for its use in every instance as the COM
| pany's physical plant.
Anti-Gas Microbe incubation.
| Unfortunately for us almost every new
member of pith and enterprise who comes
upon the committee is straightway inocu-
| lated with culture-an anti-gas microbe-
| warranted to convert the sharpest-sighted
! man that ever sharpened a pencil into
! the blindest kind of partisan that ever
| sharpened a knife, as soon as it permeateS
his system. The first thing the uncon-
scious victim of the virus does is to stuff
his mind with utterly untrue and mis-
leading statements about inordinate prof.
itS-prOftS not computed upon the value
of the investment. but calculated upon
fake premises fit only to ensnare the I'M
| wary into the belief that moderate income
upon the real capitalization OF the COM
pany represents an extortionate charge
upon the consumer because. forsooth, u
per cent upon the actual investment
amounts to twenty C2O per cent upon the
nominal investment or face value of the
stock. / submit that this perennial per-
Torrance, no matter how sincerely inau
gurated, is in effect merely manipulating
figures to make them falsify facts to the
utter discredit of an ancient adage more
pat than polite
But this is not the only persistent bub
BILE punctured by this great decision.
While we are upon the point | want right
here to make further note Of the signifi-
can't fact that there are no qualifications
made by the court as to the character or
the derivation of the property which the
company has used or may be using in the
conduct of it's business. There are no
legal or moral strings annexed to the
courts definition of property, such as we
are perennia1ly confronted with, as we
are at this instant, without rhyme or rea-
son-as I shall show later-the uncondi-
tional dictum Of the court being that just
compensation shall be paid to the COM
pany using the property without respect
to the origin thereof or title thereto.
whether it may may not have been
the fruit of commendable thrift or
damnable greed
No Taint on the Property.
1t is enough that It is the property of
the company-property rightfully, that is
to say, legally, acquired. There is not
in this case or any other case, / venture
to say, that has ever been reviewed by the
Supreme Court of the United States. one
single instance in which a rate has ever
been successfully challenged, because of
any real or imaginary faint in derivation
of the property upon which that rate has
been predicated. 1t being sufficient in the
light and in the language of this great
decision-as of all others proceeding from
the same source on the same subject, from
that day to this-that the property used is
for the time being either by absolute title
or by qualified title the company's prop
erty devoted by it to the purpose of sery-
ing the public. In proof of this 1 beg to
be permitted to quote you ten lines from
one Of the most eminent and honored OF
all the authorities on this subject, the
unanimous decision Of the court in City
of Detroit agt. 43 Mich, 14O: 1T cannot
be necessary at this day. says Judge
Cooley, Ito enter upon a discussion in
denial of the right of the government to
take from either individuals or corpora
tions any property they may rightfully
Qegally) have acquired. In the most ar
bitrary times such an act was recognized
as pure tyranny, and it has been forbid
den in England ever since magma charta,
and in this country always.
1T Is immaterial in what way the
property was lawfully acquired, whether
by labor in the ordinary avocations of
life, by gift, or descent, or by making a
profitable use Of a franchise granted by
the state; it Is enough that it has be-
come private property, and 1t is thus
protected by the law of the land" OBJ
viOusly, Mr.. Chairman, any other inter
pretations than this would be absolutely
destructive Of that confidence in our pub
lie securities which the courts have more
than once said it would be q national
calamity to destroy. For who would buy
a share of stock of any kind IL 1t was
liable to be denuded. demonetized-so to
after in the hands OF the purchaser or his
ground that 1t was In whole or In part
tainted in it's requirement by the con-
duct Of somebody dead as Julius Caesar,
before the purchaser was born! Because
for example, as is seriously charged in
this case. a former president a genera
ton ago saw proper for some reason that
does not appear, to destroy the books; or
because, at some period in the history Of
the concern, 1t charged a legally estab-
lished rate for its product, tat accord
ing to modern transformation or miscon-