Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1910-07-27

your honors. As to it's righteousness,
1t is as moral as landownership. That
it has not heretofore been applied has
been owing to the stupidity of the
legal profession, to the asininity of
landowners and to the fact that the
law is SO plain, for that which is all
around ever remains undetected, like
the pressure Of the atmosphere or the
picture with trees and clouds repre-
senting faces or animals. And as when
once the cat IN the landscape is seen
the landscape fades, and one can see
nothing but the cat, SO in this case
when the law Is once made plain your
honors will be able to see nothing else.
We are taking the liberty Of unsealing
the blind eyes Of the courts"
Mr.. Filley was outraged at the ef-
frontery of this unlicensed actor in
thus taking the scene, but to make a
disturbance now would be worse than
to let him go on, and Mr.. Filley sat
down frowning and hoping that Craig
heads offense might escape discovery.
'Cujus al solum. ejus est usque ad
coelum,'" went on Craighead, us the
maxim on which we stand. the mean
ing of which has been decided in hun
dreds of cases and. strange to say. is
still clear-'He who owns land owns
to the sky He has as much moral
right to the sky as to the surface.
The man with deed to square mile
of the surface of this planet under
this law owns great pyramid, apex
ing at the earth's center and extending
out into space in diverging lines in
fnitely, so that II he can show that
these lines Of boundary take in Mars
and her canals he would have per-
feet case against the Alartians for rent
of fields and tolls over waterways it
be could get service and bring the de-
PENDANTS into court.
Land! Land! The mystic word
that rules the world! The woman who
calculates Good land! conjures by
thing mora potent than all the gods OF
Olympus.
"The air above our land is part OF
1t. You know 1t. Why else have you
recognized Reimer's appeal. 100 Penn
sylvania stain, as good law? What
was that case? A bay window many
feet above the sidewalk was declared
a nuisance because it jutted out into
the air that was part of the street.
And see also Bybee versus the state,
"a Indiana. You hang your cornice or
string wire In my air and I will hale
you into court Don't presume to fly
a kite over my land except by my con.
sent; you have no right. And remem-
~ skv ~ nd vvoc
mulcted In the sum Of $50, 900 for
swinging bridge few times a day
a hundred feet above an inch strip Of
land.
"How much more am damnifled by
the airship. which may drop a mon.
key wrench. spanner, a COB OF bal
last OF casual remark into my priva-
cy? Aeronefs vii! fall into the rural
silo, drag ropes will rip up barbed
wire. and Pyramus and Thisbe in their
Arcadian wooing may be smothered
under falling gas bags or torn asunder
by dragging anchors inserted in their
futtering hearts! 1.shudder. your hon
ors, at what may happen when the air
is populous with flying jiggers. pop
popping about. raining ballast and
wine bottles and bacon rinds and stale
bananas and hot coffee and soft boiled
eggs and lobster a la Newburg on a
lost and undone republic, and when l
shudder persons of ordinary sensitive
ness fly into fragments with the shiv-
ers. for am no light and habitual
shudderer.
II have spoken in my weak way Of
what might make landholder I'M
willing to have his air used as high
way. But he doesn't have to give q
reason-he can show his deed and tell
the whole world to go toto the cap
tain's Office ALL settle. Your honors,
adjure you to cling to your unbroken
precedents and uphold property, on
which society is based. To say that
we do not own these strips Of land,
but only rights in the air. is foolishness
of the damphest sort. The landowner
may sell the surface and keep the
minerals or sell the mineral rights
down to China and keep the surface.
Our grantors owned and sold these
rights to us. 1t is slanderous to say
that we have hornswoggled-to coin
a phrase-the farmers by promising
cheap nitrates by the Craighead meth
cd. 1t is my intention to take q few
moments some day to perfect the
Craighead method and begin to extract
nitrogen. but that is another nara
tive. The point Is that we've got those
rights. We have what nobody ever
had before-the proof that defendants
pass over our lands, because they have
to. Nobody else ever had lands hem
ming in everybody. We have. This
makes our proof simply pie. and we
call upon you to protect us in the
name Of the law Of landownership. on
which every government in all the
world Is founded.
'They say we seek to enslave travel
ers. This absurdity applies as forcibly
to surface rights or mines. II the trav-
eler can't pay our scale let him 90 by
public highways or by boat or rail-or
stay at home. We anticipate that
rights to air navigation will become
more and more valuable. We expect
to charge whatever the situation
makes possible. This is as moral as
Increasing rent for lands. We shall
grant licenses or not. as we please.
We may demand title to all patents on