Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1911-11-02
THE VISION.
SIN RIVER
October 80, 1911.
Daily Reporter:

Daily Reporter:
Your anonymous contributors last
effort to pettifog himself from under
his load of blunders to the position
Of peoples champion, when he assum
ed he had a clear field, by untrue rel
ferences to the statutes of Limitation,
effect of very plain court deci-
sions, personal quarrel, going "off
mad and otherwise, 1 do not choose
to pass in silence.
1t was known from the first that
l have small personal investment
in water power in this city and that
l am one of the attorneys for the
water power owners in this litiga-
ton. Among my failings are not go
ing "off mad" or picking personal
quarrels or sending to the press a.
nonymous contributions In this con-
tention l am wholly impersonal and
am dealing with a type and only in
cidentally with individuals; and in
characterizing those types likely to be
found anonymously preaching in pub
lie print questionable doctrines and
slandering the dead and the living.
l deal with a class. If what l say hurts
it is simply because your anonymous
contributor dare not take the judg-
ment, on his personality, of the peo-
pie he now so valiantly affects to
serve. To do what l can to suppress
this vile practice has been and is
real pleasure to me.
With most people statutes, court
decisions and political and legal his
tory are not familiar and when one
speaks thereon it ought to be over
his own signature, for the worth and
reliability of what he says must to
a very large extent depend upon what
the public know Of his motives, learn,
ing and intellectual integrity; and
the contributor who hides his identi-
ty in such matters must expect to be
justly charged with conscious weak
ness or dishonest and sinister pur-
pose, or both
Your anonymous contributors last
contribution contains further. and am
pie evidence, if any were needed, of
his lack of industry and recklessness
in statement. Statutes of Limitation
are for adults and for those of sound
mind-not for infants or for persons
of unsound mind. There IS statute
of limitations against the state, (Sec.
1920. Validity of titles, probably to
the major portion of all farms in Cen
| u Oh W A0SO1oALl, dCPShd Ol4 O1AS VI
more statutes of limitation Imagine
your anonymous contributor going up
on one of these farms and telling the
owner that he should surrender his
farm, which he had improved and for
which he had paid, to another because
| Ill II 10 11Jo
as his title, possession without deed
for twenty years, or with deed for
ten years, or the various such statutes
in support of tax deed, and what would
happen? The owner would probably
kick him into the street and re
ceive rigL teous applause of his neigh
bors for the act The state in law
or morals is no better than the indi-
vidual and that state which would
pretend to do to one of its citizens
what it would not permit another CT
tizen to do to him would not long
endure. And, on the matter of rules
of property, decisions are binding
on those not parties to the litiga-
ton, including the state. Every law
yer knows that there is no more po-
tent rule of property than that OF
stare decisis. AS said by our own
supreme court within the last ten
years on the question OF the own
ership of the bed of a nayigable
stream and unsurveyed islands there
in:
/ The state has taken its position,
and property rights upon all ouT
rivers have become vested with re
gard thereto, and the supreme jul
dicial authority has many times af
firmed that it possesses discretion
airy authority to part with its trust
| property to the extent mentioned
that is, in such ways as do not sub