The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-30

he vetoed the bill limiting passenger fares to two cents a mile; he vetoed the bill reducing Coney Island fares from ten cents to five; he urged the state legislature not to adopt the in- come tax amendment.
 In the year 1900 Charles B. Hughes appeared before the board of alder men of New York city seeking a franchise for the New York, Vest chester & Boston Railroad Co.,, which company, after campaign of four years in which MT. Hughes was uni formly its representative, secured from the board of estimate a franchise giving its owners a right of way into the City of New York, extending IA miles within the city limits. wide enough for four tracks, crossing 120 streets; which franchise was later capitalized for $43.OOO.000 by J. P. Morgan, Lewis Cass Ledyard. William Rockefeller, Charles S. Mellen, Rob- ert w. Taft, and other directors of the New York, New Haven & Hart ford Railroad. It was not until the franchise was secured that the public learned for whom MT. Hughes had acted. Later, as governor. he signed a law giving special incorporation to this bit of privilege. This he did May 29,'1909.
 | Let us go farther back; to MT. Hughes in the first flush of young manhood. Mr., Hughes deliberately decided, at the outset of his career, to serve money as against men. He be- came a corporation lawyer, he elected | to serve the rich. That choice, and the associations entailed by that choice have shaped the Hughes out | look on life.
 The above Is no spiteful detraction; it is the simple statement of fact. If to be a corporation lawyer. is not to support money as against men, then l there is no meaning in words or in deeds. The business of a corporation | lawyer is not to guide his clients to | deal justly. The business of a cor poration lawyer is to advise his clients how to make money. Safely.
 'When the New York legislature .. =. enacted legislation designed to compel the electric light companies ! to put their wires underground, the
 
 out of the law For years these wires have been destroying human life wholesale. They were. as the courts later held, improperly insulated, and when they fell to the ground, fre- quently killed people. New York fire men were constantly being electrocut- ed. Finally when the deadly acci- dents so aroused the people that legis- lation was enacted, Mayor Grant in 1889 ordered the electric light wires to be torn down. On November Il, 1889, James c. Carter, Joseph H. Choate and Charles B. Hughes, as counsel for the Mount Morris Electric Light Co. and also the United States Illuminating Co.,. went into court to contest the case. They pleaded that the act of 1887 (giving the officials the right to act) was an invasion of the rights of property and they se- cured an injunction against the city" quote the above-and> the below from a well known writer, but I do not vouch for the statement that even, one New York fireman was "con- stantly being elecrocuted." If any New York fireman had that experi- ence, it must have been very annoy ing. Even the most patient man would rebel at that, in thine.
 That is how Attorney Hughes serv- ed his clients as far back as 1889. The rights of property were more sacred than the rights of humanity It was of no consequence that human beings were being killed by improperly insu- lated electric light wires-the rights of property must be protected"
 On. an appeal by the city for the dissolution of the injunction, Messrs. Carter, Choate and Hughes again rep resented the electric light corpofa- tions. In deciding the case in favor of the city, the judges had this to say about the lawyers who represented the companies:
 -"When it is apparent, as in the case at bar, the condition of the wires is such that they are dangerous to human life, and;that any passer-by, without negligence on his part, is lia- ble to be struck dead in the street, can it be said for moment that the public authorities have no power to abate this nuisance and protect the lives of its scitiZens?A-
 The companies, the court continued, "are without excuse, and when they claim that the destruction of these in- struments of death .. is an in vasion of the rights of property, such claim seems to proceed upon the as- sumption that nothing has a right to exist except themselves"
 That was the first appearance of MT. Hughes in any position of prom thence. And if that case doesn't jus tify my statement that MT. Hughes supported money as against men, nothing ever will.
 We have much of the misdeed of the law partners of MT. Hughes, of MT. William R. Hornblower-whose evil influence upon MT. Hughes is daily apparent-and MT. Paul D. Cra- vath, who came back from Europe yesterday with the news that the English cockneys despise us. For my self, I am but mildly interested in the demerits of these gentlemen. What ever their faults I doubt if either of