The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-01-03

Other committee members, their minds on
the freed slaves, failed entirely to catch
hidden significance of the use Of the word
person" They forgot that under English
common law and under Marshalls Dartmouth
College decision a corporation had been adj
Judged a person" in the eyes Of the law with
the same rights as a flesh and blood human
being.
TNTIL the Fourteenth Amendment was
~ adopted the states had sole rights in the
regulation of utilities. 1T was not, as Charles
Beard. the historian, says, supposed that
statutes regulating the use, or even the price
of the use, of private property necessarily de-
prived an owner Of his property without due
process Of law.
This amendment put the states powers to
regulate corporate enterprise in a strait
Jacket. The fact was that after the Civil War
the conservatives wished to restrict the inter-
ference by State Legislatures in the right of
business to conduct its affairs In its own way.
They succeeded, but it was a long fight.
The amendment was adopted in 1863. Eight
years later the power of local authorities to
regulate railway rates came before the Su-
preme Court in the Granger cases. The court
was not yet ready to read into the amendment
the meaning which Bingham and Conkling
had intended.
"For protection against abuses by legisla-
lures, the people must resort to the polls, not
the courts" said the high tribunal in finding
against the utilities.
But the corporations kept up the battle.
Almost every year they raised some new issue
concerning the rights Of cities and states to
supervise their services and rates. Victory came
to them in 1889 when a railroad asked the SUI
preme Court to annul an act of the Mime
sofa legislature giving a state commission
power to fix both freight and passenger rates.
rl,o o0,,~& oa;la &L.aA ~ ~,,1rk;1 g !
is a judicial one and that its determination is
dependent upon the due process" clause in
the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus the phil
osophy of such men as Bingham and Conkling
was triumphant and the states were largely
shorn of their regulatory powers over utilities.
ONCE then a great mass of decisions have
~ accumulated around this amendment. It
was decided that even though a railroad was
built under charter and the power of eminent
domain of a state it was not bound to operate
at a loss. Franchises were found to fall with
in the meaning of property"
Property" came to be defined not only as
the thing owned but as the right to acquire,
use and dispose of" the thing. States were not
permitted to make laws which would prevent
a corporation from getting "a reasonable
return"
AS utilities became Interstate in scope they
AAO0 bAO ONNNS CIV ALI AAANGNJs 4AACJ 110AA1
tanned enormously expensive legal stats skilled
in applying the principles of the Fourteenth
Amendment as it had been construed by the
courts. 1t became a tremendous expense on
the taxpayers to fight them in Federal court.
The average states attorney general, a polit-
zeal office holder, was next to helpless when he
pitted his abilities against the modern cor
poration lawyer.
The whole thing is a curious and contra
dictory spectacle. Under the law a corpora
ton is IAN artificial being created by charter
from a state. 1t is the child of the state. De-
spite this the child is no longer subject to the
discipline Of its parent.
Strangely little appears in the vast record
of the Fourteenth Amendment about the
Negro for whom the legislation was really
written. 1t is a well-known fact that in many
sections of the country ne is not even yet en-
joying the rights guaranteed him under it's
terms.
Next-COnStitutiOn and the New Deal.