Show COURTS OVYNEDt BY RAILROADS i Kansas Governor Severely Scores Justice Harlan < 4 r UTTERANCES MAY LAND HIM IN JAIL But He Will Go Right Ahead With His Maximum Rate Bill Public Address of Governor Leedy Provoked By Supreme Court Decision De-cision In the Nebraska Maximum Freight Rate CaseGovernors Definition of Person In Fourteenth Four-teenth Amendment Amply Sustained Sus-tained By Wise Authorities Topeka Kan March lOThe Populist administration of the state of Kansas gave out a startling public address today one bristling with severe criticism of the recent decision of the United States supreme su-preme court In the Nebraska maximum freight rate case The address is particularly partic-ularly significant in that Governor Leedy has already taken steps preliminary to the calling of the state legislature in special spe-cial session with the especial purpose of enacting a maximum freight rate law Whiie the address Is given out over the signature of Governor Leedy It had first been approved by Chief Justice Doster of the state supreme court and other prominent prom-inent Populists I MAY GET INTO JAIL In giving the address to the reporters Governor Leedy said How long do you suppose a man can write treason like this without into in-to jail You may put my signature to it and make it a signed statement so that If anybody goes to jail It will be me The governor begins his address with the statement that for a year the press dispatches have said that the opinion In tho Nebraska case would be adverse to the state Then he says The opinion has been handed down and the Associated Press dispatches say that it is a clean victory for the rallroa sOn s-On the contrary it is an unclean victory In every aspect of the case showing that no matter how carefully the robes of justice jus-tice are folded about the personnel of the I di g b feg rofnI supreme court the robes can no longer conceal the cloven hoof of official mal feqsance and usurpation As this decision was due a year ago and as there was no Imown reason for the delay and as the decision as rendered confirms tie statements state-ments 3er In the Associated Press dispatches dis-patches from time to time strong color is given to the suspicion that the press dispatches emanated from some person In toch with the courts and were for the purpose of feeling the pulse of the public and preparing It for the decision which goes much farther in the direction of usurping power than any that has yet I been made FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT The governor then declares that the constitution of Nebraska gives the legislature legis-lature power to establish maximum charges for transportation and declares that the supreme court has tried to abrogate abro-gate It He challenges Justice Harlans declaration that a corporation Is a person under the fourteenth amendment of the federal constitution and says I deny it and so will everybody but a corporation lawyer or a subservient judicial ju-dicial tool of corporate interests Governor Leedy then quotes the fourteenth four-teenth amendment and says How in the name of God can this apply ap-ply to corporations Corporations are not born they are created mado by law They cannot be naturalized they can take no oath of allegiance only human beings born elsewhere can do that After more In the same strain the governor gov-ernor still referring to fie fourteenth amendment says Who are the persons who shall not according to the provisions be deprived of life liberty or property nor be denied de-nied equal legal protection Everybody outside tho asylum and off the faderal judicial bench knows them to beand to only benatural persons They are those who beside the capacity to hold property and enjoy legal protection also have life and can enjoy liberty and that means human beings QUOTES AUTHORITIES Continuing the governor quotes Hare on American Constitutional Law and a decision by Justice Woods of the United States circuit courts afterwards a supreme su-preme court justice to prove that the fourteenth amendment doe not refer to corporations and declares Aat the Woods decision had been followed in California Rhode Island and other states from 1S70 to 1S82 when Justice Field and another federal justice of the peace named Sawyer Saw-yer decided the other way and since then whenever a corporation starts out to commit highway robbery pick a mans pocket or loot a public treasury It disguises dis-guises Itself as a person and goes on Its mission of plunder Nobody but a slave or a knave will yield assent to the hideous distortion of meaning which Judge Har Ian gives to the word person as used in I the fourteenth amendment and upon I which he bbttoms his Infamous decision and which shows to what depths of In laulty the supreme court of the United States has descended I desire tho governor said to quote some of the decisions of the supreme court of the United States before It went Into partnership with Morgan Vander bllt Gould and company in opposition to the opinion they hold in the Nebraska case Long decisions by Justice John Marshall I In 1830 are cuoted In conclusion Governor Leedy states that hie maximum rate bill will be presented pre-sented to the Kansas legislature In such shape that to decide against It the court must reverse its decision In the Nebraska case and he states that if the court still pursues the corrupt and rotten practice prac-tice that It has heretofore by changing Its decisions to suit the shifting Interests of the railroad corporations the remedy I will be with the people In their dealings with the courts or in building railroads of their own |