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Show W CONTROL APPEAL HEARD Charles E. Hughes Charges Misuse of Powers by Burleson. WASHINGTON, March 7. Charles ID. Hughes, appearing before the supreme court today as counsel for the Commercial Commer-cial Cable and Commercial Pacific Cable companies, charged that Posl master General Gen-eral Burleson, by taking control of the marine cable systems five days after the signing of the armistice, had misused the powers conferred by a joint congressional resolution, had given the resolution an interpretation "foreign to the intent of congress," and had, as an "ulterior motive," mo-tive," the forcing of government ownership owner-ship of tho cables. The accusations by Mr. Hughes were gonerally denied by Solicitor General King, who presented Uie case of the government, gov-ernment, asking that the court sustain the decrees of lower courts dismissing injunction proceedings brought by the two cable companies lo prevent the postmaster post-master general from taking over their cables and merging them with those of the "Western Union Telegraph company. ! Although each side- was given an ex- I tension of time to present arguments, ur- gurnents were concluded before the couit j adjourned. Mr. Hughes contended that, although 1 the presidential proclamation under which , the action was taken was dated Novem- ! ber 2, It actually was not signed until after hostilities censed, on November 11. hi reply, Mr. King asserted that tho cables wero taken over in reality on November No-vember 'I, when the proclamation was signed by the president, but did not pass into tho hands of the postmaster general until fourteen days afterwards. Government control over tho marine cable ca-ble system is more needed now than previous pre-vious to the signing of the armistice, Mr. King argued. Ho pointed to the turning over to the state department of an entire wire to Europo, the fact that American troops are now on German soil and that Germany and Austria are still at enmity with this country as sufficient proof that government supervision is needed. ..The solicitor general further contended that the issues involved in the case wf-re not justiciable, and no court could inquire into them. In reply ins:, Mr. Hi.ches said there existed ex-isted under const i tut lonal law no such thing as delegation by contrress of unrestricted unre-stricted power wil li no opport unity for of He in 1 scrutiny and rectification. The president, in taking over the cables, he said, did not act under any authority conferred con-ferred on him as commander in chief of the army and navy, but under powers conferred by act of congress and which could as well have been delegated to any other officer of the government. |