Wealth against commonwealth

by Henry Demarest Lloyd

"Have these cases," the last question ran, "ever been tried on their merits?"

"They have not."

They had been tried so far that the United States and State courts had refused on every ground urged to interfere with their issue and sale, declaring the legislation authorizing them to be valid. They had never been tried any further in the United States courts for a very good—or bad—reason. The "prominent taxpayers," after their defeat before Judge Jackson, took every possible means to prevent the case from reaching a final adjudication. The invariable rule of the United States Supreme Court has been to treat as final and conclusive the decisions of State courts as to such domestic issues. During the hundred years of its existence not a case can be found in which that court has overruled the fixed and received construction given to a State law by the courts of that State.[530] The only hope for the suit of the "prominent taxpayers" was, therefore, that the Supreme Court of the United States would for their special profit reverse the practice to which it had consistently adhered since the establishment of the government. What they really thought of their prospect of success in that effort they confessed when their case, no longer delayable, was upon the point of being reached.

They who had been so "anxious to get to the case as soon as possible" refrained from printing the record, a condition precedent to putting the case on the docket of the United States Supreme Court. The city wanted the decision, and in order that the case might not be dismissed for this failure to print the record, and a decision upon the merits be thus prevented, the city's gas trustees advanced the money—$1100—to the court printer for printing the record. Pushed thus against their will to trial, when the day came on which they must rise to state their case the opponents of Toledo folded their tents and stole silently away. On the motion of their attorney the case was dismissed, against the protest of the city. They paid all the costs, including the money advanced by the city for printing the record. To their defeat all along the line they did not want to add a formal decision against them from the Supreme Court, which was inevitable. And they ran away to fight another day.

Another purpose of these suits was confessed only a few weeks after this circular was issued. The existence of the suits was used to try to frighten the city's natural-gas trustees into accepting a "compromise." The compromise was that they should abandon the enterprise, sell out pipes and lands for a fraction of their worth, get their gas from the private company at higher rates, and put the city in its power for all time to come. "It will be three or four years before your case is through the Supreme Court," its representative told the natural-gas trustees, in urging them to accept. "You can't sell your bonds," he continued; "you have no money." The "compromise" was refused, but the city's pipe line had been delayed so long that the profits of the company for another twelvemonth were secure.

The demonstration against the bonds in the United States Circuit Court had been followed by similar suits in the State courts. Here again the city was successful. It was upheld on every controverted ground—in the enabling act, in the vote of the people, in the appointment of the trustees by the governor, and in the issue of the city bonds. Appeal was taken here, as in the United States courts, and, as there, for delay, not for decision. To checkmate further use of this lawsuit to smother the law and cripple the city, the friends of the pipe line began a suit against the authorities to force an immediate decision from the Ohio Supreme Court as to the legality of the bonds. It was certainly, as was said in the press, "a curious state of things when the defendant is compelled to bring suit against himself because the plaintiff refuses to allow trial in his own case."

These litigations, the circulars, the press, were only part of the campaign. One of the committees of the Common Council was brought under control, and induced to throw technical difficulties in the way of the sale of the bonds, which caused months of delay.[531] Effort was made to get the Governor to appoint natural-gas trustees hostile to the city, but failed. It was attempted, also without success, to get the Legislature to prevent the sale of the bonds at private sale. During all this controversy the city was most fortunate in receiving the needful authority from the State Legislature. This was due mainly to a faithful and able representative of Toledo in that body, the Hon. C.P. Griffin. He was offered every promise of political preferment and other allurements to betray his constituents, but he always remained faithful. Without his support the efforts of the city would have failed. His services amid great temptations deserve the grateful remembrance of the public.

Some of the devices of "private enterprise" were childish enough. "A Business Men's Protest" was published, which proved under the microscope to have been largely signed by men whose names could not be found in the directory. A similarly formidable-looking remonstrance against the pipe-line bill was sent to the Legislature. It had 1426 names; of these 464 could not be found in the directory, and over 300 of the 962 remaining names signed the petition for the city's bill. Many of them avowed that when they had signed the "Remonstrance" it had a heading in favor of the pipe line, which must have been changed afterwards. As part of the tactics of misinformation, a report was published—in January, 1890—claiming to give the business of both the private companies; but the members of the Council Committee on Gas, when afterwards examining the books for the gas company, found that it gave the receipts of only one company. A paper was prepared by a citizens' meeting for circulation among the manufacturers to ascertain how much they would contribute towards the city pipe line; but when reported back to the meeting it had become, in some mysterious way, a paper asking the manufacturers how much they would advance to quite a different scheme, the effect of which would be to sell out the city pipe line or convert it into a manufacturers' line.

These were the infantile methods of men who could not see the ludicrousness of the position they put themselves in by such efforts to keep a business which they were constantly declaring to be hazardous and unprofitable.

Detectives appear in almost every scene of our story, and are as common in its plot as in any extravagant melodrama of the Bowery thirty years ago. To counteract the anonymous circulars the City Council sent a committee headed by Mayor Hamilton—the "War Mayor," one of the ablest lawyers of the city, upright and loyal at all times to Toledo—to visit the Eastern money-markets. The committee, in their official report, state that they were assured by responsible dealers in municipal securities in New York and Boston that they would bid for the entire amount to be sold. "We regret, however, to have to report that the powerful and influential parties who have on all occasions and in every way sought to obstruct and defeat the enterprise for which the proceeds of these bonds were to be used, in some way succeeded in inducing those who intended to purchase to withhold their bids—in fact, no matter how guarded our movements, we believe that every person or firm with whom we had interviews was reported to the agents of the Standard Oil Company, for in every instance where from our interviews we had encouragement that the bonds would be bid for, within a short time more or less influential agents of opponents interviewed these parties and succeeded in changing their minds."