Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 16.pdf/233

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
The Green Bag.

than accept the small pittance offered in set tlement. The donors of these ten bonds would be pleased if the Legislature of South Dakota should apply the proceeds of these bonds to the State University or to some of its asy lums or other charities. Very respectfully, SIMON SCHAFER." On the 18th day of November, 1901, the State of North Carolina found itself involved in the litigation which terminated on the ist day of February, 1904, in the following order: "A decree will, therefore, be entered, which, after finding the amount due on the bonds and coupons in suit to be twentyseven thousand four hundred dollars ($27,400), (no interest being recoverable, United States г: North Carolina, 136 U. S. 211), and that the same are secured by ' one hundred shares of the stock of the North Carolina Railroad Company, belonging to the State of North Carolina, shall order that the said Stats of North Carolina pay said amount with cosis of suit to the State of South Da kota on or before the first Monday of Jan uary, 1905, and that in default of such pay ment an order of sale be issued to the mar shal of this court, directing him to sell at public auction all the interest of the State of North Carolina in and to one Tumdred shares of the capital stock of the North Carolina Railroad Company, such sale to be made at the east front door of the Capitol Building in this city, public notice to be given of such sale by advertisements once a week for six weeks in some daily paper published in the city of Raleigh, North Carolina, and also in some daily 'paper published in the city of Washington." Were it not for the fact that the State of South Dakota holds this stock, it would doubtless be impossible to enforce the de cree. If the exigencies of the case necessi

tate the enforcement of all of the provisions of this decree, a novel drama will be enacted upon the steps of the Capitol. Auction sales upon the steps of court-houses are of daily occurrence, but the scene is usually rustic, the actors, dust or mud-covered farmers with more holes than dollars in their pockets, the auctioneer, the sheriff, the building at his back, a one-story court-hous,e. An auction sale of the property of one State at the suit of another, conducted upon the steps of the National Capitol by the marshal of the Su preme Court of the United States, would be an historic event. Thie case was stubbornly contested and ably presented by the most eminent lawyers of the State of North Carolina, and was ar gued three times. The result, however, can not but recommend itself to fair-minded men. A sovereign State, which, being justly indebted to an individual, not only repudiates its debt and screens itself behind its sover eign prerogative of exemption from suit, but also diverts to its treasury, funds which equitably should flov into the pockets of its debtors, deserves slight consideration at the hands of a Court of Equity, when dragged to the bar of that court by another State. It is an historic room in which the socalled "Post-office Cases" are, at the present writing, being conducted. In this room the famous Star Route Cases were first tried. Here also Giteau was tried, convicted, and sentenced. Here Madeleine Pollard prosecuted and won her celebrated suit against William C. P. Breckenridge. The csse against Machen (whose name is pronounced as though it were spelled Mashen), the Lorenzes. and the Groff brothers, has not been devoid of dramatic and humo rous incidents, although the testimony intro duced by the Government was, to a great extent, dry and uninteresting. It was dra matic when Mr. Conrad, in reply to an ob