Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1902 — ELEVATOR MEN MEET DEFEAT [ARTICLE]

ELEVATOR MEN MEET DEFEAT

Illinois Supreme Court Declares That Warehouse Law Is Void. NOT IN INTEREST OF PUBLIC Owners and Lessees of Public Houses Prohibted from Storing Their Own . Grain and Mixing It With That Carried for Customers. By a decision of the supreme court of Illinois, elevator men are prohibited from traffic in their own grain in public elevators. The court declared unconstitutional an act of the legislature which made it lawful for owners and lessees of public warehouses to store their own grain and mix it with the grain of others. This marks the end of a fight between elevator men and brokers which has been carried through the courts and through the legislature. While both representatives of the elevator and brokerage Interests declared that the conditions under which the fighti began had changed, and that the law “had become a dead letter,” the brokers were rejoicing in their victory over the elevator men. In giving the decision the supreme court declared that the act of the legislature which made it lawful for the public warehouse owners to store their grain in the elevators was "manifestly not for the protection of producers and shippers of grain, but against their interests.” Purpose of the Law. “It had for its purpose,” continued the decision, “the exemption of public warehouses from the discharge of public duties Imposed on them for the protection of producers and shippers, the performance of which is clearly necessary for the protection of such Interests." The act was passed by the legislature in 1897, and was for the purpose of defeating an injunction issued by the Cook county circuit court to prevent the elevator men from storing grain in the public warehouses. Numerous charges were made against the legislature when the act was passed. The attorney general had secured injunctions restraining the firm of Carrington,Hannah & Co. and eight other companies, from storing their own grain in public warehouses. A fine of SIOO had been imposed for violation of this injunction by one of the elevator owners, and the case had been appealed. While it was being heard the legislature passed the act making the injunction lawful and permitting the storing of grain. Legislature Powerless. After the cause came to the supreme court Hannah died, but the Northern Trust company, as his executor, was substituted as appellant, and the judgment given runs against the estate. In rendering the decision Justice Boggs, who wrote the opinion, quotes at length the constitutional limitations on public warehouses and calls attention to the importance attached to this matter by the framers of the constitution. It declares that a public warehouseman of class A could not, under the provisions of the constitution of 1870 and the act of 1871, store his own grain in his own warehouse, grade tttfe same, and mix it with the grain stored there by his customers, and adds: “We entertain no doubt that it was beyond the power of the general assembly to confer on such warehouseman the right and power to do so by the amendatory act of 1897.”