Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/170

Rh River, the District Judge of Missouri enter upon a defence of the action of the court in the original appointment of the Wabash recievers The court said:—

"It was an application by the corporation itself, concerning which a great deal of comment has been made elsewhere. . . . Here was a vast system, extending through many States and many judicial districts. A default, it was certain, would be made in a few days. What should be done? The interests of all concerned required that some judicial action should be had for the conservation of those interests, - stockholders, bondholders, creditors at large," etc. (pp. 623, 624.)

Again the court said:

"The simple proposition submitted to the court was this. Here is a vast property, in a bankrupt condition, -whether through mismanagement or otherwise was immaterial to this court. Connected with that property were the rights of stockholders and general bondholders, bond- holders under underlying mortgages, general creditors, and, further than that, the duties of these corporations to the public at large, and to the State which granted them their franchises. . . . Their primary obligation was to the sovereign who granted them the franchise. They undertook, first, to pay their dues to the government, in the nature of taxes; second, they undertook to run a safe operating road,- safe to life and to the transportation of property. Did they do it? Suppose they can- not do it. Then they fall within the judicial administration to compel them to do the best they can. That is all there is in that branch of the inquiry." (p. 625.)

Is not the answer to all this obvious and conclusive, - that it is no part of the duty of courts to protect interests of creditors or of any other persons or parties, or to enforce duties to the State or the public, except upon due and proper application of the parties or the State, made according to the orderly and established modes of legal and judicial procedure? Has a court any more concern than a private individual with the interests of parties or of the State, until such interests are duly presented by the proper parties? Such questions seem to answer themnselves. The creditors - stockholders, bondholders, creditors at large, the State or the public - were in no manner before the court when the Wabash receivers were first appointed. If a court may of its own motion assume to represent and act for parties not before it, it is not easy to fix