[Report of the Industrial Commission, 1900. Volume I, page 529.]
Mr. Lee makes a statement regarding the difficulty of his pipe-line, the United States Pipe Line, in crossing railroads and securing right of way to the seaboard, and makes a general statement implying that we have instituted and carried out great obstruction to their progress. I want to make general denial of this statement. We have not at any time had any different relations with reference to any obstruction or effort at obstruction of their line than would attach to any competitor in a line of business engaging against another. With reference to the special features referred to by Mr. Lee, and which he attempts, by implication at any rate, to connect us with, in the crossing of the Delaware and Lackawanna Railroad in New Jersey, I want to say that the contention in that respect was entirely at the hands of the railroad, and not at our hands in any possible respect. They went there surreptitiously and endeavoured to force their way, on a Sunday, over a line where they had no right, either by private purchase or by public franchise. Having accomplished the crossing of the road in that surreptitious way, they stationed there an armed force to prevent the railroad company from asserting its rights and taking out their lines, and kept that force there for a long period. The railroad went about it in a peaceful way, in the courts, and the final result is that the decision is against the line, after the case has been carried up finally to the supreme court of the state, and they must, of course, remove their line. But any statement on Mr. Lee's part, or any other witness, that we had anything to do with that matter, or with reference to any of the difficulties interposed in their progress to the seaboard, is absolutely false.
By Mr. Phillips.
Q. Did your company own in fee simple the tract of ground, and was a roadway reserved by the landholder? Was that purchased by them?
A. It was not my case, and I am not conversant with the details regarding it. The fact that, after having been fought in the newspapers and in the courts for a term of years, seeking the sympathy of the judges as well as the public, the supreme court of the state has ruled against them, is the best evidence, I think, that the right was against them. I want to say with reference to our pipe lines, that we never endeavoured to cross any man's right of way without first seeing him about it.
Q. Still, did they not go through the railroad on their own ground, and was not this the final decision, that they had not the right to lay a pipe line where a man had reserved a right of way under the ground?
A. It was not only decided that they had no right there, but they were ordered to remove.
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