Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 January 1883 — CONSPIRACY LAW. [ARTICLE]

CONSPIRACY LAW.

Jkrk Black's Letteb of Lebai Ad** vice to Me* Ukder Aiibebt for Fomenting A Strike. * The foliowiiitr iefu-r from the Hon. Jeremiah S. Black is in answer to one letter by Mr. D. R. Jones, Miners’ General Secretary, in relation to the arrest’ of Messrs. Jones and An derspn for conspiracy cn information of the Waverly Coal Company. As ter a few preliminary remarks, Judge Black says: Any number of employers may combine together and ant in concert to reduce the wages of their workings. and nobody has ever caiied that a conspiracy. But if the laborers in a shop unite to increase their wages, ai:d threaten to quit work ulLss they aie better paid, this according to the old decisions in England and America, is a criminal offence More recent cases, however, lay down the rule that a body of laborers may as lawfully say what they wiil take as employers may determine what they will give. Somewhat slowly, and with evident reluctance, capitalists have suffered the judicial mind te reach the conclusion that the emr loy er does not exactly own the workman. If, therefore, the aim of your association was nothing more than to put up tne price of your labor to a satisfactory standaid and to ooun « teract the natural tendency of other interests to redioe it, you are inuooent. people, and he court will say so I infer from your letter that you solicited others to joia with you and make a demand for wages as high as yours or else stop work. That was not wrong either. If you had a to form the Association you had a right to get as many into it as vou could, so that outsiders might not defeat its purpose by cutting under. But you did not confine your membership or your influence to your immediate fellows working to gether with veu in the employment of the same master. You went to another mine, owned by other parties. and persuaded or tried to persuade, the under-paid coaldiggers there that justice to themselves as well as to yourself required them to lay down their tools unless they got the rates generally received in the 'neighborhood. At first blush this looks like intermeddling with a matter that did not concern you. But, in truth you had a fair interest in it, because the acceptance of smaller compensations by one man always tends to depress that of another. Your resistence as to low wages was, no doubt, weakened by the admission of others near you. This orinci pal wa9 understood by employers. If Scott, and Garrett, and Jewett would agree to reduce the wages of their laborers on their rail road 20 per cent., Vanderbilt’s refusal to do likewise would be a thing of evil ex ample in their eyes, and they would exert all their influence to make him come clown to heir level. Persons engaged in a common cause, whether it be to raise or lower wages,, are entitled to the support of others if th**y can get it by fair means, They charge you, however,with getting or attempting to get the concurrence you wanted vioet armis—that is to suy,by force and with arias. If your association went to rhe other mine in a body or sent a very large delegation, it was not worse than other ig meet* ing, unless vou behaved with unlawful violence. Our institutions rather encourage the peaceable show of numbers as a means of persuasion. All organizations, political, religious and charitable, resort to it. Bat you went there, or said you would go, with a brass band. I do not thi. k this implied violenc e or any threat of violence. A trumpet, or a trombone is not a deadilv weapoD, and music is not essentially wicked, or else it would not be used, as it always is, in churoh and camp meeting. In addition to these charges of conspiracy and riot you are aooused, as I understand you. of bribery. The miners who you were trying to convert of. your way of thinking had agreed that they would forfeit $lO a pieca it they did dot work a year at the rates of wages previous ly agreed upoa between them and their employers. This penalty for accepting yoir doctrine and acting upon it they eouli not pay without assistance. Your association effered to give the necessary material aid. This does not come within any eom*> mon law or statutory definition of bribery that I knew or, I may have misconceived this whole case. If I have it is your fault. I take the facts as I gather them from your statement, which does not profess to be perfect or full. But, assuming it to be proximately correot, as a gen* eral outline, yon are certainly ia no danger of being sued for the District Attorney is a gentleman much too sensible to ask a conviction on sueh grounds. I am, very truly, your ob*‘ edient servant, J. S.Black,