Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1893 — JUDGE RICK’S DECISION. [ARTICLE]

JUDGE RICK’S DECISION.

Declares Against the Boycott of the Loc.omotive Engineers. Now that the text of Judge Rick’s decision in the Ann Arbor strike cases is published, the Court’s position appears not at all revolutionary. He declares that the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers has no right to maintain a boycott against the interstate freight of any road on which there may be a strike. The ordering and furthering of such a boycott, he says would be criminal, under section 16 of the interstate commerce law. He, therefore, enjoins Chief Arthur and the brotherhood from enforcing the boycott rule against the Ann Arbor Road. But when he comes to the individual rights of the engineers he declares that Clark, Case, Rutger, and Conley acted within their rights and were entitled to quit the service of the Lake Shore Road when they did. These engineers, employed by the Lake Shore, were ordered in turn to haul out a Lake Shore train in which there were Ann Arbor cars. Each in turn replied that he-would quit the road’s service. This, Judge Hicks says, they had a right to do. Engineer Lennon, who, being out on a run, refused to switch an Ann Arbor car into his train, is judged guilty of contempt of court and fined. It seems, therefore, that the right of each individual engineer to refuse to make a run with a train containing cars for or from a noad on which there is a strike is affirmed. But if preconcerted action to the end should be proven it would constitute a crime punishable by a heavy fine.