Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1895 — DEBS GOES TO JAIL. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DEBS GOES TO JAIL.

RAILWAY UNION OFFICERS ARE GUILTY OF CONTEMPT. Leader Sentenced to Six and His Associates to Three Months—Judge Woods Says the Defendants Violated the Injunction Issued Last Summer. May Take an Appeal. Judge Woods, in the Circuit Court or the United States, at Chicago, found all the respondents in the contempt proceedings instituted by the Federal Government and the receivers of the Santa Fe Railroad Company against leading officers of the American Railway Union guilty as charged and entered the following sentences: Eugene V. Debs, president, six months in the county jail. ife » George W. Howard, vice president, three months in the county jail. Sylvester Keliher, secretary, three months in the county jail.

L. W. Rogers, editor of official organ and director, three months in the county jail. M. J. Elliott, director, three months in the county jail. James Hogan, director, three months in the county jail. L. As. Goodwin, director, three months in the county jail. John AlcVean, member, sentence suspended. By agreement of counsel the court granted the convicted managers of last summer’s great strike ten days before the sentences should be executed. In the meantime the attorneys for the respondents will prepare for carrying the ease up to the Supreme Court of the United States, by appeal, if possible, or by habeas corpus. The latter course will probably be pursued. To hear Judge Wood deliver his opinion the court-room on the fourth floor of the Monadnock Building was filled with

prominent citizens, lawyers, friends of the defendants, and two women, one of them a sister of Air. Debs. All of the counsel in the case, save Mr. Aiiller for the Santa Fe receivers, and Air. Irvin for the respondents. were present. All the defendants, exc ep t Director Goodwin, were in

court. On the bench with Judge Woods sat Judge Jenkins. Judge Woods read but a small portion of his exhaustive opinion, which covers 83 pages of typewritten manuscript and contains more than 25,000 words. It required more than two hours for him to rend the opinion minus the omissions. In brief the decision finds the defendants guilty of contempt in conspiring to hinder and prevent the transmission of United States mails and interstate commerce. Air. Debs is regarded as the ringleader and is more heavily punished. The nets of the defendants are characterized as a “willful disobedience of the injunctions Issued by the court.” This is the concluding chapter for the time being at least in the history of the great railroad strike of last summer. It is not likely that Debs and bis associates were either unprepared tyr.the sentence passed upon them or were'inclined to regard it ns severe. When an injunction was issued through the United States ! courts last summer restraining the leadI ers of the strike from interference with ; interstate commerce and that injunction ' was not obeyed, the subsequent move in- ! volving the arrest of the strike leaders for ; contempt of court was an outcome easily ; foreseen both by the public and by the strikers themselves. | It is in his decision as to certain ■ weighty points involved that Judge Woods’ ruling will be most likely to create discussion. The Judge’s lengthy presentation of the ease revolves upon two central topics—the validity of the injunction and the actual culpability of the defendants in the violation of the injunction issued against them. As to the validity of the injunction Judge Woods defines the interruption of interstate commerce as clearly within the jurisdiction of a Federal Circuit Court. The acts of the defendants he defines as unlawful, and the opponents of “government by injunction” will doubtless find herein occasion to inquire why, if the acts were unlawful, the positive statutory remedy for the redress of those acts of lawlessness should not have been employed instead of the instrument of the injunction. The principle that an injunction cannot be brought in restraint of an act already declared criminal by law is one that appears again in this connection, as it has throughout the late labor troubles, and it takes an addiional emphasis from Judge Woods’ careful iteration that the same act may constitute both a contempt and a crime, and that both are punishable separately. The defendants did not appear particularly crushed by the punishment. Debs bowed his tall, gaunt form and whispered a few words to his sister, who sat near, and they both laughed heartily. Howard and Hogan exchanged smiling glances and Keliher grasped his attorney’s hand and appeared to offer congratulations. It was evident that all had expected much more severe sentences and all wore a look of relief. Debs drew his people together and instructed them to say nothing for publication, setting them an example by refusing to discuss the case at ail. After the murmur of excitement over the sentence had subsided the court announced that the punishment was not to take effect for ten days, in which time the defendants' attorneys will prepare an appeal. The prospective prisouera, after a short consultation with their attorneys, left the court-room.

RUGENE V. DEBS.

GEO. W. HOWARD.