People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1894 — THEY MAY STRIKE. [ARTICLE]

THEY MAY STRIKE.

Employes Have a Legal Right to Quit Work. The Famoas Northern Pacific Injunction Issued by Judge Jenkins Is in Part Overruled by Justice Harlan. GIST OF THE OPINION. Chicago, Oct. 3. Judge Jenkins’ famous strike injunction has been overruled by the United States circuit court of appeals and the cause was remanded with directions to strike out from the restraining order of the court the clause which aroused the country when the order was issued and which resulted in the Boatner investigating committee of congress. Their Legal Right. The intervenors. representing the leading labor organizations of the countrj', asked that two sections of the injunction be eliminated. The court of appeals decided that no court could compel a man or a body of men from quitting individually or in a body the service of an employer. The court said that Judge Jenkins had exceeded his powers when he enjoined the employes of the receivers of the Northern Pacific Railroad company “from quitting the service of said receivers, with or without notice, so as to cripple the property or prevent or hinder the operation of said railroad.” Jenkins in Part Upheld. It, however, held that the section should stand in which the men were prohibited “from combining and conspiring to quit, with or without notice, the service of said receivers, with the object and intent of crippling the property in their custody, or embarrassing tbe operation of suit' railroad.” An Important Decision. The decision was considered by the lawyers who packed the courtroom as one of the most important opinions delivered in the United States in a decade. It defines the status before the law of labor organizations in their conduct ot strikes, and affirms the powers of courts of equity to interfere by injunction when there is reason to believe that the law Will be violated. It holds that the men may withdraw in a body from the service of an employer, using, however, neither force, threats, persecution nor intimidation toward employes who do not join them, nor must they use any “device” to molest, hinder, alarm, or interfere with others who desire to take their places.