Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1908 — IMAGINARY SPEECHES [ARTICLE]

IMAGINARY SPEECHES

By ROBERT S. TAYLOR.

THZ THIRD OHS.

* " MB. BRYAN'S LABOR PLANK. Wo asked for bread and ye gave us a gold brisk. . I am sorry to make this speech to an Imaginary audience. I would like to speak to you, my fellow citizens, face to face on this subject instead of sitting in a corner writing a speech for you to read. But as that is out of the question, this is next best. Mr. Gompers is president of the American Federation of Labor. He asked the Republican convention at Chicago to put a plank prepared by him into its platform, and made the same request of the Democratic convention at Denver. He has announced that he received more favorable treatment at Denver than at Chicago, and that he will therefore support Bryan, and he advises all members of labor unions to do likewise.

This is a serious proposition. The union working men have as much at stake in the-laws and government of their country as anyone else. As earners of wages it is of fundamental, importance to them that the protective tariff shall be maintained in efficient form. As consumers of productions it is of like importance to them that abuse* of the tariff which build up oppressive monopolies and increase the cost of living shall be corrected. It is vital to their interest that we shall have a sound financial system which will provide an adequate supply of good money to promote the prosperity of business. It is of concern to them that our vast foreign affairs shall be wisely handled. The nations of the world have much more to do with one another than they had in the past. The president has to act for us all in international affairs. Voters have all these things to consider in choosing a president. x

To. Shorten Arm of Law. Mr. Gompers advises the workingmen to disregard them all and vote for Bryan because the labor plank of the Democratic platform is, as he claims, more favorable to them than the labor plank in the Republican platform. Is that wise advice? What does the Bryan plank promise? And what will it be worth to the unions if he should be elected? Will he be able to carry it out? As the law is now administered in all the courts a simple strike —that is, a walk-out of workingmen in a body—is treated as a lawful method of influencing an employer to come to terms. But that step often falls to bring him to terms. He usually proceeds to fill the places of his striking employes by others. To permit that is to give up the strike. So the strikers naturally turn their attention to the new men. They usually try persuasion first. When that falls the temptation is very strong to resort to violence. Then we have a state of war on a small scale. It Is an attempt to compel a man or men to yield a deputed point by means of punishment; and that is war. In such a case the natural disposition of men, once in a fjght, is to pound harder and harder. Thus these little wars tend to go to a length that becomes unlawful. The public is very tolerant toward them. For the sake of the workingmen we submit to inconveniences from them which we would not endure under any other cir cumstances. But a point sometimes comes when the courts have to interfere to restore order and protect life and property.

Right there Is where Mr. Gompers enters his complaint. He wants to shorten the arm of the law. He wants more room for battle. He wants his strikers to be- allowed to punish their employers and the public a little more severely than is now permitted. I say wo ought to give them all the room we oan. I have great sympathy with the struggles of the workingmen to better their condition. I believe In strikes as a last resort. Tn the present condition of the law there Is sometimes no other ratnody. And when the necessity oomes and the strike is on we can all afford to be very patient under the inconvenience. It is our fault—the fault of all of us, that we have not provided some lawful means of settlir r labor disputes. Until we do the wageearners must take care of themselves the best way they cm, with safety to society, to fight out their battles with their emplo’ ere. But there Is a limit. There & a point at whloh the law must •ay "stop.” And when that time oemes the law must be able to act with vigor; otherwise our little labor

wars may grow so big that they wfll get beyond th* control of the law. t? Now, for this purpose—for the pur pose of calling ft halt to a labor war, there is absolutely no means within the law except an injunction. Nobody will respect an injunction which the court is powerless to enforce. I say, therefore, that It is necessary, not only for protection of life and property (including business as property) in the particular case, but for the protection of society against the most serious dangers, that power shall reside in the courts to issue injunctions in labor disputes and to enforce them with strong hands. Mr. ,Gompers is treading on delicate ground when he proposes to shorten the arm of the law in those

About the smallest use made of injunctions is in strike cases. I suppose that forty times as many injunctions are Issued in patent cases as in labor cases, and thirty times as many In corporation cases, and thirty times as many in divorce cases, and as many more in divers cases of other kinds. It is all but universal that the thing enjoined Is something entirely outside of the courtroom, and if the order is disobeyed it is by an act out of the presence of the court. I have" been practicing law for forty-eight years, and I never saw an injunction violated in the presence of the judge, and I never heard of such a case. I have seen men commit contempt by Insulting behavior in the courtroom, and I have seen them punished forthwith. But not for violating an injunction. That always occurs, when it occurs at all, away from the presence of the judge. Danger of Delay.

There are peculiar difficulties In the enforcement of the law in strike cases. Take a strike like that which occurred at Cleveland a few weeks ago. Hundreds of street-car employes were engaged in it. Cars were stoned and derailed, wires cut, motormen and conductors assaulted and dynamite freely used; and these things were going on In widely scattered parts of a great city at all hours of day and night. How could an injunction when granted be enforced in such a case? Ordinarily the beginning of a lawsuit is the filing of a complaint, naming the defendant or defendants, followed by notice to him or them of a time and place where to appear. But whom will you make defendant in such a case as this? Suppose you name a hundred or so and start in to serving notices. A notice would be no notice that did not give reasonable time to hire a lawyer and prepare a defense. While the notices are being served and the lawyers are making up their papers and disputing over questions of law in court, the strikers are pressing their fight. This is the time when, very likely, they have just got the employer in a corner where they think that if they can hammer him a little while longer he will give up. In many cases the injury which the injunction was sought to prevent would be done before the writ could issue. It is plain that the procedure in ordinary cases may be Inadequate In labor disputes. The reason why is manifest. We tolerate strikes in the early stages. We want to give the strikers all the room we dare to maintain their just rights. We don’t Interfere until the situation becomes serious. By that time there is apt to be hot blood up. Disorderly fellows who have, no real part or lot with the union men join in with the strikers. No remedy will suffice except a swift and summary one Injustice may be done sometimes to individuals; but all the law and the court can do is to proceed as carefully as possible; and that they do do as a rule. I think that the aggregate amount of wrong which has been done by the courts to strikers is smalt Bryan’s Labor Platform.

Now, what change of the law does Mr. Bryan’s platform propose? His labor plank mentions three. First, a jury trial In cases of "Indirect contempt.” The second Is this: “That Injunctions should not be Issued In any case In which Injunctions would not Issue if no Industrial dispute were involved.” And the third is this: "The expanding organization of industry makes it essential that there should be no abridgment of the right of wageearners and producers to organize for the protection of wages and the improvement if labor conditions to the And that su >h labor organizations and their members should not be regarded as Illegal combinations In restraint of trade." These propositions are all buncombe ; delusive promises that mean nothing. Let us see: ‘lndirect contempt” is a true Bryan phrase. Jt sounds as though it meant soma mild, half Inneoeat form of contempt but It

means, If it means anythin* disobedience of the order of the court outside the courtroom. But an injunction In a strike case is made tor have effect •utside the courtroom, not inside the courtroom. It cannot be obeyed or disobeyed anywhere else. This proposition means then, in efjpct, that the courts shall have no power in enforcing injunctions or injunctions! orders except with the approval of a jury. This would require a formal charge, arraignment and trial by jury of persons alleged to have disobeyed the order of the court. They would be entitled to offer any and all reasons ol law or fact upon which they could claim that they should not suffer fine or imprisonment. The jurisdiction of the court to make the order wotiNFW the first question. Due service of notice would be the next. The construction and meaning of the order would also come in. The judge who issued the injunction would be on trial as much as the defendants. It must be manifest to any reflecting person that injunctions subject to such veto power by a jury would be ineffectual in the very cases in which they would be most important. It is not entirely clear whether it is intended by this plank that the proposed change in the law shall apply to all injunctions, or only to those issued in labor disputes. If the former, it would derange the whole system of equity jurisprudence and cripple the power of the court in a hundred other case* where it would effeot that power In one labor case. If the latter, it would require the enactment of a special law for labor cases. lam not as much afraid as some people of "class legislation.” It is sometimes wise. But it would be peculiarly unwise here. If the court has made a lawful and just order the question whether the defendant has obeyed it or not is a very simple one; and yet one which a jury, under the pressure of popular excitement, might be unable ,to try with impartiality, and most unable n most important cases.

It is impossible to foresee how violent labor war may become. The unions are bending every effort to Increase their power by getting their fellow craftsmen into their ranks and unionizing shops and employments. As they feel themselves better able to give battle they will make larger demands which employers will resist with stubbornness. I think we shall ultimately find a way to the peaceful solution of labor questions, but it will be through many struggles yet To what lengths those fights may go no one can tell. I heard Mr. Gompers say on a public platform in Chicago— I think it was at the first trust conference in 1859: "We will strike when we please and for what we please; we will strike for good cause, or for no cause.” When the occupant of the highest office In the labor world allows himself to express such a sentiment, to what extremes may not hot-headed young men go? Man is only a partially tamed animal. When the tiger In him gets the upper hand he knows no law. Have we forgotten the burning of the courthouse In Cincinnati; the destruction of railroad property at Pittsburgh, and the civil war at Chicago? These things were trifles compared with what might be and may be. The solemn and Important thing to remember is that power must reside somewhere In the government to save society from anarchy in any situation liable to arise. Such a power can reside only in one or both of two departments—the courts or the army. Every good man must desire that the courts shall always be able to perform that duty without calling on the army. In order that they shall be they must have jurisdiction and power to deal with extreme emergencies by extreme measures. Mr. Bryan’s proposal to curtail that power by making the enforcement of an Injunction dependent upon the approval of a jupy Is the one third of error in his labor plank. I have said that that the other twothirds are buncombe. Let us see. Mere Buncombe. v

His second proposition is that Injunctions should not be Issued in any cases In which an Injunction would not Issue If no Industrial dispute were Involved. They never are. Injunctions in strike cases are issued against men who are doing or threatening to do some act In violation of law to the injury of others. The same injunction would be Issued against the same men under the same circumstances if there were no industrial question in the case. The language of the platform is deceptive. A workingman would naturally Infer from it that the courts have been discriminating against the unions In the issuance of Injunctions and that if Mr. Bryan can have his way that discrimination will osaae, all

cases deal With the mep a* individuals doing certain acts without any regard, to whether they union men or notl The same thing is to be said of the. third subdivision of Mr. Bryan’s labor plank. It is to the effect that there ! should be no abridgment of the right of wage-earners and producers to organize and that their organizations and their members should not be regarded as illegal combinations in restraint of trade. This is another complaint of a wrong which does not exist. There has been no abridgment of the right of organization by wageearners or producers by the law or the courts, and no one proposes any; and no court has ever held such organizations to be illegal combinations in restraint of trade. Such an organization may turn itself into a combination in restraint of trade, as where the menu bers of a union conspire together to Interfere with the operation of a railroad. But that is not because the men are members of a union or the dispute is an industrial one. If they should do the same things with like common purpose they would form an illegal combination, although none of them were members of a union. They might be an unorganized body of farmers acting together to try to compel a railroad to haul their wheat to market at reduced rates. The implication of the platform that labor organizations as such have been held to be illegal combinations in restraint of trade is untrue. I think there might be some useful legislation on the subject of procedure in strike eases relating particularly to notice—how it shall be given and the effect of it, and requiring an early hearing; and, perhaps, authorizing a change of judge upon request of the defendants. But there should be no change that would diminish the power of the court to deal effectively with every case according to the emergency presented. Of Mr. Bryan’s proposals only one of the three would mean any change in the existing law and practice, and that a vicious and dangerous change; the other two are humbugs designed to pull wool over the eyes of union workingmen. , Friend cf the Unions.

I cannot leave the subject without repeating that what I have said is In no spirit of hostility to organized labor. The labor unions are fighting the battle for a higher civilization for all of us—not always just as wisely as they might, but upon the whole, as well as they can; and upon the whole, also, successfully. Every strike helps toward the final solution of-the problem —even those that fall of immediate success. In this long and difficult struggle the unions are entitled to our hearty and generous support. But It must not be forgotten that our little labor wars have elements of danger in them which must be guarded against. We must not forget the impetuosity of excited human nature. For the purpose of setting bounds to the violence of strikers it is better to rely on the courts than on the army. The courts will sometimes make mistakes. They do that in all kinds of cases. Nevertheless, we cannot do better than, first, to equip them with the best men we have, and then stand by them and uphold their authority.

I am not now making any general argument against Mr. Bryan. I am dealing solely with Mr. Gompers’s recemmendation to members of labor unions to vote for Bryan because of the labor plank in- his platform; and I am addressing myself particularly to Republican union workingmen; and I say to them on what seems to me to be the highest grounds of public duty, that they ought not to follow Mr. Gompers’s advice.