Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-04-14
THE CASE OF MRS. GRAY.

.......2.--
THE CASE OF MRS. GRAY.
Unless Mr.. Charles Croker is right in
his statement of our governmental princi-
pies to the woman baker of New York
who resists the boycotting Of herself and
her workmen because they refuse to either
leave her employment or Join a labor
union, ard because she refuses to discharge
them for exercising a supreme and sacred
right, then there is no citizenship in the
United States worth the name. He says
to her, practically: l give you money
for bread for the poor in appreciation of
your efforts in the cause Of Justice and
freedom. We live in free country.
Whosoever sets up to deny to others rights
they claim for themselves, q les in the face
OF the system of the republic. and proposes
to establish tyranny, beside which the
most hated of history pales. There can
be no denial of this We cannot have
one-sided laws or one-sided principles.
No rule of action in this Government that
substitutes the dictation Of irresponsible
might for inalienable right is possible.
The liberation of a system Of moral terror
ism leads inevitably to recognition and
countenance of physical anarchy. This is
a question Of reciprocal relations, rights
and duties. Narrow or cut of one, and its
correspondent must be wounded. Recoe-
nize the subersion of one, ard the whole
are endangered. We secure concert of
action by sacredly guarding individual
rights. 1t is the right of Mrs. GRAY to
employ such bakers as she chooses. and
the right of the men to contract with her
for their labor as they choose. When any
men or set of men say to.her or them,
II you do exercise these rights we will es-
tablish over YOU a reign of terrorism. they
do her and them more grievous wrong
than if they burn their property, destroy
their goods, or assail their persons. For
these things they have direct remedy in
the law; against persecution and terror
ism there is comparatively none they
are stabs in the back and blows in the dark
Among peoples not farther advanced
than the tribal state of aggregation,
personal rights are dependent for their ex-
ercise upon uncertain and arbitrary powers,
and temporary and cribbed compacts. In
a Tree government of civilized people they
rest upon the acknowledgment and zeal
Gus guard Of the rights and equality of
every member of the community. Ours is
a permanent league under charter of
rights, with its constituents so adjusted to
each other that no one of them can be
harmed without danger of throwing the
whole machinery into confusion. When
Mrs. Gray swept the men from her
shop, with her broom, who proposed to
dictate TO her how she should conduct her
business, she transformed that article of
household utility into scepter of right
and freedom, under which every man.
woman and child in America ENJOYS the
sacred privilege of worshiping God ac-
cording to the dictates of conscience. of
possessing and enjoying property, of pur-
suing happiness, and of writing and print
ing and speaking their thoughts freely.
The domiciliary visitants who seek to
make Mrs. Gray do their viii in the exer-
else OF the affairs of her castle, confess to
her fright If it may be so termed
by which, if she has the power, she NAV
dictate to every one of them their going in
and coming out, their rising up and sitting
down, and thus imperil the very freedom
under color of which they endeavor to
coerce her. They may not work for her,
and no man can say them nay; they NAV
not buy of or sell to her, and none will
deny them; they may refuse to break her
bread or accept her hospitality, and none
must strive to force them to do otherwise.
They may avoid her on the highway if
they choose, and none will compel them to
do her obeisance. These are their human
rights-natural, universal and inalienable
and spring, as DR.. Porter so aptly puts
IT, " from the constitution of man as man.
80 soon as any one says to himself, by the
seii-eonscious recognition OF his own per-
sonality, he says thou to his neighbor, with
as distinct recognition of similar per-
sonality in him." That is TO saw in this
government as in all right organization.
" Its connecting bonds are the universal re-
lationships which are involved in their
common nature" The individual RIGHTS
of which We all boast so much as BEING
Inalienable, are born Of our incapacity to
rightly part with them except by free con-
sent. They are, therefore, impregnable ex-
cept to the assault Of violence, the cruelty
of might or the necessary surrender of
some for the formation of what we term
government. When Mr.. Croker coupled
"justice with rights" the reference was
to another fundamental principle of
freedom; that justice is the concession of
the inalienability of personal right and
the protection of the individual in its
exercise, and hence the law that invades
the one or refuses the other is destructive
of freedom. There is such thing as
invasion of mems rights by acts short
of actual violence and through un-