The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1889-11-15
IMPRISONMENT for Debt.

The Labor Union" of Nov. 2, pub
fishes the following facts regarding
our two last legislatures:
A member of the legislature of 1887,
a carpenter, dared to introduce a
law, in which it was made a felony for
a contractor to appropriate money
paid ON cOntratract and earned
by other men, until the persons per-
forming the labor were paid the wag-
es agreed upon.
The laws passed the ordeal of the
committee of both house and senate,
containing twelve lawyers, and was
submitted to the inspection of a
large number of lawyers through
out the state, who pronounced it
good law, but there went up a howl
from the real estate men and the
lawyers in their employ, because
it stopped them from cheating the
poor wage worker by employing dis
honest contractors, and they were
forced in self defence to make the con-
tractor give bonds, and as the con-
tractor was obliged to pay his help
it cost them more to build. This
had to be stopped SO the supreme
court was invoked to help them,
and it came to their rescue, the same
as it did in the lin) famous tax title
case. The court decided it was I'M
constitutional, because, SO the court,
held, it revived barbarOus customs
and imprisoned people for debt, under
another name,
A great shout also went out from
the press against the evils of having
people that were not lawyers making
laws. So in 1889 we find % lawyers
elected to make constitutional laws.
Behold the results! This legislature,
in which were SO many lawyers,
passed law making it criminal
Offense to skip without paying q
board bill. Under it's provisions, a
person who had boarded in Albert
Lea was arrested at his home in
Chatfield, brought to Albert Lea,
found guilty and fined 81 and costs
OF 1854, and if he does not pay this he
must go to the county jail for about
four months.
We would like to ask of this is not
Imprisonment for debt square out
The law could not make it case OF
false pretense, as the law of 1887 did
the act of the contractor appropriate
ing the wages of his employees, as
there were only two parties affected
by the law of 1889 and it takes three
parties to make false pretenses
Further, not paying board is simply
debt between two parties just any
other debt is contracted with no col
fusion between the contractors, eth
er real or implied, as between debtor
and creditor, neither was it possible
for profit to accrue to two parties
at the expense of the third party, as
in the case of the want of a proper
lein.
We have failed to hear any COM
ment from the leading papers against
the legislation of 1889 for this infa-
nous law, reviving the horror of a
debtor prison; or say a word against
the lawyer that passed it, who must
know that according to the decision
made by the supreme court only
three or four months previous that
it was unconstitutional, or perhaps
the decision of the supreme court
was unconstitutional. AS Judge
Springer stated not long since that
this mighty body had Frequently
trampled upon constitutional right, -
now let the editors of the dailies tell
us pOOrignorant wOrkingmen whom
weshall vote for now that the law
yers do not know what the supreme
court decides as constitutional.
Will it be the honest, never mistaken
editor of our interrupted daily
press?