Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1890-09-06

upon BENZ. A. Richmond's profession.
But Mr.. Richmond is careful to
speak of Mr.. Powderly as some of the
public" This answers Mr.. Rich
mond's object but Mr.. Powderly was
yet more solicitous to let Mr.. Webb
know that he was before him in no
such capacity. He was there to pro-
tect Knights of Labor only. He
cared nothing for other laborers jew
nor Greek, white or black. His soul
bled only for those whose signs of
distress were learned in dimly lighted
halls, and whose yea and amen were
whispered far beyond the earshot of a
world affectedly regarded as hostile
to labor. Mr.. Powderly was, there
fore, not of the public" did not pre-
tend to be, and enjoyed no right to
personify the public" occupying, as
he does, the headship of a crowd that
cannot take the public" into its con-
fidence.
Mr.. Richmond wants to know
whether "an old, faithful, experienced
employer, suddenly discharged, has
no right to know the reason ?"
Certainly he has. But his fright to
know is not paramount to the right
on the other side to withhold the in
formation. Take this legally or NOR
ally-it is the same. 1t is the very
Golden Rule of right which no man
can surrender.
The "old, faithful, experienced en-
ployee" frequently resigns, and when
he does so, if his reasons be private,
he can respect them by reserve with
out the slightest disrespect to his en-
ployer.
The exercise of this ri ght in either
| case may be ''brutal' or ''cowardly,"
or both, as may suit Mr.. Richmond's
| theoretical vocabulary of corporate
methods of torture, yet he is lawyer
enough to know that no mere senti-
ment ever yet permanently displaced
a imminent of our equal rights.
The JOURNAL did not appropriate
Mr.. Webb's discovery-''there is
nothing to Observation-Disclosures than to
make use of it as a text.
But suppose we had stolen it-how
does it compare, as a discovery, with
that of Powderly as "the public ?"
The JOURNAL has no reply to make
to Mr.. Richmond's medley of plat
itudes, semi-Scriptural, half-moral,
and wholly specious. The JOURNAL
feels that they are fired over its head
at another target that it is Jury
talk" after both law and evidence
have jailed to furnish topical discuss
ion. Mr.. Richmond is lawyer, a
good lawyer-too good to think he is
misleading the JOURNAL into what is
considered in his profession of strict
constructionists the very trash of soph-
istry. He knows that "the laws of
plain humanity, of the simplest jus
tice and of the highest morals" have
no show against statutory law through
whose provisions the widow is often
inexorably despoiled and the orphan
reduced to beggary.
Mr.. Richmond denies our statement
concerning the Courts reservation of
reasons for Judgment, or rulings,
when they so elect. We based that
remark upon a statement of one of
the very best and most successful
lawyers that ever practised at the
Cumberland bar And we re-affirm
it on the word of another of Mr.. Rich
mond's "learned brethren" who stated
of a recent case in the Court of APP
peas that sit was decided on grounds
unsupported by single citation of
authority" And so Baltimore papers
lately reported of a street-paving case
in that city.
If this article appears to be disjoint-
ed, it is because we have endeavored
to follow Mr.. Richmond briefly as
possible. Hence, IN conclusion, we
must go back to his apotheosis of ''the
laws of plain humanity, of the sim
plest justice and of the highest NOR
ais" and ask if these be the loftiest
expressions of the unwritten code,
why not enrol them with the Pandects
of Justinian Why not at least make
them lea scripta in place of the GALL
maufry of enactments which cumbers
our statute-books to-day And who
better fitted than our friend Richmond,
the defender of the latest inquisition,
stamped with the X. of l.. trademark
and countersigned by Powderly-who
better fitted to pioneer the new reform
of making nobody's business the prop
erty of everybody? And what system
is more sure to exemplify ''sic semper
tyrannis" and Danish towards" than
toplace door at the motives of every
Caesar and Sultan in America with a
little "open sesame" tied to the latch
string, the latter always hanging out
side to Mr.. Powderly when he comes
arrayed in the garb of "the public"
cut and made for him only by Mr..
Richmond, law tailor to labor's crown
And what n harmonious tina tbarn