Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1892-10-20

TiIlsbOh1i OCt' Lille grand jury
has found true bills against the
Homestead rioters on charge of treason.
The grand jury also handed down true
bills against the officials of the Carnegie
Steel company, charging them with sg-
grayated riot, murder, etc. The finding
Of the grand jury against the Carnegie
firm includes the Pinkerton brothers, of
the Pinkerton agency, as well as a mum.
Der of their men.
Judge Paxson's Charge.
PITTsBURG, Oct. 11.LChief Justice
Paxson, of the supreme court of Penn
sylvania, Monday charged the grand
jury in the cases of the Homestead
strikers charged with treason. The charge
contained over 5000 words and embraced
graphic resume of the circumstances
leading up to the riot at the Carnegie
Homestead mill and the subsequent
charges of treason lodged against thirty
three union men. The chief Justices
charge is considered by members of the
Allegheny county bar as unfavorable to
the defendants. In charging the jury
Justice Paxson said:
1--WE can have some sympathy with
mob driven to desperation by hunger,
as in the days of the French revolution,
but we can have none for men receiv-
ing exceptionally high wages in resisting
the law and resorting to violence and
bloodshed in the assertion of immagin-
ary rights, and entailing a vast expense
upon the tax payers of the common
wealth. 1t was not cry for bread to
feed their fanishing lips, resulting in
sudden outrage, with good provocation;
it was deliberate attempt by men
without authority to control others in
the enjoyment of their rights. The ex-
istence of such state of things in a gov
ernment of law indicates a weak spot.
1t is not in the law itself; that is
sufficient for the preservation of
order; all that is needed is
its proper enforcement. To accom-
plish this, it is only necessary
that every one connected with its ad-
ministration should do his duty. This
duty is as solemn and imperative with a
| jury in the box as it is with the Judge
upon the bench. l am glad to be able
to say, as result of my experience in
the criminal courts, that have seldom
known jury to falter in the perform
ance of duty, when that duty has been
clearly and fairly presented to them.
If jurors fail in this respect the courts
can accomplish nothing and the result is
anarchy. 1t is much to be feared that
there is diseased state of public opinion
growing up with regard to disturbances
I n No nd mn ,Ne
the law bearing upon these questions
has found lodgment in the public mind"
| In defining the law, the Justice said:
"When the company shut down its works
and discharged its men, it was acting
strictly in the lines of the law; it could
not compel the men to work, nor could
the men compel the company to employ
them; no arrangement could be made
in such regard except in the nature of a
contract agreed upon by the parties.
Upon this subject their rights were mu-
tual. The company had the undis-
puted right to protect its property;
for this purpose it could lawfully employ
as many men as it saw proper, and
arm them if necessary. Many of our
banks and places of business are guarded
| by armed watchmen. The law did not
require it to employ as watchmen the
men from whom it anticipated the de-
struction of its works. The right of the
men was to refuse to work unless their
terms were acceded to them and per-
suade others to join them in such re-
fusal, but the law will sustain them no
further. The moment they attempt to
control the works and to prevent by
violence, or threats of violence, other
laborers from going TO work, then they
placed themselves outside the pale Of
the law. 1t can not be tolerated for q
moment, that one laborer shall say to
another laborer, "You shall not work
for this man for that wage without my
consent" and then enforce such COM
mand by brutal violence upon his per-
son.
sit is the duty of the state to protect
every citizen within her boundary. In
this there is no distinction between the
laborer and the capitalist it protects
each with equal impartiality. When
the state fails to do this it fails in its
duty as sovereign, and it will protect
with firm hand the individual laborer
from the tyranny and unlawfulness of
organized labor. The law should be 50
enforced from the Delaware to the Ohio,
that the humblest laborer can work for
whom he pleases and at what wages he
sees fit, undisturbed by the bludgeon of
the rioter or the pistol of the assassin.
You will also observe that the offense
charged is treason to the state, and not
against the United States; it is q matter
with which the latter has nothing to do,
and over which it can have no jurisdic-
ton.
"A mere mob, collected upon the i'm
pulse of the moment, without any def
mite object beyond the qualification of
its sudden passions, does not commit
treason, although it destroys property
and attacks human life. But when the
large number of men arm and organize
themselves, and engage in a common
purpose to defy the law, to resist its Off
GERS and deprive their fellow-citizens of
the rights to which they are entitled un-
der the constitution and laws,
it is a levying of war against
the state, and the offense is
treason. Where body of men have
organized for a reasonable purpose,
every step which any one of them takes
in part execution of their common pur-
pose is an overt act of treason. Every
member of such asserted government
who has participated in such usurpation
has committed treason against the state.
1t is maxim of criminal law that q
man must be presumed to have intended
that which is the natural and probable
consequence of his acts. We have
reached the point in the history of the
state where there are but two roads left
to us to pursue. The one leads to order
u. Il L. a. 4.