Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-04-12
llO.4
A CORRUPT JUDICIARY.
A Democratic Paper Manfully Espouses
the Cause of Organized Labor. as gaiust
the UsurpatiO BY the Federal Courts.

Democratic Paper Manfuuy Espouses
the Cause of Organized Labor. as Agaiust
the UsurPatio BY the Federal Courts.
The Republic is under obligations to
the Toledo, Ann Arbor SS North Michi-
gan railroad for a copy of the orders
made by Federal Judge Augustus ].
Kicks while attempting to deny to rail-
road employees the freedom which is
supposed to be the birthright of the
American citizen
On behalf of the corporations he rep
resents in his character of federal
judge, Mr.. Kicks asserts right to pre-
vent railway employe from leaving
the service of the company without his
consent He puts the railway employe
in the same category with the common
soldier, who may be punished for de-
sertion If he leaves the service without
the consent of his superiors. "You are
engaged in service of public char
acter," he says, in addressing the men
whom he had summoned before him
for contempt of his order to go
on working, ''and the public are
interested not only in the way in which
you perform your duties while you con-
tinue in that service, but are quite as
much interested in the time and cir
cumstances under which you quit that
employment You cannot always
choose your own time and place for
terminating these relations If you
were allowed to do so you might quit
your work at time and place that
would involve irreparable damage to
your employers and jeopardize the lives
of the travelling public"
This was addressed to engineers-to
men who are notoriously as faithful to
their trusts, often at the expense of
their lives as federal judges are notori-
ously unfaithful to theirs.
Mr.. Hicks, though he denies that he
is attempting to hold men in service
against their wills, assumes that in the
absence of any contract, expressed or
implied, binding both employer and
employed, railroad men may still be
held in involuntary servitude by order
of court, and by order of court impris-
oned for contempt if they attempt to
assert their liberties under constitu-
tion which declares that there shall be
no involuntary servitude except for
crime.
1t is perfectly fair and just that where
men make contract to serve for GER
tain length of time they shall be held
it, but it is infamous to attempt to
give employers control of their en-
ployes in the absence of such a con-
tract. And it is still more infamous to
stretch the theory of contempt so that
employees may be imprisoned for not
working when ordered to do so by
court.
The pretense that railway employees
can be imprisoned for not working be-
cause their employment is of semi
public character is absurd. If any en-
gineer wllfully or carelessly 'jeopar-
dies the lives of the travelling public
he can be imprisoned in the peniten-
tiary of the state in which the crime is
committed, but only after fair trial by
jury. The theory that he can be i'm
prisoned without trial and without
jury for contempt of court on the as
sumption that if not thus dealt with he
would jeopardize life is conceived in
that spirit of craven subseryiency to
money which has made the federal
bench a by-word of reproach among
honest Americans
The employment of a Judge on the
bench is of wholly public character;
so is that of a president or of United
States senator; but where is the imbe-
cile who would claim that any of these
could be imprisoned for refusing to
continue in their Employment?
Nearly hundred years ago Thomas
Jefferson lamented that impeachment
had proven an entire failnfe,as means
of checking the usurpations OF the fed
eral courts. Surely we have much
greater reason to lament it when
creatures of corporation power now on
the federal bench attempt to create a
system of involuntary servitude under
which a court order would be all that
would be required to deprive of his
liberty an American citizen who had
committed no crime and violated no
contract st. Louis Republic.