Morning journal and courier., 1893-04-14

laboring man of this country will learn who his friends are. He will not be de- ceived. He will not be deceived by fran tic appeals to his passion, whether they take place on the floor of the senate or in the newspapers, or elsewhere. He has no desire to go beyond the limits of the law, and he has confidence, I believe, in the courts that he will be protected in all his legal rights.
 I desire just to put In another remon- strance here. do not believe, and I do not think the lsboring man believes, that when engaged in the employment of com mon carriers he can choose his own lime to leave that employment. The senator from Indiana himself, seeing the length and breadth of the doctrine which he sf- frmed here-that 1t was the right of any man employed to leave his employment whenever he chose-puts In q disclaimer. He can talk In one breath about a man bs- ing chained to his oar, and he Is forced In the next breath to say that he may not leave that oar under all circumstances.
 Common carriers are quasi public oA cers. They are engaged in the perform anos of e public duty, the transportation of passengers and property. Everybody who engages in their employment becomes a quasi public officer engaged in and re- sponsible for the transportation of psssen- gers and property, and neither the public carrier, be he corporation or individual, or the person employed by the public carrier, can quit his occupation in way to dam age passengers or property, in my judg- ment. That has been the law of all civil ized nations for years and hundreds of years
 Can an engineer In 6 steamboat plying up and down the Potomac river in a storm ah00Ga that tfraa to 1aara .ha Of the common carrier that is transporting passengers and property along the rfyeri Can he abandon his bosti Can he suffer 1t to go to ruini Can he endanger the lives of the passengers and put the property in perili Certainly he can not, any more than his employer can. Can 6 stage driver, midway between the points of bis route, in a dark night and blizzard, say, "I choose this moment as the time when I will quit the service of my employer and abandon his stage and the passengers to the fury of the stormi Can a person en- gagged by a railroad corporation abandon his occupation in way 10 injure the prep erty which Is in the course of transporta- tioni apprehend not. I Iapprehend that no lsboring man, that no employe, whether he belongs to an organization of labor not, will set up that right.
 Therefore 1t is not true-it is not true as matter of lsw-that the employe can al- ways quit the service of the common car rier. Just when and how he may quit that service I do not undertake to say. Under what circumstances he must, for the protection of the property which he is engaged In carrying, remain in the serv- ice, or at what point of time he may with out injury to that company leave the serv- Ice, Is not the question here. That may we'll be left with the courts.
 If the court has made any mistake in this decision, and I do not know enough about 1t to determine in my own mind whether it has or not, the supreme court of the United States will set 1t right. But what is to be gained by this intemperste talk about courts and judges and the ju- dioisry and about chaining lsborers to the oar and making them galley slavest The laboriDg man of this country, as have sl- ready remarked, does not desire to do in- jury either to persons or property. He will, in my judgment, if he knows 1t, engage In no illegal combination, and if he does engage in illegal combinations he should be ss much open to the decisions of the court ss capital when 1t engages in illegal combinations. There is no dis tinction between capital and labor in this matter. Illegal combinations are what courts will aim at, and what law should aim at, and what lawmakers should aim at. Capital will not be shielded when 1t engages in illegal combinations, nor will labor or laborers be shielded If they engage In illegal combinations.
 Do not let us lose our heads, MT. Presi- dent for the sake of political advantage. Let us hold to principles. Combinations in restraint of trade, whether by capital or whether by laborers, are illegal, and com binations in restraint of trade which the United States government has right to protect, whether by capital or by lsborers, should be dealt with with the same justice and the same vigor.
 again say that do not discuss these cases because am not fully advised as to their scope and their meaning; but do desire here to gay that nothing is to be gained by rushing in such hot haste to de- fend lsboring men from what after all may not have been any injustice to them