The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-09-13
RESPECT FOR THE LAW.

RESPECT FOR THE LAW.
The Unwarranted and Brutal Interferenee
Of the Police Cause tho Riots.
While the plutocratic press generally
is waxing warm over its advice to the
police to smash the heads of the starving
poor who use strong language in de-
nouncing the system which is response
BILE for their condition, it is cheering to
read something once in awhile that has
the ring of justice and humanity in it.
In a communication to the New York
World the other day Henry George said:
The assumption of the police of this city that
they have authority to prevent and break up
peaceable meetings cannot be too promptly
and vigorously denounced by all who really
value law and order. To read, as we have
been lately doing, of policemen warning pro-
prietors of public halls not to lease them to
certain persons, of police captains hunting out
anarchist meetings and dispensing them with
clubs, and of policemen in plain clothes TAX
ing notes of what is said, is enough to make an
American wonder whether he is not in Russia.
The constitution of the United States and
the constitution of the state of New York are
explicit on this point The latter declares,
section s, article l:
Every citizen may freely speak, write and
publish his sentiments on all subjects, being
responsible for the abuse of that right, and no
law shall be passed to restrain abridge the
liberty of speech or of the press.''
This is the supreme law. And it is common
sense. All experience shows that opinion never
becomes dangerous except under repression,
and that the freedom to peaceably assemble to
express views or state grievances is the best
safeguard of public order. The right of public
meeting and free speech is as much the right
of anarchists as it is the right of Democrats or
Republicans MethodiSts or Catholics and that
they are comparatively poor and weak and
largely of foreign birth is the very reason why
this right should be the more scrupulously re-
spected toward them. The best way to teach
respect for law is to show that even the author
tiles cannot set law at defiance.
The following from the Chicago Re-
cord is noteworthy, for the reason that
the editor Of that paper, like others who
have been residents of Chicago for a
dozen or more years, has seen the terri
BILE effect of the unlawful interference Of
a brutal police force with the constitu-
tional rights of the people:
That riots the result of incidental pre-
cipitating causes rather than of deliberation
was exemplified by Thursdays emeute in New
York.
A peaceable labor meeting was in progress
The hall where it was being held was not large
enough. The suggestion was made by some
one that the meeting ad journ to larger hall.
1t was acted upon, and the workingmen went
in procession at once to the place designated.
Arriving there, the use Of the hall was refused
by the owner unless payment should be made
in advance. The crowd was unable to pay for
the hall, and rather than abandon it's purpose
to hold the meeting in the hall it proceeded to
break in the doors and windows and thus eff
feet an entrance.
Had the men been allowed to enter the hall
and hold their meeting they would have ex-
pressed their discomfort in words rather than
in the destruction of property.
Such crowds this must necessarily be
treated with proper regard for their desper-
ate frame of mind, due to the unhappy condi-
officials should be extremely careful that no ex-
hibitions of intolerance or brutality are made
by the men under them. At the same time
care should be taken that disorder is not in
vlted by such asSembages of persons, who are
too easily provoked and too ready to listen to
the unwiSe and harmful words of hot headed
agitators.
No doubt there is feeling among unemploy-
ed men that demonstrations of some kind are
necessary to attract public attention and bring
relief. Unless their needs are made obtrusively
and glaringly apparent, they reason-and on
the whole not incorrectly-that the general
public Will not be profoundly stirred to render
aid. The demonstration is their way of crying
for help. This is the reason why the idle work
men may not be harshly condemned when their
public gatherings occasionally grow more ex-
citing than is consistent with the quiet of the
community. 1t must be kept before them, how
ever that violent measures can only be harm
full.