The Washington bee., 1893-04-15
ARE WORKINGMEN SAFE2
SENATORS DENOUNCE RECENT DE-
CISIONS IN LABOR CASES.

Defended by Vest and PIatt-Gorman and
Voorhees, AssaiI the Federal Courts, and
Hoar Says the Interstate Law Returns
to Plague Its Inventors.
The recent decision of Judges Taft and
Kicks in Ohio. and Speer in Georgia, IN
relation to the rights and duties OF rail-
road employees, came up in the Oniteo
States Senate in connection with a reso-
luton instructing the Committee on
Interstate Commerce to inquire into that
and other subjects, and quite long and
interesting debate resulted, which had
not closed when the Senate adjourned.
Senator German said that one Of the
questions to be inquired into was
whether, in view of the interstate COM
merce law and of the antitrust law,
Judges had right to determine not only
what railroad employee should do. but
what he should not do. Those decisions
were the first great step on the part of
the judiciary to make serfs of the men
who were employed by railroad corpora
| tions If the law warranted those de-
cisions (and possibly it did) then that law
/ ought to be modified or repealed. He
did not believe that the Americen people
would ever submit to any branch of the
Government (whether judiciary or legis-
lative) putting such impositions upon
them as were put in the recent judicial
decisions.
Mr.. Platt said that he had not yet seen
in the decision referred to anything that
looked like usurpation of power by the
courts, Or that looked like degrading the
workingmen of the country to the con-
dition of serfs. He believed that the en-
ployees of railroads had no more right to
engage in restrictions of commerce than
their employers had. And he did not
believe that there was anything either in
the interstate commerce act or in the
antitrust act that was not an affirmation
of well-considered and well-established
common law.
Mr.. Hoar remarked that the antitrust
law simply extended to the commerce of
the United States the principles of the
common law. so that he was quite cer-
tain that no such doctrine as that apGre
hended by the Senator from Maryland
would be warranted by that law. The
interstate commerce law was a new
piece of machinery, and he had no doubt
it contained good deal that would at
some day return to plague the in
| ventor."
Mr.. Vest said that Judge Speer had
only affirmed what every lawyer knew
to be the common law. He had decided
that any contract or regulation in re-
straint of commerce was absolutely void;
that any engineer had a right to quit
work, but that when the Association of
Locomotive Engineers or any other asso-
citation or corporation undertook to
make and enforce rule in restraint of
commerce, that rule was absolutely
void. There was nothing startling or
revolutionary in that. If any Judge
had declared such monstrous doctrine
as the Senator from Maryland spoke of
it would be reversed by the Supreme
Court without one dissenting opinion.
Mr.. Butler understood that one of the
points decided at Toledo was that the
court had the right to enjoin the en-
ployees of a railroad corporation from
combining in such way as to obstruct
the operations of the road.
Mr.. VOORHEES, said he was satisfied that
the Interstate Commerce act went farther
than any one supposed at the time of its
passage itdid. He thought that the fault
was in the law. and perhaps in the will
lingness and eagerness of Federal Judges
to cOnstrue the law in favor of the cor
porate power and against the labor of
the country. The most dangerous ques-
ton that the country was facing to-day
was the encroachments of corporate
power, of colossal wealth against those
who were helplessly in its power.
The debate was continued by other
Senators.