Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1896-07-28
Law, Not Lawlessnes s.

Law, Not LawIessness.
The Cresco Times in it's issue of
July 22nd advocates the doctrines of
of the anarchists and the law break
er in attempting to cast a stigma up
on the democratic platform in its
article under the headlines, Nothing
but Anarchy" Had that paper pub
lished the paragraph in the platform
which it assumes inculcates any such
doctrine and the clause in the federal
constitution incorporated in section
four, it would have disclosed to its
readers that the resolution and law
were in the strictest harmony. We copy
below from the Dubuque Telegraph
in reply to the Times theory:
One of the planks of the Chicago
platform reads:
1--WE denounce arbitrary interfer-
ence by federal authorities in local af-
fairs as violation of the constitution
of the United States and a crime
against free institutions, and we es-
pecially object to government by in
junction as new and highly danger
GUS form of oppression by which fed
eral judges, in contempt of the laws
of the states and rights of citizens,
become at once legislators, judges
and executioners; and we approve
the bill passed at the last session of
the United States senate and now
pending in the house of representa-
tives relative to contempts in federal
courts, and providing for trials by
jury in certain cases of contempt"
1t is affirmed by the more reckless
of the pro-gold press that these delar-
ations are anarchistic. If SO, the con-
stitution of the United States is anar-
chistic, and instead of continuing to
regard those who formulated and ad-
opted that instrument as statesmen
and patriots. we must hereafter re-
gard them as Johann Mosts. The
fourth section of the fourth article of
the constitution says:
Sec. The United States shall guar
anty to every state in the union re-
publican form of government, and
shall protect each of them against in
vasion; and on application Of the leg
islature or of the executive (when the
Legislature cannot be convened)
against domestic violence.
The first part of the plank is pro-
test against the violation of this sec
ton of the fundamental law of the
United States; and the protest is nee
essary because if those who are sworn
to respect and enforce the constitu-
ton are permitted to ignore or defy
it free institutions will be imperilled
and finally destroyed.
Article 5 of the amendments to the
constitution provides that mo per-
son shall be held to answer for
capital or otherwise infamous crime,
unless on presentment of a grand
jury and Article provides that lin
all criminal prosecutions the accused
shall enjoy the right to a speedy and
public trial by an impartial jury of
the state and district wherein the
crime shall have been committed"
BY the injunction process, persons
are forbidden from doing what is not
prohibited by law, and when they re-
fuse to obey the court causes their
arrest, and, without the intervention
of grand or petit jury, convicts them
of crime and condemns them to pun
ishment. The court not only makes
the law, it also becomes judge, jury
and executioner. This is as repug-
nant to the the constitution and to
our republican system as the methods
of the Spanish inquisition or those of
Russia would be; and in protesting
against it the Chicago convention
simply affirmed its devotion to the
principles embodied in the organic
law by the fathers of the republic.
To condemn the quoted plank of the
national democratic platform as anar-
chistic, is to place Washington and
Jefferson and Hamilton and Madison
and Franklin in the same category
with the wretch who assassinated
President Carnot and the morally
perverted creatures who hurled the
death-dealing bombs in Barcelona.
Instead of declaration against, the
plank is a proclamation of respect
for and loyalty to law. If devotion
to the constitution of the United
States were anarchistic, anarchist
would be a term of honor and not of
reproach. Those who represent the
declarations against arbitrary inter
ference by federal authorities in local
affairs and against government by
injunction as anarchistic are reckless
knaves or ignorant blatherskites.
We live in country of which the