The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-10-06
Labor and It's
Relation TO Law
ErOm the pnst-ExnreSs

From the Post-Express.
In the effort to defend the plank OF the
Chicago platform denouncing arbitrary
interference by federal authorities In To-
cal affairs as Il violation of the constitu-
ton of the United States and crime
against free institutions, some of the Bry
an campaign orators are outdoing Bryan
himself. The plank is, strictly speaking,
mere verbage, because nobody denies that
any form of arbitrary interference by fed
eral authority is necessarily opposed
alike to the spirit and the letter OF an In
strument framed to define what are the
legal limits of the exercise of federal pow
er. But If the plank was intended to
mean. as 1t apparently was. that the gov
ernment Of the United States could not
constitutionally invoke the power of the
courts to protect its property right in the
mails and to keep the highways for inter-
state commerce free from riotous OBJ
struction, then the charge that II Is de-
fence of anarchy is well taken. 1t may
be set down to the credit Of the candidate
and some of his more moderate support
ers. that they have tried to show that this
charge is baseless. But in defense Of one
piece of demagogic claptrap, they have
had recourse to another, and the latest
comment on the decision of the Supreme
court affirming the validity of the in
junction granted against Debs and his as
sociates. and the justice of the sentence
for contempt of court to which they were
subjected, is, that under this decision
the federal courts could enjoin organiza-
tlons of laboring men, working at any call
ing. from leaving their position without
the consent of their employers.
1t need hardly be said that the decision
will stand no such interpretation. The
injunction whose legality the Supreme
court unanimously affirmed, enumerated
certain things which the defendants might
not do, and these things were all in them
selves unlawful and injurious. But while
it forbade the defendants to induce EN-
ployes to refuse to perform their duties
as employees of railroads engaged in inter-
state commerce or the carriage OF the
United States mails, 1t did not forbid
them to use persuasion to induce employees
to quit the service. AS Justice Brewer dis
tnctly stated in regard to the appeal of
Debs: "The right of any laborer or any
number of laborers to quit work was not
challenged. The scope and purpose (of
the injunction) was only to restrain forci-
BILE distractions of the highways along
which interstate commerce travels and
the mails are carried" This interfer-
not, as a labor leader recently put it, the
government of the city of Chicago and Of
the state Of Illinois, been in the hands of
fear-stricken politicians. 1T was a lack
of appreciation Of the just demands Of
labor and a fear Of losing votes in the flu
ture which prevented the mayor Of the
city and the governor OF the state from
doing their duty by labor and the state
In checking violence the moment 1t be-
gan"
No man can have a greater interest in
the preservation OF the law of the land
secure against all attack, than the man
who lives by daily toll Even defective
laws lessen the inequality of power be-
tween rich and poor, and the supremacy
of law Is the bulwark Of rights which
have been won for the common people
by long centuries Of struggle. The right
of the individual to the enjoyment of life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
without trespass on the rights of others,
is based on respect for law, and the man,
the organization or the party that sets
about lessening that respect deserves to
be classed as a public enemy. No one
sees more clearly than labor leaders Of
mature experience that the claims of Ia
Dor can never be advanced by any toler-
alton of lawlessness. Rather does the
path of progress lie in the more complete
identification of labor organizations with
responsibility to the law, In their incor-
poration and their chartered exercise Of
certain well defined powers. understood
by their members and known to the pub
lie. But it is not thus that they could
advance under the regime of revolution
outlined by the Chicago platform.