Mexico weekly ledger., 1896-12-24
Boycott Discussed.
j. Med. TRIMBLE AT THE FIRST
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
Denounces the Trusts and Holds Them
Responsible for Much Of the Diff
culties Between Labor and
Capital To-Day.
From the Kansas City Journal.

From the Kansas City Journal.
AT the First Congregational church
last night Judge J. Med. Trimble de.
livered the sixth of the series of lay
sermons on the leading social ques-
tions of the day. Judge Trimble dis.
cussed the boycott from a legal stand
point. He declared that peaceful
strikes were legal; that a peaceful
boycott which confined itself to the
mere withholding of patr onage from
the subject of the boycott was legal.
But when a labor union sought to pre-
vent others by violence or threats
from patronizing the subject Of the
boycott or those who deal with him,
then the proceeding was a conspiracy
and was illegal.
Judge Trimble said in discussing the
subject, ''The Boycott; the Right and
the Wrong Of IT,"
JUDGE TRIMBLE's ADDRESS.
"Having no connection on the one
hand with those combinations called
trusts, whose purpose is to raise the
price of the necessaries of life, nor on
the other hand with those combina-
tions of labor whose purpose is to
raise the price of labor; not having
enough of this worlds goods to puff
up my heart with the arrogance of
wealth, nor so little as to infiame my
heart with the prejudices of poverty,
1 can, 1 think, discuss this question
with impartiality. I shall try to make
my premises and my conclusions right,
caring not, if this be 50, whether they
please either capital or labor.
"Prior to 1776 the thirteen colonies
were subject to great Britain; their
laws were the common laws of Eng
land. After the Revolution they nat
urally continued the system with
which they were most familiar. So
to-day the great body of the law by
which we are governed is the old
common law of England, and though
it has been added to and changed by
100 years of legislative enactment, yet
the proportion between the two would
be fairly represented by comparing
the common law with a well and the
bulk of statutory enactment by state
and federal legislatures with the buck
ct that sits beside the well.
"Under the common law of England
any combination whose purpose was
to raise the price of the necessaries of
life was illegal. On the theory that
increased wages added to the cost Of
the necessaries of life, combinations
to raise the price of labor were also
made illegal. At first glance these
seem to be on an equality, but a few
moments reflection will show that
they are not.
SOME OLD ENGLISH LAWS.
"To correct the idea that these
times are the hardest and present con-
ditions the most oppressive, let me
refer to some of the enactments Of the
English parliament directly against
labor. In 1349 it was enacted that
every workman should serve the first
man who demanded his services; he
had no choice of masters; he could
NOT even change his place of resi-
dence, but had to stay where he was,
that the employer might always know
just where to find him. In 1913 COM
binations and agreements not to work
for any but a fixed sum were made
unlawful; violations of this law were
punished, for the first and second, by
fine and imprisonment, and for the
third, by the piilory and the loss of
one ear. If this law should suddenly
be re-enacted, there would be few of
our workingmen who would not be
minus an ear.
Gin the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries efforts were made to estab-
lish rates of wages and to fix the
hours of labor, and it may be safely
asserted that the wages were placed
low enough, for they were fixed by
the employing class. In 1893 q law
was passed to suppress all combina-
tions to advance the price Of labor Or
to shorten hours; any agreement be-
tween two or more Iaborers and an
employer to raise wages was unlawful,
and both employer and employee were
subject to three months imprison-
ment at hard labor for violating this
law.
COMBINATIONS OF LABOR LEGAL.
"But there is wide distinction be-
tween a combination to raise the price
of the necessaries of life and to raise
the price OF labor. The former bene-
fits but few and Injuries the many.
Such a combination was and is unlaw-
full. But Legislatures began to see that
that country was the most prosperous
which furnished the greatest amount
Of employment to labor and paid the
highest wages; they saw that to raise
wages benefits the many and Injuries
only the few. Therefore, even in Eng
land in 1925 a law was passed recog-
nizing the legality Of labor organfza-
tions and repeating all the hostile leg
islation of the past. But it undertook
to establish a distinction between per-
suasion or intimidation and made it
unlawful to prevent by force or intim-
idation other workmen from taking
the places Of men who had struck.
"The word boycott is new, but its
spirit is old. Its spirit was manifested
when men first began to be willing to
promote their own selfish ends by
upon the rights of others
and that is as old rs the human heart.
NOT ALWAYS UNLAWFUL.
ga boycott lie not always unlawful.
We have many historical instances. |
The Mosaic law against the lepers and
our own laws isoiating smallpox pa
tients are illustrations and are justified
the ground Of the public safety and
health. The foundation of the gov
rests on the doctrine that
private convenience and private right
must yield to the public safety. But
never must private rights be sacrificed
to preserve private safety. The edict
of accommodation promulgated by