Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1897-10-27

Indiscriminate denunciation usually
obscures what is just in the cause of
those who employ it, and it is to be
feared that the real wrong in recent
perversions of the writ of injunction
escapes detection on this account
Well-meaning writer's for newspapers
have defended the courts by affirming
that injunction is an ancient process
and that judges have perfect right
to issue it. No such defense of what
needs no defending would have been
made had the real nature of the evil
known as government by injunction"
clear. Let us understand the subject.
Not only have. courts the right to
issue injunctions but it is their duty
to issue them. An injunction is, in
proper cases, righteous process, and
often prevents the preparation of a
great wrong which, once committed,
could never be undone.
A man who is execution proof may
have obtained by fraud a mortgage
upon my home, and if he shall trans
fer the note to an innocent holder, 1
can make no defense and must pay.
In such a case timely injunction pre-
vents the transfer and saves me from
n We tat al La
power to send men to prision for life;
have they therefore the right to thus
imprison a man for getting behind
with his rent? Not the right to grant
injuuctions, but the granting of in.
functions in improper cases or for i'm
proper purposes, is the point of attack
by the opponents of government by
injunction"
Although there are scattering in
stances of abuses in other directions,
the evil of government by injunction
is almost entirely confined to injunc-
tions against strikers and injunctions
against the enforcement of state laws;
and these are the injunctIons to be
considered.
If man threatens to do me bodily
harm or to destroy my property, may
have peace warrant issued and COM
pei him to give bond to behave him
self, or he must go to Jail where he
cannot avoid behaving. If three or
more persons assemble to do me bodily
harm or to injure my property, they
are an unlawful assembly-a mob
and any peace officer may call assist
ance and compel them to disperse. If
the crowd becomes large and resists
the peace officers, there is an insurrec-
ton, and the MALTA may be called to
suppress it. Why may such steps be
taken7 Because the laws of the state
forbid such conduct make it unlaw-
ful-and prescribe these means OF pre-
venting it. Now, if 1 apply to a court
and get an injunction against the men
who are threatening unlawful acts,
what is that injunction but a mere
repetition as to these particular men
of the very prohibition already ad-
dressed by the law to every man?
Think you, would go to the trouble
of merely getting judge to repeat on
a sheet of paper what is already prin-
ted in the statute book? If the men
disregard the injunction what can be
done to them more than could have
been done under the law without the
Injunction Employers do not seek
injunctions against strikers for any
such everyday purposes. They seek
injunctions forbidding acts which,
until forbidden by injunction, are law
full. There would be no sense in an
Injunction forbidding what is already
forbidden. When an injunction is is
sued forbidding acts which before
were lawful, it purports to make those
acts criminal; for they may then be
punished by fine or imprisonment. Is
not that precisely what an act of the
legislature would do, if GRIMM al law
was enacted against those very same
acts7 What branch of the govern
rnent has the exclusive power to make
criminal hitherto lawful act? Is that