The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-09-01
RESOLUTIONS OF LABOR
OF LABOR LEAD
ERS COMPLETE ITS TASK.
GOOD FRIDAY SET APART FOR LABOR
Never in My Life Have Been More Hopeful
Than NoW-.I Can See the Be-
ginning of the End,
Says Debs.

st. Louis, Aug. 31.-The committee on
resolutions of the convention of labor
leaders completed its task this morning
and at ten o'clock. the following plat
form was presented to the convention:
The fear of the more watchfu fathers
of the republic has been justified The
judiciary has become supreme We wit
ness 4 political phenomenon absolutely
new in the history sof the world, a re-
public PROSTATE at the feet of Judges
appointed to administer the laws They
acknowledge no superior on earth and
their despotic deeds recall Milton's
warning to his countrymen: who bids
Il man rule over him above law. may
bid as well as savage beast
Under the cunning form of injunc-
tions. courts have assumed to enact
criminal laws, and after thus dra wing to
themselves the power of legislation, have
repealed the Bill of Rights and for viola
tions of those court-made laws have de-
MED the accused the right of trial by
jury.
The exercise of the commOnest rights
of free men-the right of assembly. the
right of free speech. the right of travel
ling the public highways-have by legis-
lation, under the form of injunctions,
been made a crime. and armed forces
disperse as m2bs people daring in COM
pany to exercise these rights. At its
last term, the supreme court of the Uni
ted States decided that the thirteenth
amendment. forbidding Involuntary servi-
tude,' is not violated by arresting a sea-
man. imprisoning him until his vessel is
ready to leave port. and then. forcibly
putting him ON board to serve out the
term of his contract; a decision under
which the old fugitive slave laws may
yet be revived and striking laborers be
seized and returned to the services of
their masters.
Having drawn to themselves all the
Ipowers of the Federal government. the
Federal judges have begun the subjuga-
tion of sovereign States, so that. unless
check is soon put upon the progress of
usurpation. in a short time. no govern
ment hut the absolute despotism of Fed
eral judges will exist anywhere over any
portion of American SOIL
I! The pending strike of coal miners.
starved to feebloness by their scant
wages and by arduous and dangerous
toll, the pending strike for the right to
be fed enough to make labor possible.
has been prolific Of judicial usurpation,
showing the willingness of judicial pes
pots to resort to the most shameless de-
fiance of decency, as well as of law and
humanity, in order to enable heartless
avarice to drive it's hungry serfts back
to the mines to faint and die at their
drudgery, and there remains to-day not
one guaranteed right of American fiti-
zens the exercise of which an Injunction
has not somewhere made q crime started
by these subyersions of constitutional
liberty.
We have met to council together and
have come to the following conclusions.
that
Whereas. the present strike of the coal
miners has again demonstrated the fact
that our so-called liberty is not freedom.
but is stupendOus sham, under which
millions are degenerating, while hundreds
OF thOusands-men, women and children
are starving in novels and on the public
highways
Whereas. this condition has become
permanent for n large and ever-increas-
ing number of our population, as long as
we permit n comparatively small class
Iof legalized exploiters to monopolize the
means Of production and distribution for
their private beneft-a fact again obvi-
ous in the case of miners;
Whereas, appeals to Congress and to
the courts for relief are fruitless, since
the legislative as we'll as the executive
and judicial are under the control of the
capitalist class, so that it has come to
pass i'll this free country" that while
cattle and swine nave right to the pub
lc highways, so-called, Americans have
not; therefore
Resolved, first, That we hereby set
apart Friday, the Sd day Of September
1897 as Good Friday" for the cause
of suffering labor in America and con-
tribute the earnings of that day to tbe
support of our struggling brothers, the
miners, and appeal to every union man
and every friend Of labor throughout the
country to do likewise.
Resolved, second, If the strike of tho
miners is not settled by September 90
1897, and announcement made to that ef
feet by the President Of the United Mine
Workers, gene II convention be held
at Chicago on Monday, Sept. q, 1897. by
the representatives, of all unions, sections.
branches, lodges and kindred organiza-
tions Of laboring men and friends of their
cause, for the purpose of considering fur
ther measures in the interests of the
striking miners and labor in general.
Resolved, third, That we consider the
use # the ballot as the best and safest |