The record-union., 1897-09-01

sion here two days, finished It's Work
this evening. The meeting was pro-
ductive of several sensational speeches
and many resolutions, yet no decisive
action was taken in the principal mat
ter for which the gathering was sum-
moned-the abolishment of government
by injunction.
CONVENTION PROCEEDINGS.
ST. LOUIS, Aug. 31.-The delegates
to the convention of the labor leaders
were slow in assembling this morning
The delay was due to the Committee
on Resolutions, which sent word that
it was not ready to report. The COM
mdttee had been in session almost con-
tinuously since o'clock yesterday af-
ternoon, and at s o'clock this morn
ing had not completed the plan of
action The committee at midnight
had practically agreed upon recon-
mending Government ownership of
mineral land rights, but" as one Of
them remarked then, there is no tell
ing what they win do with that idea
before morning"
One of the members of the commit
tee favored a committee with plenary
power to appoint a general labor COM
mittee of one from each State, and to
call a national convention in a West
ern State in case the miners and op-
orators fail to come together and settle
their differences.
At 10 o'clock the Committee on Res
olutions filed into the hall, and the
delegates were called to order to hear
its report.
Mr.. Bergen, in presenting the resolu-
tons, spoke of the great task the COM
mittee had before it. He said the re-
port about to be submitted was the
best the committee could do under the
circumstances. Whether it would suit
was the question. The platform as
presented reads:
'The fear Of the more watchful fa-
theirs Of the Republic has been justified.
The judiciary has become supreme. We
witness a political phenomenon abso-
lutely new in the history of the world;
a republic PROSTATE at the feet Of
Judges appointed to administer the
laws. They acknowledge no superior
on earth, and their despotic deeds re-
call Millions warning to his country
men: Who bids a man rule over him
above law, may bid as well a savage
beast
Under the cunning form of injunc-
tions, courts have assumed to enact
criminal laws, and, after thus draw
ing to themselves the power of legisla-
tion, have repealed the bill Of rights,
and revolutionist court-made laws
have denied the accused the right of
trial by jury.
''The exercise Of the commonest
rights of free men, the right of assem-
-;r~bA ,Pf rio nf
travelling the public highways-have by
legisla ton under the form of injunc-
tions been made a crime, and armed
forces disperse as mobs people daring
in company to exercise these rights.
At its last term the Supreme Court
of the United States decided that the
Thirteenth Amendment, forbidding in
voluntary servitude,' is not violated by
arresting a seaman, imprisoning him
till his vessel is ready to leave port,
and then forcibly putting him on board
to serve out the term of his contracts;
a decision under which the old fugitive
slave laws may yet be revived and
striking laborers be seized and re-
turned to the service of their mas
, ters.
Having drawn to themselves all the
til Congresses and Presidents may act
only by judicial permission, the FEEDER
al Judges have begun the subjugation
of sovereign States, so that unless a
check is soon put upon the progress of
usurpation, in a short time no govern
ment but the absolute despotism of
Federal Judges will exist anywhere
over any portion of American soil.
1fY7csy
starved TO feebleness by their scant
wages for arduous and dangerous toll;
the strike for the right to be fed
enough to make labor possible, has
been prolific of judicial usurpation.
showing the willingness of judicial des-
pots to resort to the most shameless
defiance of deceney, as we'll as of laws
and humanity. in order to enable heart
less avarice to drive its hungry serfs
back to the mine to faint and die at
their drudgery, and there remains to-
day not one guaranteed right of Amer
lean citizens. the exercise of which an
Injunction has not somewhere made a
crime. started by these subversions of
constitutional liberty.
1--WE have met to counsel together,
and have come to the following con-
clusion: That,
Whereas, The present strike of the
coal miners has again demonstrated
the fact that our so-called freedom is
but a stupendous chasm, under which
millions are degenerating while hum
dreds of thousands-men, women and
cbildren-are starving in novels and on
the public highways;
Whereas, The condition has become
permanent for the large and ever in
creasing number of our population, as
long as we permit a comparatively
small class of legalized exploiters to
monopolize the means of production
and distribution for their private ben
efit-a fact again obvious in the case
of the miners.
"Whereas, Appeals to Congress and
the courts for relief are fruitless. since
the legislative, as well as the exec
utive and judicial powers, are under
the control of the capitalistic class. so
that it has come to pass in this coun-
try that while cattle and swine have a
right to the public highway. Americans,
so-called freemen, have not.
Whereas, Our capitalist class, as Is
again shown in the present strike, Is
armed. and has not only policemen,
Marshals, Sheriffs and deputies, but
also a regular militia, in order to en-
force government by injunction, sup