The herald., 1897-09-01
Objects of Labor Leaders,
SOIicitude
GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION
HAS ENDED CIVIL LIBERTY m
AMERICA
IF the Coal Strike Is Not Ended
Promptly Another Congress
Will Be Held
Associated Press Special Wire.

Associated Press Special Wire
ST. LOUIS, August 31.-The delegates
to the convention Of labor leaders were
slow in assembling this morning, the
Resolutions Committee not being ready
to report, although continuously in ses-
sion since o'clock yesterday afternoon.
At 10 o'clock, however, the committee
filed into the hall and the report was
read. The platform, as presented, reads:
THE PLATFORM
"The fear Of the more watchful fathers
of the republic has been justified. The
judiciary has become supreme. We wit
ness political phenomenon absolutely
new in the history Of the world: The re-
public is PROSTATE at the feet of Judges
appointed to administer the laws. They
acknowledge no superior on earth, and
their despotic deeds recall Milton's warm
ing to his countrymen: who bids man
rule over him above the law may bid, as
well the savage beast Under the cum
ming form Of injunctions, courts assume
to enact criminal laws, and, after thus
drawing to themselves the power Of leg.
islation, have repealed the bill Of rights,
and revolutionist court has made laws
denying the accused the right of trial by
jury. The exercise Of the commonest
rights of freemen, the right Of assembly,
the right of free speech, the right OF
travelling the public highways, have, by
Legislation under the form of injunctions,
been made crime, and armed forces
disperse as mobs people daring in COM
pany to exercise their rights. At its
last term the Supreme Court OF the
United States decided that the Thir-
teenth Amendment, forbidding involun-
tary servitude, was not violated by the
awesting of seaman, imprisoning him
till the vessel was ready to leave port,
and then forcibly putting him on board to
serve out the term Of his contract-a de-
cision under which the old fugitive slave
laws may yet be revived and striking
laborers be seized and returned to the
service of masters.
Having drawn to themselves all the
powers of the Federal government, until
Congresses and Presidents may act only
by judicial permission, Federal Judges
have begun the subjugati tion Of sovereign
States, SO that, unless check Is soon
put upon the progress Of the usurpa ton,
in short time no government but the
absolute despotism Of Federal JudgeR
will exist anywhere over any portion OF
American soil.
1.-THE pending strike Of coal miners,
starved into feebleness by scant wages
for arduous and dangerous toll, the pend
ing strike for the right to be fed enough
to make labor possible, has been prolific
of judicial usurpation, showing the will
ingness of judicial despots to resort to
the most shameless defiance of decency,
as well as laws and humanity, in order to
enable heartless avarice to drive hum
CRY serfs back to the mine to faint and
die at drudgery; and there remains to-
day not one guaranteed right American
citizens exercise which an injunction has
not somewhere made crime, started by
these subVerSlons of constitutional liber-
ty.
1--WE have met to counsel together and
have come to the following conclusions,
that:
Whereas, the present strike OF coal
miners has again demonstrated the fact
that our so-called freedom Is but stu
pendous sham, under which millions are
degenerating, while hundreds of thous-
ands of men, women and children are
starving in novels and on the public
highway;
whereas, the condition has become
permanent for large and ever-increas-
ing number of our population, as long as
we permit comparatively small class OF
legalized exploiters to monopolize the
means of production and distribution for
private benefit, 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 executive
and judicial powers, are under the con.
troll of the capitalist class, SO that 1t has
come to pass in this country that while
cattle and swine have a right to the
public highway, Americans, so-called
freemen, have not.
"Whereas, our apitalist class as again
shown in the present strike have armed
not only policemen, ,marshals, ,sheriffs and
deputies but also the regular militia, in
order to enforce government by injuuc-
ton, the suppressing of lawful assem-
blage free speech and the right to the
public highway, while on the other hand
the laboring men of the country are un-
armed and defenseless, contrary to the
words and spirit of the Constitution OF
the United States; therefore be 1t
Resolved, That we hereby set apart
Friday, the Sd day of September, 1897, as
Good Friday, "for the cause Of suffering
labor in America and that we contribute
earnings that day to support the strug-
Cling brother miners, and appeal to
every union man and every friend ofla-
bor throughout the United States to do
likewise.
."Resolved. That If the strike of the
miners is not settled by the goth of Sep
tember, 1897, and an announcement made
to that effect by the President of the
United Mine Workers, general con-
vention be held at Chicago on Monday,
September 81 1897. by representatives
of all unions, sections, branches, lodges
and kindred organisations Of laboring
men and friends of the cause, for the
purpose Of considering further measures