The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-09-08
ALTCELD ON
GOVERNMENT BY
INJUNCTION
An Able Presentation OF a
Living and Serious
Question.
A MENACE TO lIBtRlY
TT has DESTROYED TRIAL BY
JURY AND ORDERLY
METHODS.
A MENACE TO LIBERTY
SOME INSTANCES OF WRONG ClItD
The People win Have to lmpeach Some OF the
Modern lmitators of Jeffries Before it
is Crushed They Should Begin
on the West Virginia Judge.


is Crushed Should Begin
onthe West Virginia Judge.
The corporations discovered SEARS ago
that to control the construction of the
law was even more important than to
control the making of it. AS the federal
iudges hold office for life, are independent
OF the people, and surrounded by
monied influence, the corporations have
labOred to secure the appoint
ment to the federal bench of men who
they believed would be their friends, that
is. men, who, by nature, education and
environment. would be in sympathy with
them, and they now fly to these courts
Of refuge They do not buy the courts,
because it is not necessary.
CORPORATIONS ANNUL LAWS.
Some years ago Congress passed the
interstate commerce law for the pur-
pose of protecting the public against
overcharge and unjust determinations.
The corporations opposed the law and
have succeeded in getting the federal
courts to destroy it by construction.
law to compel the concentrated wealth
Of the land to bear its share Of the bur-
dens of government. For a hundred
years such laws had been held to be con-
stitutional by the Supreme court; but
this time the great corporations objected
and the Supreme court at once came to
their rescue and held the law to be un-
constitutional. The favor or the opposi-
ton of the corporations has come to be
almost the sole test of the constitution
atty of a law.
ANTITRUST LAWS.
Congress has passed same antitrust
laws for the protection of the public, but
they are simply sneered at by the fed
eral courts, and today the formation Of
trusts is almost the only industry that
prospers in this country.
Nearly all efforts to curb corporations
or to bring great offenders to justice
have been failures. In many cases the
law and the courts seem to assume an
apologize attitude when facing men
whose forms have been made rotund by
ill-gotten millions, while in many other
cases both the law and the courts be-
come terrible in their majesty when deal
ing with men whose forms are bent,
whose clothes are poor and whose stom-
achs are empty. The fact that the bony
and Industrious hands Of these men
helped to create the capital that is now
setting its heel ON their necks and
crushing their families does not help
them.
COURTS USED BY CORPORATIONS
Not content with the law as they found
it, the federal courts, in their eagerness
to serve the corporations, have usurped
the functions belonging to the legislative
and executive branches of the govern
ment and have invented a new form of
tyranny called government by injunction.
During the entire century in which this
continent was developed, when our rail-
roads, our factories and our cities were
built, no government by injunction was
heard Of, nor is it heard of in any other
country today. The law of the land was
ample for all purposes. Life and prop
erty were protected, order was main
tanned, law was enforced, and our nation
became the wonder Of the earth. And
the law Of the land as it existed for over
a century is ample for every purpose to-
day.
THE AGE OF PLUMBER.
But when the great leaders of industry
began to pass away then there came to
the front class of manipulators who
knew nothing about the art of building,
but who had learned the art of legalized
and these manipulators and
plunderers demanded new form Of gov
eminent The former leaders allowed the
laborer little of the bread he toiled for.
but the new manipulation wanted it all.
The laborers were entirely at the mercy
of these men. They first got hungry and
then restive--a whip was needed to re-
store contentment, and the federal courts
promptly furnished it.
JUDGES MAKE LAWS.
Government by injunction operates
this way: When a judge wants to do
something not authorized by law he sim
ply makes law to suit himself. That
is, he sits down in his chambers and is
sues a kind Of ukase which he calls an
injunction, against the people Of an en-
tire community or Of whole state, for
bidding whatever he sees fit to forbid,
and which the law does not forbid, and
commanding Whatever he sees fit to COM
mand, and which the law does not COM
mand-for when the law fOrbids or COM
mands a thing no injunction is necessary.
Having thus issued his ukase, the same
Judge has men arrested and sometimes
dragged fifty or a hundred miles away
from their homes to his court on charge
Of violating the injunction-rhat is con-
tempt Of court. And the men, after "
ing in prisons awhile. are tried, not by
q jury. as is required by the constitution
when man is charged with crime, but
they are tried by the same judge whose
dignity they are charged with having Of
Tended, and they are then sentenced to
prison at the mere pleasure Of this Judge.