The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1897-09-11
ALTCELD SPEAKS
To W0RK|NCMEN
Continued from first page.

posed to it." Some of these men kEoW
the meaning of socialism and some do
not, but they control all those men who
cling to the skirts of wealth.
Socialism has been defined as a sys-
tenn of government in which the COM
petitive system is entirely abolished,
and the principle Of associated effort IS
applied to everything. According to the
standard authorities socialism is an ideal
state, founded on Justice and in which
the benefits of modern invention and
of monopoly shall be shared by all the
people instead of being controlled by the
few and used by these few to make
themselves the absolute masters OF the
many. The word SOCIALISM" is used as
a term of derision only by the ignorant
or the servile. However, the world is
not ripe for the application of socialism.
There are as yet hundreds of things that
cannot be done successfully by the
state. and that must be left to the indi-
vidual.
The corporations discovered years ago
that to control the construction OF the
law was even more important than to
control the making of it, as the federal
judges hold office for. life, are independ-
ent of the people and surrounded by
monied influence, the corporations have
constantly labored to seizure the ap::
pointment to the federal bench OF men
whom they believed would be their
friends, that is, men who by nature, ed
ucation and environment, would be IN
sympathy with them, and they now t1y
to these courts like the ancient murder
ers fled to the cities of refuge. They 90
not buy the courts because it is not nec-
essary.
Some years ago congress passed the
interstate commerce law for the pur-
pose of protecting the public against
over charge and unjust determinations.
The corporations opposed this law and
have succeeded in getting the federal
courts to destroy it by construction.
Again congress passed an income tax
law to compel the concentrated wealth
of the land to bear it's share of the bur-
dens OF government. For a hundred
years such laws had been held to be
constitutional by the supreme court;
but this time the great corporations OBJ
jected and the supreme court at once
came to their rescue and held the law to
be unconstitutional. The favor or the
opposition Of the corporations has come
to be almost the sole test of the consti-
Of a law.
Congress has passed some antitrust
laws for the protection Of, the public,
but t hey are simply sneered at by the
federal courts, and today the formation
of trusts is al most the only industry
! hat prospers in this country.
Neorly 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
apologetic attitude when facing men:
whose forms have been made rotund by
ill.potten millions, while in many other
cases both the law and the courts be-.
come terrible in their males " when
dealing with men whose forms are bent,
whose clsthes are poor and whose stom-
aches are empty. The fact that, the
bony and industrious hands Of these
men helped 70 create the capital that is:
now setting its heel on their necks and
their families, does not help
them. A.. 60 ~.s-~'. z.~-.,
Not content with the law as they
found it, the federal courts in their Gag
erness to serve the corporations. have
usurped the functions belonging to: the
legislative and executive branches of
the government by injunctions.
During the entire century in which
this continent was developed, when our.
our factories and our cisies
we're built, no government by injunction
WINS heard of, nor is it heard of in any
other country today. The law of the
land was ample for all purposes. Life
and property were protected, order was
law was enforced and our
nation became the wonder of the earth.
and the law Of the land as it existed for
over century for every purpose today.
But when the great leaders of indus
try began to pass away then there came
to front class of manipulators who
knew nothing about the art of building,
but who had learned the art of legalized
robbery, and these manipulators and
demanded new form of
The former leaders al
L