The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-08-22
THREE SIGNIFICANT EDITORIALS.

One of these days we hope to have
enough room in our paper to give the gist
of the best editorial opinion of the State
press. The editorials in many of them
would interest our readers. To-day we
give three extracts from three of the
leading papers in the State that show the
trend of the best public sentiment upon
government by injunction. The con-
duct of such men as Jackson and Simon
ten is doing its perfect work and convert
ing thoughtful men to the doctrine enun-
ciated in the Democratic platform.
Father Creecy, of the Elizabeth City
Economist, in the course of a timely and
able editorial, says:
There are two things that trouble us
most of all in North Carolina. One is
the suppression of this everlasting and
ever increasing injunction question; and
the increasing race trouble. They are
both dominating politics in North Caro-
dina, and If the sovereign people do not
take them in hand and stamp them out in
the next State elections, then North
Carolina will be a mighty good State TO
emigrate from.
Just look! If anybody has heavy
complaint against anybody else, he just
runs to Federal judge. swears out an
injunction. ignores the State which the
Constitution protects in its sovereignty,
and away goes the States that our fathers
so long contended for, and which is the
foundation stone of our peculiar system
of government. The Federal judges seem
4 L. 81, ,.,1
took our obese Governor and dragged him
from his easy perch in Raleigh, of a hot
summer day, and made him do obeisance
TO his Honor of the Federal Bench. And
now they are after the Railroad Commits
sioners to enjoin them against enforcing
their rules in the telegraphic rates. The
other question that troubles us as the
race question. So long as the race ques-
ton enters into politics and any party de
sires the appointment of negroes to places
of delicate responsibility the present ne
gro crimes and lynchings will continue
and will increase in enormity."
The Asheville Citizen, among other
weighty utterances in an editorial on in
functions, says:
THE sweeping character of the in
| junction eDIOFcpu ny JuuSt vi
the striking miners must alarm the
thoughtful citizen everywhere. A court
ruling that two men cannot walk a
public road because they are strikers
and might, if seen, intimidate men who
are working in their places, is simply the
exercise of power for the sake of meet
ing the unjust demands Of corporation.
If men can be legally arrested when
going along public road because that
is a form of intimidation, it is no great
step forward to drive them out of the
county in which they are, ON the
ground that knowledge of the fact
that they are within a few miles Of a
mine might intimidate men working
therein in strikers places.
.'It is probably well that so radical an
enforcement of what ought never tO
be law will, in the end, work for good
especially if, as now, the strikers pre-
serve the peace. So long as no overt
, act is done to draw sympathy from the
strikers and attention from the injus
tice of these injunctions, they are GER
tain to receive the attention of the
: thoughtful everywhere. II they are
not rank entertainments on the liberty
Of the citizen they must be for the good
: of society in general. That the latter
view can be held of a law that forbids
. two men to peaceably walk public
road, without infringing on the liberty
or freedom of others, seems impossible
The Charlotte Observer, which has
been slow to see the destructive tendency
Of individual and State rights in injunc
lions by the Federal Judges, in an edi
torial headed, cit Is Simple Tyranny
! says:
'eThe Norfolk Landmark says that 'nt
strikers ever had the public more il
sympathy with them than the miners
now have in their fight against re
duced wages" 1t is true. The public
believes that with the advent of bet
!. ter times the wages of these men ough
not to be reduced. And as if to give
greater weight to the cause of the men
d Federal judge has granted injunc
tions strictly forbidding them to wall
Along the public highways in the di
rection of the mining company's works
denying them the right to hold meet
) ings, to urge their fellow-workers t.
strike, or to persuade others to take
their places. This is trenching upon tht
law of the land to an extent that thu
law of the land ought not permit
| duu 1t 10 SUCH ~ as ILLS tia
gives force to the often-times demagog
ic cry against government by injunc
ton. The granting of these injunctioni
deserves nothing but denunciation
These miners had a right to strike
they had a right to walk along the pub
lie highways; they have a right to as
semble and talk over or hear speeches
about their grievances; they have 6
right to persuade other men, il they
can, not to take their places. They
have no right to assault those who Dc
/. nor to destroy the property of theil
lhte employers, and they have done
neither of these things. If we have
read the facts right, these miners have
lived strictly within their rights, and il
if a scandal, a reproach to our laws
and judges, that they should have beer
Hedged about by injunctions as they
have BEEN"
The first cry against Federal usurpa-
on was made by Thomas Jefferson,
hose political wisdom was perfect and
hose political foresight that of proph-
The more we demand that the usur-
atiOn of Federal courts be stopped, the
farer we are following in the footsteps
the greatest constructive statesman
nd truest, unselfish champion of equal
ghts the world has known. If Jeffer-
ON were alive, the continent would
ng with his anathemas against the de-