Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1897-09-08
GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION.
The Federal Courts Are Usurp. - the
Rights of the Sovereign States.

The Federal Courts Are Usurp. - the
Rights of the Sovereign states
The great strike among the coal
miners towers far above a mere strike
for fair share of the wealth their Ia
Dor develops from the bowels of the
earth. The strike is developing the
despotism of corporations whose power
is steadily seizing the government
from the people and placing it in the
hands of a few. Class legislation is
developing step by step with acceler-
ated speed. A moneyed aristocracy is
close on the heels of this corporation
power which is filing legislatures and
congress with its selected agents who
hasten to obey its wishes and vote
away-give to the corporations-the
franchises of the people worth increas-
ing millions as population increases.
The corporations have not stopped
with corrupting the ballot to place
their servants and attorneys in the
halls of congress and the legislatures
of the states, but they have tampered
with the federal judiciary which does
not hesitate to violate the constitution
of the United States in its most sacred
provisions which were inserted for the
protection of the people against the
encroachment of arbitrary power.
This encroachment on the constitu-
tion and usurpation of power by feder-
al judges showed its head and iron hand
in the case of the arrest, trial and i'm
prisonment of Debs and his associates
in the railroad strike of three years
ago, and the overriding of law of
congress in the case of the income tax
embodied in the Wilson tariff. The
change of opinion of one of the su-
preme court judges was accomplished
under such suspicious circumstances as
to impress the whole country that foul
play was practiced.
The present coal strike is developing
the growth of federal judicial usur-
patton more glaringly, more alarming
ly than ever before. The miners and
their leaders are being ''enjoined"-
which is to say being ordered-by an
insignificant Judge from holding meet
ings and marching on the public road
near the mines. Freedom of speech
and freedom of assembly are being
boldly attacked by the federal judi
ciary, which power is removed wholly
| pcOplcs cAlSIlHS, 1ihc Iut
kings, independently of them.
These usurping federal judges issue
their arbitrary orders without author
ity of law, summon their victims to bt
brought before them, proceed to try
them and pass sentence of imprison
ment, without allowing the defend
ants trial by jury, which every al
legged criminal has a constitutions
right to.
This new species of law-law by in
junction-is a very serious usurpatior
of power, and if permitted to develop
the present cases will ere long b.
taken as precedents and any publ
speaker or writer whose doctrines an,
criticisms offend the party in powe
will be enjoined to cease holding pub
lie meetings and publishing anythin,
subsidized Judge chooses to call in
cendiary or conspiracy and in case hi
imperial order is disobeyed, the partie
will be arrested and brought befor
the Judge who issues the order, trie,
without jury and imprisoned at tn
pleasure and discretion of this judicia
creature on the complaint of some pow
erful corporation.
This is the power that is reachin,
out and crushing the liberty OF tn
citizen by its whitening hand in tn
interest and at the instance of the col
poration. The government is rapid
and silently changing into an oligarch
with only the name and outward forr
of a republic left.
The people seem to become more dul
of comprehension and careless of thei
most sacred rights as they becom
poorer and harder pressed. There
nothing equal to poverty to destro
self-respect and American manhood
| Midland Iorrrnl