The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-09-07
He DenOunces Federal Courts and
Corporations at the Philadelphia
Labor-Day Celebration.
WANTS JUDGES IMPEACHED
AND SAYS "THIS SNAKY FORM OF
GOVERNMENT, MUST Go.
william jennings Bryan Also Dis
cusses InjunctiOns in an Address
to ST. Louis Working People.

PHILADELPHIA, Sept 6.-Ex-Governor
John p. Altgeld, of Illinois, addressed an
audience of about one thousand people at
Washington Park, on the Delaware river
this afternoon His subject was Municipal
and Government Ownership and Govern
ment by Injunction" The event which
brought the Ex-Governor here was the
Labor day celebration by the United Labor
League of this city. President Ernest
Kreft occupied the chair and made the
opening address. He then introduced Mr..
Altgeld, who spoke at length, saying in
part:
1.-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 independent OF the
people and surrounded by moneyed lnfiu-
ence the corporations have constantly Ia
bored to secure the appointment to the
federal bench of men who they believed
would be their friends, that is, men VINO,
by nature, education and environment,
would be in sympathy with them, ana they
now fly to these courts like the ancient
murderers fled to cities of refuge. They 40
not buy the courts because it is not neces-
Some years ago Congress passed the in
terstate-commerce law for the purpose or
protecting the public against overcharge
and unjust determinations. The corpora
lions opposed this law and have succeeded
in getting the federal courts to destroy 1t
Again, Congress passed an income tax
law to. compel the concentrated wealth
denS of government. For 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 10
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
ality of law.
laws for the protection of the public, but
they are simply sneered at by the federal
courts, and to-day the formation OF trusts
is almost the only industry that prospers
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 round by ill-gotten mil
lions, while in many other cases both the
law and the courts become terrible in their
forms are bent whose clothes are poor and
whose stomachs 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 AND CORPORATIONS.
mot 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 cities were
built, no government by injunction was
heard Of nor is it heard of in any other
country to-day. The law of the land was
ample for all purposes Life and prop
1r,&xv %o1 in
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
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 legalzed rob-
berry, and these manipulators and plum
derers demanded a new form of gov
eminent. The former leaders allowed the
laborer little of the bread he toiled for
but the new manipulation wants it ALL
The laborerS were entirely at the mercy
of these men. They first got hungry and
then FESTIVE - a whip was needed to re-
store contentment and the federal courts
promptly furnished it.
Government by injunction operates
this way: When a judge wants to do
something not authorized by law he SIM
ply makes a law to suit himself. That
is, he sits down in his chambers ana is
sues a kind of ukase which he calls an
injunction against the people of an en-
tire community or of a whole State for
bidding whatever he sees fit to forbid and
which the law does not forbid, and COM
manding whatever he sees fit to command,
and which the law does not command
for when the law forbids commands
a thing no injunction is necessary
Having thus issued his ukase, the same
judge has men arrested and sometimes
dragged fifty or hundred miles away
from their homes to his court on a charge
of violating the injunction-that is, con-
tempt of court. And the men, after ly-
inc a tried
a jury, as is required by the Constitution
when a man is charged with a crime, bur
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,
who is at once legislator, judge and exc
cutioner. When the Gar of Russia issues
ukase he leaves it to the other men to en-
force, but not so with these judges. Let
us cite Just a few examples out of num-
ber -
THE JENKINS INJUNCTION.
Several years ago it was charged that
the Northern Pacific Railroad had been
robbed by the men who controlled it of
over sixty millions of dollars. These same
men went before Judge Jenkins, of Mil
waukee, and got him to appoint three
of their friends receivers of the road, and
these receivers, instead of collecting the
money alleged to have been wrongfully abb
stracted, proceeded to cut down the wages
OF the operatives without any nOLlce 10
them and, for fear these operatives might
get restless, these receivers went before
this same Judge Jenkins and got him to
issue an injunction forbidding the opera
tives from leaving the employment of the
railroad About the same time a large num-
Der of employees on a California railroad
refused to go TO work because they were
not paid. and Judge Ross, who oper-
atng the road through his court, issued an
order comma nding them to go to work
and threatened to send them to jail if they
refused Since that almost everything
that corporation lawyer could think of
has been covered by these injunctions.
Recently q judge in West Virginia is
sued an injunction forbidding the exercise
of free speech and actually forbidding men
how peaceable they might be. There are
a few noble men on the federal bench who
have refused TO prostitute their courts at
the bidding of corrupt greed but they viii
in time have TO follow presidents set by
others. 1t will be noticed that these injunc-
items are simply a whip with which TO lash
the back of labor 1t is also apparent that
ii they succeed they must ultimately de-
stroy the interests in whose behalf they are
issued. and that they are, therefore,
country are ever reduced TO the helpless
condition OF the laboring classes in some
European cOuntrieS-a condition in which
they will have no purchasing power-then
the great American market must disappear
and our great railroads and industrial prop
critics will not be worth so cents on the
dollar.
CHANGING at this proceeding we find that
II entirely supersedes government by law
and according to the forms of law as guar
anteed by the Constitution. and il substi-
tutes government according to the whims
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