Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-04-21
FEDERATION l0EUNCIL
LABOR BODY CONCLUDES IT'S
BUSINESS SESSION HERE.
Paper Adopted Addressfa to the Wage
Farmers Of the United
States.
Nh

The executive council or the American
Federation of Labor adjourned Saturday
night after a session lasting six days, dur
ing which many matters d Interest to labor
organizations and individual workers were
considered.
At the afternoon session aPresident Com
pers reported that the decision of the SUI
preme court of Porto Rico in the case of
Santiago Iglesias has been favorable. that
he has been released and workmen had
been accorded the right to organize
Mr.. P. M. Draper, secretary of the Cana
dian Trades and Labor Congress, urged a
closer utilization among the United States
and the dominion workers and it was de-
cided that the work of, organization and
unity be prosecuted to the fullest extent
Appropriations were made in add of the
Leather Workers National Union, and
President Gompers empowered to appoint
organizers for several trades.
The final business of the session was
the adoption of the following address to
the wage workers of America:
The constant struggle in which the wage
workers of our country are continually en-
gagged for the attainment of their rights
and the mitigation Of the wrongs they
daily endure renders 1t essential that they
organize, unite and federate irrespective
OF trade, calling, nationality locality, sex,
politics, color or religion.
THE hope for Justice and right now and
hereafter as well as the perpetuation of
liberty in our republican institutions, lies
in organized labor.
individual effort of the wage earners in
this day of concentration of industry and
wealth is absurd, as we'll as suicidal.
Iniunctions Condemned.
"There are few contests in which the
toilers are engaged for improvement or for
ho Ia41
condition unless injunctions are issued by
the courts of the most far-reaching char
acter invading the legal and moral rights
of the workers to perform perfectly legal
and legitimate acts to carry on their efforts
to successful termination.
"InJunctions of a fragrant, unjustifiable
ana outrageous character are continually
issued and honest, law-abiding and faithful
citizen workmen are thrust into prison for
periods of from one to nine months.
'"Thus far we have been unable to per-
suade the Congress of the United States to
enact a law that shall protect the rights
and liberty of people engaged in industrial
disputes, and many of the courts have in
terpreted this failure on the part of Con-
greSs to act as a warrant and authority
to extend the use, or, more properly speak
ing, the abuse of the writ of injunctions,
so that the scope of each writ still further
invades our constitutionaily guaranteed
rights.
Regarded as Growing Danger.
'This impending and growing danger
therefore, impels us to- appeal to the
workers, and to all people ofeour country,
so that the true feeling of! all may be ex-
pressed and registered; so that the public
opinion of the people of our common coun-
try may more definitely impress itself upon
the minds of our national Congress and
state legislatures. In an
n Ii
to all organized workers,,ih Rational, state,
central Or local unions, tina t"at their public
celebrations on May /. Jufy 4 and Septem-
Der Labor day., 1902, they concentrate
their attention to a discussl6ni'o of the aboli-
ton of the injunctions in labor disputes,
and the passage of resolutions demanding
at the hands of Congress and the legisla-
lures of their respective states the enact
ment of laws conforming-to that purpose
American WorkpeR, Loyal.
The American workmeh are law-abiding,
faithful and loyal citfze9s! they have no
desire for immunity from the law governing
other citizens, but they most emphatically
resent and protest against the actions of
courts convicting them and sentencing them
to prison for acts which they have the legal
rlSht to perform; and condemned, too, with
out proper opportunity for defense and trial
before a jury of their peers
The American principle Of equal Justice
before the law is being violated day after
Gay. The relics Of antiquated judicial ty-
ranny are being revived by judges who, as
Stunning absolute control of mems affairs
convict and mete out punishment to them
without regard to the constitutlonaIly guar
anteed right of trial by jury
we are conscious Of the advance which
the workers of our country have made nv
and through organization 1t is our pur-
pose that the trend of our movement and
our efforts for still further amelioration
IN the condition of labor shall proceed. that
we shall be larger participants in the great
production of wealth which the toilers yield
10 our country and our time.
Counsels Against Surrender.
THE toiling masses, and particularly the
organized wage-earners, cannot and must
not surrender one jot of that which they
nave secured, and must organize the vet un-
organized and unite and federate those al
ready organized to present solid phalanx
OF the grand army of labor of our country
in earnest and emphatic protest against
Juolclal usurpation or Invasion of our
sisn.s, attempted no matter by whom or
from whatsoever source
Therefore, We again apneal tn o,,r fa,
loW-Workers to make early preparation and
fully and perfectly carry out the sueges-
ions for the holding of meetings and dem
onstratlons, and declaring in the form of
resolutions and otherwise our unalterable
purpose to maintain at all hazards the
rights for which our forefathers have
struggled. engrafted in our written consti-
tuition and ingrained in the American char
acter conscious that we are striving for
the rights Of the workers today, as we'll
as the perpetuation of the freedom for the
countless millions Of our country vet un-
born
The executive council adjourned sine die
at o'clock.