The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1902-10-15
POWER and ARROGANCE OF WEALTH
Richard 0Iney Makes a Great
Speech on the Coal Strike
Situation.
Saws Roosevelt Put His Exalted Office in
Position Where it Could be
Defied and Derided.

OF GQ0 present SGdGo CdiupdlSu T" oS ouO
dinner which the Democratic club of
Massachusetts rendered tonight to Col.
VIM. a. CASTOR, the party candidate
for governor. Over 250 party follow
ers listened to speeches by Richard
Olney, former secretary of state /;
Chas. S. Hamlin, Josiah Quincy,
John R. Thayer, congressman from
the Third district; HeDry e. Hollis
Democratic candidate for governor in
New Hampshire, and Col. CASTOR.
Undoubtedly the speech of the even
ing was that delivered by Mr.. Olney,
Sho was cheered for some minutes
when he arose. Cheers greeted him as
the next president.
Mr.. Olney spoke in part as follows I:
"The signs of the times are that un-
der the regime of the Republican party
and through the national governments
40 years of partnership with the pro-
tected industries, have come to pass
where public officials as well as pri-
yate citizens deem themselves above
the law.
WITNESS the jealous haste with
which the treasury rushes tothe relief
of Wall street spectators by novel
and forced construction of the national
banking law. Witness the astonishing
proceeding of the same department in
It's instructions to subordinate Offices
respecting the duties to be collected on
coal. But the generally lawless atmos-
phere in which the protected Repub-
lican reign has enveloped Us is even
more strikingly illustrated by the re-
cent presidential summon upon the
coal strike.
There are those who say that as the
president disclaimed any Official duty
or relation to the matter he should not
have interfered. Though his Office
is charged with great functions and
invested with great powers, the presl-
dent is constitutional officer whose
sphere of action is strictly limited by
law. Within that sphere be is we'll
nigh absolute-without, he is. legally
impotent. When, therefore, he goes
without it the danger is that he may
fail and be de6ed and that his great
Office may loose prestige and power
and thus be less capable of performing
it's legitimate duties.
.'The president, for example, is our
representative with foreign powers.
Will it strengthen his hands that
some half dozen private citizens are
found swapping their fingers in his face
The presidents overture to the coal
operators was prompted by the best
motives and should have been treated
with respectful consideration. It must
have been declined courteously, even
if firmly.
'But the opportunity to administer
a snub to the president was TOO
tempting. Accordingly, he was not
only treated as rash intermedler; he
was also lectured upon the law and the
facts of the case and to crown all,
was notified that the cause Of the
troubles was lawlessness which he was
sarcastically invited to suppress.
'st'or sheer audacity this attitude of
the coal operators could hardly be
matched and nothing could more
strongly emphasize the disrepute into
which the law of the land has been
brought hy long continued Republican
domination.
{. yet who were they who were SO in
sistent upon theisuppression of lawless-
ness in the mining regions? Why, the
most unblushing and persistent of law
breakers. For years they have detied
the law of Pennsylvania which forbids
common carriers engaging in the busl-
ness of mining. For years they have
Disseminated between customers in
the freight charges on their railroads
in violation of the interstate commerce
law. For years they have unlawfully
monopolized interstate commerce in
violation of the Sherman antitrust
Saw.'
Indeed, the very best excuse and
explanation of their astonishing attl-
tude. at the Washington conference is
that, having violated so many laws for
so long and so many times they might
rightfully think they we're wholly I'M
mune from either punishment or re-
proach.
"It is sometimes urged in extenua-
tion of the coal operators foollshly
offensive tone at the conference that
they were enraged at the recognition
of labor unions and the presence by
invitation of their representative. II
that be so they must-be as blind to
the salient facts of the era they are
living in as they are obviously OF legal
obligations.
.In these days of combination by
capital on a scale and to an extent as
startling as it is unprecedented, can
they possibly imagine that labor is to
be denied an equivalent right of COM
bination? If they do it is only another
instance of their complete indifference
to the law of the land.
ssIn 1894 receivers of a railroad we're
brought into court on claim shat
laborers ought not to be discharged
because of membership of q labor
union. Though the court was a fed
eral court, it sat in Pennsylvania and
the petitioners got nothing from that
court.
''But what followed? In year or
two Pennsylvania made it a criminal
offense to deprive man of work be-
cause he belonged to a labor union.
In 1898 congress not only did the same
thing but, in statute providing for
the arbitration of labor disputes, eX-
pressly made labor organizations par
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