The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-16

10 pursue their happiness, and to acquire and enjoy property; to have like access to the courts of the country for the pro- lection of their persons and property, and the prevention and redress of wrongs, and the enforcement of their contracts. No impeachment must be interposed to pursuits. except as applied to similar pursuits by others under like circum- stances. No greater burdens shall be laid upon one man than are laid upon others in a similar calling and con- dition."
 The fundamental rights and privileges or the citizen must be the same every where in the State. Among them is the right of contract. Among them is the right to pursue any lawful calling un- fettered and unvexed by exactions not made of other men in like occupations, under like circumstances. Why should a debtor in Montgomery County be com pelled to tell a new employer. of a former broken contract, while debtor seeking work in Jerefferson County is subject to no such restriction? Why should a man in Montgomery County, be fined, if he knowingly hires an agricultural laborer, who has preached a contract, without the former employers consent, while the man in Jefferson may employ an agricul- tural laborer who has broken his con-
 
 the former employer? Local conditions may justify police regulations in one community. different from those in another, but the consequences of the ex- ercise of a fundamental constitutional right and the measure of privileges as to 1t must be the same in every locality, on every class. and on every foot of soil in Alabama. These fundamental rights gre as broad as the State and cannot vary and change with county lines. LegIsla- tive power cannot arbitrarily single out particular persons or classes, and put criminaI penalties upon breaches of their contracts, to prevent their working else- where. which are not enforced against all other persons or classes similarly cir cumstanced, who break like contracts. The lessee of premises in city. or in the county, so long as the agreement does not relate to the making ofAa crop. and the laborer in the mine, factory or forest the servant in the household, the employee upon the railroad. the clerk. the mechanic and the professional man, may each break their contracts to render ser vice to particular employer, without suf- ficient excuse, and afterwards make simi- lar contracts at will, with others, with out first having to inform of the prior contract. or mourning the almost certain risk of being debarred thereby, the op- portunity or rewards of any new employ ment. if they do. The landlord, the farmer and every other person in Ala bama, save the renter to make a crop and the laborer, may break contract to ender service to others, without just ex- cuse, and yet the arm of the State does not reach out. on that account, with criminal penalties, to prevent hts retriev- ing his fortune, in other like employ ment or put him In peril of hard labor if he mistakes the Justihableness of his excuse in leaving. and in reliance upon 1t, impelled by necessity to obtain work. from which he will be debarred if he infoms of 1t, oonceals the first contract, rather than remain in idleness and want. Tho Iaborer and land renter alone are made inferior in right, in the vital matter of earning a livelihood and the pursuit of their usual vocation. to all other citi- gers in the State, and subjected to bur dens, inequalities and pains from which all other citizens who may have unjus- tiffably broken contracts of personal ser- vice, are entirely free. This statute strixIngly presents a case where, in viola ton of the general law of the land, per- sons in uninhuential and humble occupa- tons are governed by one law, and the mass of the community and those who made the law by another; whereas the like general law, affecting the whole com munity equally, could not have been pass ed" If such a law could withstand con- stitutional tests 1t would be but the fore runner of other harsher exactions, by which land renters and laborers would soon be reduced to the evils of "condi- ton of peonage" far more deplorable than those resulting from the institution in New Mexico. The old system at least put pains and penalties upon the master and servant alike, and used the power of the law with equal hand against both when the agreement was violated, to coerce performance of the contract of service.
 Former Laws Went as Far as Fossil
 ble in a Free Country.
 Every refecting man recognizes the great evils resulting from the abandon ment Of farms by laborers and renters, without justifiable excuse, after obtain ing advances and mourning indebtedness to employer, sometimes leaving the crops when 1t is impossible to secure other labor to save them. Again this evil the far as possible under our forms of gov erument, by criminal anao.ment. Code of Alabama, 1896, Section 4730. That sec- ton enacts that any peFs)n entering into 0 written contract for the performance of any acts or service, with the intent to injure or defraud his employer, and thereby obtain money or personal proper to from such employer. and with like in- tent and without just cause, and with out refunding the money or paying for such property, refuses 10 perform such act or service, must on conviction be pun ished as If he had stolen It." It ap- plies to all classes of persons who com init the designated offense. and does not single any particular class. Persons duly convicted of violating it's provisions, are lawfully undergoing involntarily ser vttude It is clearly constitution. On these lines, legislation cannot move at all, when the act complained of is not a .rIme; when the mere breach of the obligation of a contract. causes in- Aurx and loss to the employer. The great general, and essential principles "of government cannot be bent or swayed to the prejudice of renters or laborers, who are freemen and citizens, in order to improve the efficiency of our sys- tenn of labor, or to avert the disastrous