The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-11-06
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Government by Injunction.

The phrase government by injunc-
 tion.' was invented by d drunken hews reporter during the insurrection at dispute with him about wages: It did not in the least concern people in other States. Debs thought, by tying up commerce and inf1icting injury upon
 thousands of innocent people, to bring d pressure upon Pullman which would force him to surrender. He stopped by violence "every wheel" on the railroads entering that great market. Railroad bridges and property were burned. Men who did not wish to quit work on the
 railroads were beaten, maltreated and gers, mails and freight could not be moved. Industries were shut down and workmen thrown out of employment In
 many States. The vast sections of .the supplies suffered in manifold ways, and the price of the necessaries of life went far beyond the reach of the poor. The rotted on the wayside. We had the counterpart of the scenes at Chicago right at Birmingham in our own State, in aid of this fiendish conspiracy to throttle the commerce of the States. The whole American people were pro-
 foundly indignant and outraged. None more so thah the people of Alabama who offered their services by thousands to remove the lawless blockade.
 The United States. empowered by ex- press grants of power in the Constitu-
 tion. with the right and duty of pro- tecting the mails and interstate com
 merce, and the transit of the citizens of the United States from one State into another had the right to employ force at once against the rioters, to remove these Instructions to the use of our highways. In any other government but ours, it would have been done, with out resorting to the courts at all. The United States, however, chose first to go into its courts. The courts enjoined Debs and his conspirators from inter- fering with the mail highways and the running of trains, and the army was or
 dered to sustain the courts. Without regard to party. both Houses of Con gross, with great unanimity, approved this action of the Government, and all law abiding people throughout the Union said amen. In the face of these ocurrences, too recent to be called his tory, politicians who cared little for | less on the moral sense of the people, put in our platform, shortly afterwards, a plank which in the face of the events to which 1t referred, committed the | Democratic Party 70 nothing less than the doctrine that it was an assault up on the liberties of the country for the courts to aid by the writ of injunction ] in preventing the injury and destruc- | tion of property in time of strikes. No one cause contributed more to the de- | feat of our national ticket on Mckin- ley's first election than the disgust ot 1 hundreds of thousands of law abiding Democrats throughout the Union, at the plank in our platform which was rsgarded 4ies Pa for The was ended as we all know, when Debs and some of his followers were put in jail and punished. % His case finally | inc tinted States. The court, in a | unanimous opinion, declared what every | intelligent student of our institutions al | ready knew, that the claln of the right | of trial by jury for persons arraigned 1 for violating the orders of the courts was the veriest nonsense. It demon 1 strated that from time immemorial the right of trial had never been extended | .o such cases; and that if the right eN- 1 iSted, the power of the courts to en- l force their orders and compel respect | for them, would be practically destroy ed The opinion tore to tatterS the l.contention that because the punishment
 for mere crime is by indictment, the courts have no power to punish viola | ton of their orders for the protection | of property rights. because that diso-
 bedience is effected by acts which also
 subject the offender to criminal law. In | spite of this unanimous decision of the
 highest court of the land, and it's uni
 vtrsal approval by the American peo-
 pie and it's good results, our great party IS again invited, on the eve of
 ment by injunction" one of the issues
 upon which our party shall go before
 the American people It Is the blind est folly. to use no harSher name.
 The courts. both State and Fedora constantly use the writ of injunction
 against officers of the States, and Unit
 ed States. to prevent their invasion oi l the property rights of the citizen ir
 enforcing unconstitutional laws. x,
 one ever thinks of criticising such nc- tion of the courts. Is 1t possible tha'
 it is wrong to use this writ agaius
 private individuals in time of strikes l when men band together and destroy
 property rights, without even the semb
 iaance of law to back their acts? Tho
 Government constantly uses the wri
 against trusts, Labor organizations ap.
 ply to the courts to use the writ tC
 protect their rights It is issued every
 iav in litigation between private in,
 diyiduals. The writ of injunction i!
 one of the most benetcent powers O
 the courts, and it is far better thar
 the rule of the mob and the reign O
 anarchy. Is there farmer in Alabama
 who thinks it would be wrong for. thu
 breaking down his fences, smashing hi
 blows, running his hands out of tn, field. shooting his stock or setting fir