The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1906-04-28
LABOR UNIONS STAND
FOR FULLEST FREEDOM
Bench Too Frequently Emits
Impressive Generalities About
Freedom-Not Sustained.
Arthur McEwen Analyses JUS
tice Stafford's Opinions On
Printers Injunctions.

Printers 1njunctions.
Arthur McEwen, editor Of the New
York Journal, has the following to
say about the recent injunction and
opinion delivered by a court in a
dispute with the printers. We repro
duce 1t because some questions about
mans right to work., and industrial
freedom" are answered most intelli-
gently:
Justice Stafford of Washington, D.
c., In granting a temporary injunc-
ton the other. day to restrain some
striking printers from interfering IN
any way'' with the non union men who
PREDATORY remarks of a very familiar
sort. Said His Honor:
There is something moro import
ant than fair wages, and that is the
right to work for any wages the work.
ingman is willing to accept. There Is
something more important than the
eight hour day, and that is a free day.
Any enhancement of wages, any les
sening of the hours Of labor, any I'M
provements in the conditions Of en-
ployment would be dearly bought
by the surrender Of the smallest frac-
ton Of individual liberty"
All Of which is nobly eloquent and
ther can be no doubt that the thrills
Of President Baer Of the coal trust
which has frozen out the independent
opeators in the anthracite coal -fleld
by compelling them to sell their mines
at trust figures or go without cars to
carry their product to market.
Suppose the washington Judge had
had that situation before him and had
said:
There is scaieining more important
than high prices for coal, and that Is
the right Of the mine owner to sell
his coal for any price he is willing to
accept. There is something more i'm
portant than maintaining the profits
of the Trust and that is the right Of
an American citizen to freely work his
own mine. Any enhancement Of trust
prices, any improvement in perfect
ing the Trusts monopoly would be too
| dearly bought by the surrender OF the
smallest fraction Of the individual lib
erty Of the mine owner
How would Mr.. Baer like that? How
would it be liked by any Of his friends
of freedom who engineer the plundering
trusts, kill off competition by every
Ernea1lsa l,il
the law, and ever enotiona1ly ardent
in preserving the blessing Of the "open
shop to the workingman?
In laying down his general propo-
sitions as to the sacredness Of freedom
! Of contract Judge Stafford thought and
spoke as a true northumberland Is,
he deducted practical conclusions from
! an abstract principle, with eyes closed
| to the actual world about him.
! Such freedom Of contract as the or
| binary workingman possesses
workingman who can do only things
| which many others can do-he owes
| wholly to the labor unions. But for
! them he would have the free day"
that Judge Stafford extols-the free
| dom to accept the wages offered him
! by the employer in free market
| where his fellow workmen, instead Of
! being leagued with him as comrades to
| hold up wages. for the common good,
| would be competing against him as
| individuals for the job. His freedom
would be the privilege Of taking what
was handed to him by the job bestow-
ing master or starving.
| Under existing Industrial conditions
the workingman has no liberty that
he does not conquer for himself The
law assumes that he and the employer
stand on an equal footing, the worker
being under no more compulsion to
accept than the employer is to offer
employment. The law ignores the
dread figure of need which stands with
uplifted whip at the workers back.
There is no such figure behind the en-
ployer. So there is no equality of
condition ands no freedom of contract.
Evidently Judge Stafford agrees with
President Eliot, Of Harvard, in view
of the ''scab" as the prosecuted rep
resentative of individual liberty in that
dark and strange world where men
toll with their hands for poor liv-
! ing. He is the hero of the well-fed,
well-dressed, well-housed gentleman
on and off the bench who think with
brains that hold no memory Of PALM
! callousing work, and whose sympathies
! are altogether with the employer for
ever harrassed by the demands of his
! ignorant and impudent servants for
| higher pay and shorter hours-for a
fairer share Of what they earn, that is.
The "scab" has the legal right to
abstain from joining union, just as
every man has the legal right to do
a good many things that as a decent
human being he would be ashamed to
do, and for the doing Of which pub
lie opinion would justly condemn him.
The controllers Of the Ice Trust, for
example, are probably eminently re-
spectacle persons, some of them like
Mr.. Rockefeller, exemplary church
goers and generous in their contri-
buttons to the fund for carrying the
gospel to darkest Asia and Africa.
Advised by their attorneys they will
doubtless evade the hand Of the law
when hot weather comes on. they shall
proceed to spread suffering and kill
children in the New York tenements
by raising the price Of ice beyond the