The White Pine news. [volume] (Ely, Nev.) 1906-1910, 1907-10-01
| |GOMPERS ATTACKS
. 'TAFT'S CANDIDACY
OPENS FIGHT ON CANDIDATE,
DECLARING HIM UNFRIEND-
LY TO LABOR.

SALT LAKE, Sept. S0.-A special
to the Herald from Washington, d.
c., says:
Organized labor has formally OPP
ened its warfare on Secretary Taft.
I his was made clear today when the
official organ of the American FEEDER
alton of Labor came out with hot
editorial of five pages, prepared by
President Samuel Gompers, and
headed, Taft, the Injunction Stand
ard Bearer
President Gompers treats of Taft S
decision while on the bench in Ohio
and of his utterances bearing on in
junction matters while on his recent
western trip.
He declares Secretary Taft's con-
tention with reference to what he
terms the boycott would, if car
ried to its logical result, lead to the
dispersion and forcible breaking up
by court orders of every assemblage
of workingmen, however innocent or
lawful their purpose, and to the null
lification of all their agreements.
Mr.. Gompers says further:
THE fact of the matter is that
Secretary Taft, as a presidential as
pirant, is 'afeared' He may have
ruffled a feather here and there in
the plumes of capitalistic power. His
parting words are to console corpo-
rate influence and the money power
for any uneasiness as to his position.
He substantially assures them that
if they will but give him their sup
port he will hand over to the tender
mercies of the worst element of the
capitalistic class the workingmen of
the United States bound hand and
foot, shackled by injustice for which
he will stand.
''One of the reasons which he gave
for advising the people of Oklahoma
to reject the constitution was that in
his opinion it contained bad and
dangerous limitation upon the power
of the courts to grant and enforce
writs of injunction.
1.-The injunction, he declared. was
one of the most valuable, beneficent
and essential instruments of law and
justice. 1t was even more necessary
for the protection of the poor than
the rich, and to limit it in any way
would put more power in the hands
of rich criminals and oppressors.
The provisions to which he so So
rious.y objected did not limit tho
power to issue injunctions. 1t only
limited the power of judges to punish
alleged violators of injunctiOns; 10
send them to prison for the alleged
contempt of court without trial by
jury 1t is to the intervention of a
Jury between the injunction and the
sentence for contempt that the sec
retary took exception.
It does not appear that he was in
a humorous mood. He seemed
wholly in earnest, as he argued that
it is essential to the protection of the
poor man that judges should have
the power to find men guilty of con-
tempt and give them prison sentences
without referring the fact of the case
to a jury of the defendants peers.
1t shows that he has not changed
his position since his campaign in
Congressman Littlefield's district last
year. Now, as then, he ignores all
the fundamental and vital objections
to the abuse of the injunction and
the consequent abolition of trial by
jury in labor cases. He still seeks
to evade the issue, to find sophistical
reasons for upholding monstrous
abuse. He was one of the early in
junction judges, and as a statesman
andapolitician he is evidently deter
mined to defend his record