The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1908-03-25
PRESIDENT AGAIN
PRODS CONGRESS
Continued from First Page


reason it did not give the department
sufficient time for a thorough exam
ination-the executive department
having power might forbid the con-
tract, which would then become sub.
ject to the provisions of the antitrust
law, if at all in restraint of trade.
Legal Process in Certain Cases.
If no such prohibition was issued
the contract would then only be liable
to attack on the ground that it con-
stituted an unreasonable restraint of
trade. Whenever the period of filing
had passed without any such prohibit
ton the contracts or combinations
could be disapproved or forbidden only
after notice and hearing with a rea-
sonable provision for summary review
on appeal by the courts
Labor organizations. farmers organ
izations and other organizations not
organized for purposes of profit should
be allowed to register under the law
by giving the location of the head
office, the charter and bylaws and the
names and addresses of their prin-
cipal officers. In the interest Of all
these organizatiOns-bus labor
and farmers organizations alike-the
present provision permitting the re-
covery of threefold damages should
be abolished and as substitute
therefor the right of recovery allowed
for should be only the damages sus-
tanned by the plaintiff and the cost of
suit, including reasonable attorneys
fee.
Brief Statute of Limitations.
The law should not affect pending
suits; short statute of limitations
should be provided, so far as the past
is concerned, not to exceed year.
Moreover, and even more in the in
terest of labor than of business COM
binations, all such suits brought for
causes of action heretofore occurred
should be brought only if the contract
or combination complained Of was I'm.
fair or unreasonable. 1t may be well
to remember that all of the suits hith.
erto brought by the government I'm.
der the antitrust law have been in
cases where the combination or con-
tract was in fact unfair, unreasonable
and against the public interests.
1t is important that we should en-.
courage trade agreements between EN-.
ployer and employee where they are
just and fair. A strike is clumsy
weapon for Fighting wrongs done tc
labor and we should extend, so far as
possible, the process of Cancellation
and arbitration as a substitute for
strikes. Moreover, violence, disorder
and coercion, when committed in con-
nection with strikes, should be as
promptly and as sternly repressed as
when committed in any other connec.
tion
Necessity for Labor Unions.
But strikes themselves are, and
should be, recognized to be entirely
legal. Combinations of workingmen
have a peculiar reason for their ex-
istence. The very wealthy Individual
employer, and still more the very
wealthy corporation, stand at an enor-
nous advantage when compared to
the individual workingman; and while
there are many cases where it may
not be necessary for laborers to form
a union in many other cases 1t is in
dispensable, for otherwise the thou
sands Of small units, the thousands of
individual workingmen would be left
helpless in their dealing with the one
big unit-the big individual or cor
porate employer,
twenty-five years ago, by the act
of June 20, 1886, trades unions were
recognized by law and the right of
laboring people to combine for all law