The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1908-05-26


elements in the employer class as
that represented by the national
manufacturers ASSOCIATION.
That body listened to a severe at
tack upon the president yesterday by
one Of the members On its program,
who found a particular grievance in
the presidents assertion, in one OF
his spring messages, that the injunc-
tion writ has sometimes been abused
heedlessly and uniustly and that
some of the injunctiins issued inflict
grave and occasionally irreparable
wrong upon those enjuined." Equally
obnoxious was Mr.. Roosevelt's other
statement, in the same message, that
'in number of cases this power of
injunction has been used to the grave
injury of the rights OF the laboring
men" The speaker before the asso-
citation was not the first one to de-
nounCe the presidents assertions as
unjust to the entire judiciary because
they were unsupported by the cita-
ton of specific cases in which the
power of injunction was abused Con-
gressman Littlefeld is understood to
have written to the president asking
what particular judges he had in
mind. Mr.. Roosevelt is said to have
refused the request, on the ground
that he would not be drawn into con-
troversy concerning the judiciary's
conduct.
The heat which this subject is ca
pable of generating might seem amaz-
ing were it not that the injunction
question is the war between capital
and organized labor boiled down to
the simplest elements. Mr.. Gompers
is more apt to lose his temper and
rage like a maniac in discussing in
functions than in discussing any other
subject of human interest. And the
New York Sun reaches the same pitch
of fury, but contrary conclusions, in
characterizing the presidents state
ments in his messabe as IAN insolent
lie" and deliberate falsehOOds." The
congressman who desire some sort of
anti-injunction legislation it ami
ably scarifies as "a revolutionary and
lawless element"
And this is presidential year. The
injunction issue politically is, there
fore, IL years old. The late Governor
John P. Altgeld, of Illinois, a re-
markable man, and the most abused
one of his day probably, was more in
strumental than anyone else in hav-
ing the issue raised by the celebrated
Democratic platform of 1896. 1t was
not Mr.. Bryan's issue. The Chicago
railroad strike of 1894, during Gov
ernOr Altgeld's administration, devel-
Oped government by injunction" into
source of intense antagonism be-
tween the state and the federal ad-
ministration. Governor Altgeld was
a lawyer, he had been a judge and he
condemned the extension of the in
junction writ to strikes as it then
proceeded under the inspiration of the
federal department of justice. When
the Chicago convention met two years
later the government by injunction"
plank was Governor Altgeld's special
IOllI lDullOH.
The fact that Presiednt Roosevelt
today arraigns the courts for abusing
their powers along the very line
where Mr.. Altgeld's criticism was
most severe and bitter illustrates the
changes brought about by time.
There is also a certain dramatic in
terest in the shifting of Mr.. Roose-
velt's position. In the 1896 campaign
he was exceptionally severe upon Mr..
Altgeld He was reported to have
said that Mr.. Altgeld should have
been stood up against wall and shot.
But, if he said that, he said it pri-
vately In any event, it is evident
that Governor Altgeld, were he alive
today, would experience a certain
lively satisfaction in noting the pres
ident's more recent attitude on the
injunction question. And very likely
it is true that Mr. Roosevelt is not
now so uncompromising in his bit
terness toward the late governor of
Illinois, who first introduced the is
sue into modern politics,