River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1908-04-30
President AGAIN
URGES congress
CHIEF SENDS SPECIAL MESSAGE
ASKING ENACTMENT OF SEW
ERAL LAWS,
DWELLS UPON ABUSE
OF THE INJUNCTION
Legislation to Put an End to the Prae.
tice Is Sought-Titled American
Woman Comes In for Rap in Con-
Guiding the Document.

Guiding the Document.
| Washington, Apr. 28.-Still another
special message from President
Roosevelt to congress was read in
Sentiments expressed by the docu-
ment were perhaps less heated than
those in former messages, the presi-
dent merely going on record in favor
of laws which the senate and house
have not touched as yet.
The president expressed pleasure
at the passing of the employers liza
bility bill, raped the injunction abuse,
commended efforts to secure a child
labor law, asked a statute trending
toward national incorporation and in
conclusion aimed a shaft at the
wealthy citizen, whose theme is ex-
travagance, whose son is a fool and
whose daughter is a foreign princess"
He also decried efforts to construe
labor unions as violators of the anti
trust law and advised Strengthening
of that statute. Alleged suspicious cor
poration practices, uncovered by Bos
ton officials, were dealt with at length.
The message in part:
In my message to the congress of
March 25, 1908, I outlined certain
measures which / believe the MAORI
ty of our countrymen desire to have
enacted into law at this time. These
measures do not represent by any
means all that I would like to see
done if 1 thought it possible, but they
do represent what l believe can now
be done if an earnest effort toward
this end is made.
Asks Injunction Legislation.
First, as to the power of injunction
and of punishment for contempt. In
contempt cases, save where immediate
action is imperative, the trial should
be before another judge. AS regards
injunctions, some such legislation as
that | have previously recommended
should be enacted. They are blind
who fail to realize the extreme bitter
ness caused among large bodies of
worthy citizens by the use that has
been repeatedly made of the power of
injunction in labor disputes. Those in
whose judgment we have most right to
trust are of the opinion that while
much of the complaint against the use
of the injunction is unwarranted, yet
that it is unquestionably true that in
number of cases this power has been
used to the grave injury of the rights
of labOring men. | ask that it be
limited in some such way as that
have already pointed out in my previ-
Gus messages, for the very reason that
| do not wish to see an embittered eff
fort made to destroy it. 1t is unwise
stubbornly to refuse to provide against
repetition of the abuses which have
caused the present unrest. In a de-
mOcracy like ours it is idle to expect
permanently to thwart the determine
ton of the great body of our citizens.
1t may be and often is the highest
duty of a court, legislature or an
executive, to resist and defy a gust
of popular passion; and most certainly
no public servant, whatever may be
the consequences to himself, should
yield to what he thinks wrong
Decries OVeruse of Injunction.
But in a question which is en-
phatically one of public policy, the
policy which the public demands is
sure in the end to be adopted; and a
persistent refusal to grant to large
portion of our people what is right is
only too apt in the end to result in
causing such irritation that when the
right is obtained it is obtained in the
course of a movement so ill considered
and violent as to be accompanied by
much that is wrong. The process OF
injunction in labor disputes, as we'll
as where state laws are involved,
should be used sparingly, and only
when there is the clearest necessity
for it; but it is one so necessary to
the efficient performance of duty by
the court on behalf of the nation that
it is in the highest degree to be re-
GREETED that it should be liable to reck-
less use; for this reckless use tends
to make honest men desire SO to ham
per it's execution as to destroy it's USE
fulness.
Would Strengthen Trust Law.
me Strengthening OF the ANTITRUST
law is demanded upon both moral and
economic grounds. Our purpose in
Strengthening it is to secure more effec-
tive control of the national government
over the business use of the vast
masses of individual, and especially
of corporate, wealth, which at the pres
ent time monopolize most of the in
terstate business of the country: and
we believe the control can best be
exercised by preventing the growth of
abuses, rather than merely by trying
to destroy them when they have al
ready grown. In the highest sense of
the word this movement for thorough
control of the business use of this
great wealth is conservative. We are
trying to steer safe middle course.
which alone can save us from a pluto
cratic class government on the one
| hand, or a socialistic class govern
ment on the other, either of which
would be fraught with disaster to our
free institutions, state and national.
| We are trying to avoid alike the evils
which would flow from government
! ownership of the public utilities by
R.zar EdnaS