The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-12-09
Alleged Attack Upon Judiciary.

ONNS Pche~T
Alleged Attack Upon judiciary.
AT the last election certain leaders or
organized labor made violent and
sweeping attack upon the entire judiciary
of the country, an attack couched in sucn
terms as TO include the most upright,
honest and broad-minded judges, no less
than those Of narrower mind and more
restricted outlook 1t was the kind of at
tack admirably fitted to prevent any sue
cessful attempt TO reform abuses of the
judiciary, because it gave the champions
OF the unjust judge their eagerly desired
opportunity to shift their ground into
championship of just judges who were un-
justly assaled- Last year, before the
house committee on judiciary, these same
speeifssing the bill that contained them
rel using all compromise, stating they
wished the principle of that bill or moth
ing Ihey insisted on provision that in
labor dispute no Injunction should issue
except to protect a property right, and
specificaily provided that the right
10 carry on business should not
and oi IN ss as property right;
bill made legal in a labor dispute
any act or agreement by or between two
or more persons that would not have been
unlawful II done by a single person In
other words, this bill legalized blacklist
ing and boycotting in every form. legal
izing, for instance, those forms of the
secondary boycott which the anthracite
coal strike commission so unreservedlv
condemned; while the right to carry on a
business was explicitly taken out from
under that protection which the law
throws over property. The demand was
made that there should be trial by Jury
IN contempt cases, thereby most seriously
impairing the authority of the courts All
this represented course of policy which
II carried out, would mean the enthrone-
ment of class privilege in its crudest and
most brutal form, and the destruction of
one of the most essential functions of the
judiciary in all civilized lands.
Failure of Crusade.
The violence of the crusade for this leg
islation, and its complete failure. illus
trate two truths which il is essential our
people should learn In the first place,
they ought to teach the workingman, the
laborer, the wage-worker, that by de-
handing what is improper and impossi-
BILE he plays into the hands of his foes.
Sach a crude and vicious attack upon the
courts, even if it were temporarily sue
oessful. would inevitably in the end cause
violent reaction and would band the
great mass of citizens together, forcing
them to stand by all the judges, compe-
tent and incompetent alike, rather than
to see the wheels of justice stopped. a
movement of this kind an-uitimateiy- re-
suit in nothing but damage to those in
whose behalf il is nominally undertaken.
This is a most healthy truth, which it is
Wise IOI ali our people 10 learn Any
movement based on that class hatred
which at times assumes the name OF
''claSs consciousness" is certain ultimately
to fail, and if it temporarily succeeds, 10
do far-reaching damage Glass con-
seriousness" where II IS merely another
Eame for the odiouS vice of class selfish
ness. is equally noXiouS whether in an
employers association or in a working
mans association The movement in
question was one in which the appeal
was made to all workingmen to vote pri-
marily, not as American citizens, but as
individuals of a certain class in society.
Such an appeal in the first place revolts
the more high-minded and far-sighted
among the persons to whom 1t is adj
dressed, and in the second place tends to
arouse a strong antagOnism among all
other classes of citizens. whom ii there
fore tends to unite against the very or
ganiZation on whose behalf it is issued.
The result is therefore unfortunate from
every standpoint. This healthy truth, by
the way win be learned by the socialists
if they ever succeed in establishing IN
this country an important national party