The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-03-20
Grievances Placed in Writing
and Submitted to Congress.
Indignation Is Expressed at
Supreme Court Ruling.
THE PARTY IN POWER
Will Be- Held Responsible for
Future InactiOn.
Cannon and Fairbanks Reply
With Implied Promises.

washington, March ZU.-opedhei
Cannon and Vice President Fairbanks
have announced their belief that the
present congress will pass an en-
ployers' liability act which will meet
and overcome the unconstitutionality
of the present law pointed out by the
supreme court of the United States IN
q recent decision.
These statements were made unre-
servedIy by Speaker Cannon and
guardedly by the vice president to
delegation led by Samuel Gompers,
president of the American Federation
of Labor, from eighty-seven national
and international trade ana labor Or
CARNATIONS and farmers organizations MS
assembled in a national conference IN
this city. The delegation called on the
speaker to lay before the house or
representatives through him me-
mortal entitled "Labor's protest to
congress" The scope of this me-
mortal was set forth in the following
opening paragraphs:
I'VE, the official representatives OF
the national and international trade
and labor unions and organizations OF
farmers, appear before congress to
voice the earnest and emphatic pro-
test of the workers of the country
against the Indifference, If not actual
hostility which congress has shown to-
ward the reasonable and righteous
measures proposed by the workers for
the safeguarding of their rights and
interests.
In the Name of Labor.
I'm the name of labor we now urge
upon congress the necessity for inn
mediate action for relief from the
most grave and momentous situation
which has ever confronted the working
people of this country. This crisis has
been brought about by the application
by the supreme court of the United
States of the Sherman antitrust law
to the workers both in organization
and in their individual capacities.
Labor and the people generally
look askance at the invasion of the
court upon the prerogatiYes of the law
making and executive departments of
our government.
itself must share our chagrin and
sense of injustice when the courts ex-
hibit an utter disregard for the real
intent and purpose of laws enacted to
safeguard and protect the workers in
the exercise of their normal activities.
There is something ominous in the
ironic manner in which the courts
guarantee to workers:
1.-The right to be MANNED and killed
without liability to the employer.
1.-THE right to be discharged for be-
longing to a union.
THE right to work as many hours
as employers please and under any
conditions which they may impose.
Labor is justly indignant at the be-
stowal or guaranteeing of the worth
less and academic rights by the
courts. which in the same breath deny
and forbid to the workers the practical
and necessary protection of laws which
define and safeguard their rights and
liberties and the exercise of them in
dividually or in association
Not Intended by Congress.
The protest" submitted by Mr. Com
pers and his associates, ]. Valentine,
eighth vice president of the American
Federation of Labor; w r. Farley of
the United Mine Workers of America;
G. NJ Barnett of the American Society
of Equity; w. D. Mahon, president of
the Amalgamated Street and Electric
railway employees, and P. J.. McArdle
of the Amalgamated Association of
Iron and Steel Workers. refers to the
supreme court decision in the hatters'
case as the most recent perversion of
the intent of a law by the judiciary,
by which the Sherman antitrust law
has been made to apply to labor, al
though it was an accepted fact that
congress did not intend the law to so
apply and might even have specifically
exempted labor, but for the fear that
the supreme court might construe such
an affirmative provision to be uncon-
stitutionaL
1.-The workers." says the memorial,
earnestly urge congress to cooper
ate with them in the upbuilding and
educating of q public sentiment which
functions which is certainly not that
of placing construction upon a law
the very opposite of the plain intent of
congress, thus rendering worthless even
the very moderate efforts which con-
gress has so far put forth to define
the status of the most important and
numerous and patriotic of our people
the wage workers, the producers of
all wealth.
I'VE favor enactment of laws which
shall restrict the Jurisdiction of courts
of equity to property and property
rights, and shall so define property
and property rights that neither direct
ly nor indirectly shall there be held to
be any property or property rights in
the labor of labor power of any per-
son or persons"
The feeling of restless apprehension
with which the workers view the
apathy of congress is accentuated by
the recent decision of the supreme
court
Wrongful Application
BY the wrongful application of the
injunction the lower courts have for
hidden the right of free press and
free speech and the supreme court in
the hatters' case, while not directly
prohibiting the exercise of these
rights, vet so applies the Sherman
law to labor that acts involving the
use of free press and free speech and
hitherto assumed to be lawful, now
become evidence upon which triple
damages may be collected and fine
and imprisonment added as a part of
the penalty.
for consideration two amendatory
provisions in substance as follows:
THAT nothing in said act (Sherman
antitrust law or in this act is intend
ed nor shall any provision thereof
hereafter be enforced so as to apply
iof e.