The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1908-12-11
THE CITIZEN. FREDERICK MD. FRIDAY. DECEMBER H. 1908

| carry on q 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 impair
ing the authority of the courts. All
this represented a course of policy
which, if carried out, would mean the
enforcement of class privilege in its
crudest and most brutal form, and the
destruction of one of the most essen
tial function of the judiciary in all
civilized lands.
The wageworkers, the workingmen,
the laboring men of the country by
the way in which they repudiated the
effort to get them to cast their votes
in response to an appeal to class ha-
tired, have emphasized their sound
| patriotism and Americanism. The
whole country has cause to feel pride
in this attitude of sturdy indepepd-
ence. in this uncompromising insist
ence upon acting simply as good citi-
zens, as good Americans, without re-
gard to fancied-and improper-class
interests. Such an attitude is an OBJ
ject lesson in good citizenship 10 the
entire nation.
But the extreme reactionaries, the
persons who blind themselves TO the
wrongs now and then committed by
the courts on laboring men. should
+, also think seriously as to what such
a movement as this portends. The
| judges who have shown themselves
able and willing effectively to check
the dishonest activity of the very rich
man who works iniquity by the mis-
management of corporations, vino
| have shown themselves alert to do
justice to the wageworker, and SYM
| pathetic with the needs of the mass
OF our people, so that the dweller in
the tenement houses, the man who
practices a dangerous trade, the man
who is crushed by excessive hours of
labor, feel that their needs are under
stood by the courts-these judges are
the real bulwark of the courts; these
| judges, the judges of the stamp of
the President-elect, who have been
fearless in opposing labor when it has
gone wrong, but fearless also in hold
| ing to strict account corporations that
work iniquity, and far sighted in see
| ing that the workingman gets his rights,
are the men of all others to whom
we owe 1t that the appeal for such
violent and mistaken legislation has
| fallen on deaf ears, that the agitation
for its passage proved to be without
substantial basis. The courts are
| jeoparded primarily by the action of
these Federal and State judges who
show inability or unwillingness to
put a stop to the wrongdoing or very
rich men under modern Industrial
conditions, and inability or unwilling
ness to give relief to men of small
means or wageworkers who are
crushed down. by these modern indus
trial conditions; who, in other words,
fail to understand and apply the
needed remedies for the new wrongs
produced by the new and highly COM
pick social and industrial civilization
which has grown up in the last half
century.
There are certain decisions by va
rious courts which have been exceed
ingly detrimental to the rights of
wageworkers. This is true of all the
decisions that decide that men and
women are, by the Constitution,
guaranteed their liberty" to con-
tract to enter a dangerous occupation,
or to work an undesirable or impro-
per number of hours, or to work in
unhealthy surroundings. and there
fore can not recover damages when
manned in that occupation, and can
not be forbidden to work what
the Legislature decides is an excessive
number of hours, or to carry on the
work under conditions which the
Legislature decides to be unhealthy
There is also, think, ground for
the belief that substantial injustice is
often suffered by employees in conse-
quence of the custom of courts issu-
ing temporary injunctions without
notice to them, and Furnishing them
for contempt Of court in instances
where, as matter of fact, they have
no knowledge of any proceedings.
Outside of organized labor there is a
widespread feeling that this system
often works great injustice to wage
workers when their efforts to better
their working condition results in in
dustrial disputes. A temporary in
junction procured ex parte may as a
matter of fact have all the effect of a
permanent injunction in causing dis
aster to the wageworkers' side in
such a dispute. Organized labor is
chatting under the unjust restraint
which comes from repeated resort to
this plan of procedure. Its discomfort
has been unwisely expressed, and Of
ten improperly expressed, but there
is sound basis for it, and the orderly
and law abiding people of commu-
nifty would be in a far stronger posi-
ton for unfolding the courts if the
undoubtedly existing abuses could be
provided against.
The power of injunction is a great
equitable remedy, which should on no
account be destroyed. But safeguards
should be erected against it's abuse.
For many of the shortcomings of
justice in our country our people as a
whole are themselves to blame, and
the judges and juries merely bear
their share together with the public
as whole. 1t is discreditable to us
as people that there should be diff
Guilty in convicting murderers, or in
bringing to justice men who as pub
lie servants have been guilty of cor
ruption. or who have profited by the
corruption of public servants. The
result is equally unfortunate. whether
due to hair-splitting technicalities in
the Interpretation of law by judges,
to ssntimentality and class conscious
ness on the part of juries. or to hys-
terra and sensationalism in the daily
press. For much of this failure of
! justice no responsibility whatever lies
on rich men as such. We who make
up the mass Of the people can not
shift the responsibility from our own
| chnu1dorc pitt fharo &c N =