Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1908-02-07

eminent could at least act by forbidding
the use of the mails, telegraph, and
telephone wires for mere gambling in
stocks and futures, just as it does in lot
terry transactions.
Among the many other notable SEN
fences of this remarkable and most time
ly message we quote:
FOR NEW EMPLOYERS LIABILITY LAW.
AS regards the Employers Liability
Law, advocate its immediate re-enact-
ment, limiting its scope 80 that 1t shall
apply only to the class of cases as to
which the court says it can constitution
ally apply.
1t is to be observed that an Employers
Liability Law does not really mean
mulcting employers in damages.
/ should consider it most unwise to
abolish the use of the process of injunc-
ton.
1t is all wrong to use the injunction to
prevent the entirely proper and legitimate
actions of labor organizations in their
struggle for betterment.
The fact that the punishment for the
violation of an injunction must necessar-
lily be summary and without the inter-
vention of jury, makes its issuance in
doubtful cases dangerous practice.
If some way of remedying the abuses
is not found the feeling of indignation
against them among large numbers of
our citizens will tend to grow so extreme
as to produce revolt against the whole
use of the process of injunction.
Men of property cannot afford to trust
to anything save the spirit of justice and
fair play; for those very public men who,
L -. 4. .,,to Iafo oil 10
abuses committed by capital and pose as
champions of conservatism, will, the
moment they think their interest
changes, pander to what they esteem
popular feeling.
1t is hypocritical baseness to speak of a
girl who works in factory, where the
dangerous machinery is unprotected, as
having the Fright" freely to contract to
expose herself to dangers to life and
| limb
1t is a moral wrong that the whole bur-
den of the risk necessarily incidental to
the business should be placed with crush
ing weight upon her weak shoulders, and
all who profit by her work escape scot
free.
DUTY OF PROPERTY HOLDER.
Specifically it may seem that the
laws, the passage of which | herein
again advocate-for l have repeatedly
advocated them before-are not con
nected. But in reality they are con
nected. Each and every one of these
laws, if enacted. would represent par
of the campaign against privilege, par
of the campaign to make the class OF
great property holders realize that prop
erty has its duties no less than it
rights.
When the courts guarantee to thu
employer, as they should, the rights o.
the employer, and to property the rights
of property, they should no less EN-
phatically make it evident that they
will exact from property and from thu
employer the duties which should nee
essarily accompany these rights; anC
hitherto our laws have failed in pre-
cisely this point of enforcing the per
Torrance of duty by the man of prop
erty toward the man who works for him
by the man of great wealth, espec
tally if he uses that wealth in corpor
ate form, toward the investor, the wage
worker and the general public.
The permanent failure of the man o
property to fulfill his obligations would
ultimately assure the wrestling from hin
of the privileges which he is entitled t.
enjoy only if he recognizes the obliga
tions accompanying them. Those wh'
assume or share the responsibility TO
this failure are rendering but poor ser
vice to the cause which they believ,
they champion
DAY OF RECKONING BOUND TO COME.
1t cannot be too strongly insisted tina
the defenders and apologists of the grea
corporations who have sought in tn
past and still seek to prevent adequat
action by the Federal Government to con
troll these corporations, are not onl.
proving false to the people but are laying
up day of wrath for the great corpora
tiOns themselves.
The nation will not tolerate an ute
lack of control over the very wealth.
men of enormous power in the industrial
and therefore in the social lives of ou
people, some of whom have shown them
selves cynically and brutally indifferen
to the interest of the people.
The attacks by these great corpc ration
on the Administrations actions hav
been given wide circulation through
out the country, in the newspapers ant
otherwise, by those writers and speaker
who, consciously or unconsciously, &C
as the representatives of predator,
wealth-of the wealth accumulated on
giant scale by all forms of iniquity, rang
ing from the oppression of wageworker
to unfair and unwholesome methods O
crushing out competition, and to de
| frauding the public by stock johbing an
the manipulation of securities.
. Certain wealthy men of this STAN
whose conduct should be abhorrent
every man of ordinarily decent cor
science, and who commit the hideou
wrong Of teaching our young men ths