Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1908-12-31
LABOR LEADERS
ARE SENTENCED
sAML GoMPERs GETS IL MONTHS,
MITCHELL 9 AND MORRISON
6 MONTHS.
CONVICTED OF CONTEMPT
Courts Decision a Scathing Arraign'
ment of the Defendants, Declaring
They Determined in Advance
to Violate Injunction.

Washington, D. C.-The famous
contempt case of the Bucks Stove and
Range Co. of st. Louis against Presi-
dent Samuel Gompers, Vice-President
John Mitchell and Secretary Morrison
of the American Federation of Labor
was decided Thursday by Justice
Wright of the supreme court of the
District of Columbia adversely to the
Federation officials.
Gompers was sentenced to IL
months Imprisonment. Mitchell was
sentenced to nine months and Morri-
son to six months.
Pending an appeal to the United
States court of appeals Of the District
of Columbia, the three defendants
were released on bail. The amounts
were as follows: Gompers, $4,000;
Mitchell. $4,000; Morrison, $4,000. A
local surety company furnished the
bonds.
Labor Leaders Denounced by Judge.
Justice Wright's decision was a
| bCdlIlllS utlulSldllOh vi Nv uSANAN
ants. He first recited the conditions
anteceding the injunction and refer
red to the fact that for rs years the
Bucks plant had operated as a 10
hour shop and always had maintained
an open shop"
He also spoke of the strength Of the
American Federation of Labor, with
its 1000, 900 members, and of its re-
peated Endorsement of the boycott Of
the Bucks Stove and Range Co.,
through the American Federationist
and by speeches, letters, circulars,
etc.
The court referred to the I'VE Do
Not Patronize" list and said that mem
bers of the organization were forced
into supporting it by various methods.
He read extracts from the Fedora
ZIONIST bearing on the Bucks case,
and these methods, the court said,
seem to be persuasion"
MnsoIent Defiance" Court Calls It.
The court continues:
when, with the parties to this
cause in attendance, their dispute
heard and the status of the subject OF
their controversy examined into, the
inhibitory process of this tribunal
issued forth. it. was the laws com.
mand to stand hands off until justice
for this matter could be ascertained
rs not law wide enough and its
shield broad enough to avert from an
initiation that which its tribunals
have taken in hand for the very sake
of ~decreeing whether it shall not be
saved?
"Yet everywhere, within the cour
and out, utter, rampant, insolent def
ance is heralded and proclaimed; I'm
refined insult, coarse %affront, vulgar
indignity measures the litigant's con
ception of the tribunals due, wherein
his cause still ponds.
The Law Has Been Made to Fail.
Before the injunction was granted
these men announced that neither
they nor the American Federation o.
Labor would obey it; since it ISSUED
they have refused to obey it, and
through the American Federation o
Labor, disobedience has been success
fully achieved and the law has beel
made to fail.
Not only has the law failed in 1T
efforts to arrest a widespread wrong
but the injury has grown more de
structive since the injunction than /
was before. There is a studied, dc
termined, defiant conflict precipitatet
in the light of open day between tn
decree Of a tribunal ordained by tn
government of the Federal Union an
!, o. the tribunals of another federation
=. grown up in the land. One or tn
: other must succumb, for those VIII
: would unlaw the land are publ
} enemies"