Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-04-07
LABOR WANTS A
BOYCOTT Law
GOMPERS WARNS CONGRESS
THAT UNIONS CANNOT BE
CRUSHED BY LAW.

Washington, D. c., April 6.-Samuel
Gompers, president Of the American
Federation of Labor, has announced
the purpose of organized labor to fight
to the last ditch against what he term
ed the outrages which had been heap
ed upon the workingman through the
workings of the Sherman antitrust
law and recent decisions Of the SUI
preme court.
Mr.. Gompers was given hearing by
the subcommittee Of the house COM
mittee on judiciary, which is consider
ing the proposed amendments to the
antitrust law drawn by the National
house by Mr.. Hepburn Of Iowa.
The labor leader told of the efforts
Of his body, at the time the Sherman
law was under consideration in 1901,
to have exempted from it's terms ar
rangements, agreements, or combina-
tons between laborers, made with
view to shorten the hours of work or
increase rates of pay.
At the same time, he said, an at
tempt was made to legalize combina-
lions in agriculture and horticulture
for the purpose of EXCHANGING the
price of the product of their labors.
Breatch Of Faith Charged.
Amendments Incorporating there ex-
emptions, he said, had been agreed up
on, but were omitted when the house
passed the bill He recalled to Mr..
Littlef1eld of Maine chairman of the
subcommittee, who will soon retire
from the house, that he was one Of the
nine who voted against the amend
ment, and added: Some Of the gentle
men who voted with you are not now
in congress"
"The so-called antitrust law" con-
tinued Mr.. Gompers, sis aimed at as
ISOLATED effort. 1t is relic of an old
law which prevailed 1000 years ago in
Rome, when no association was legal
| unless 1t had the special sanction Of
the emperor.
What labor demands and will have
! is the enactment OF laws which shall
restrict the jurisdiction Of courts Of
equity to matters involving property
and property rights. and shall SO de-
fine property rights that by no far
fetched conclusion shall the labor of
any person be held to be property or
property rights"
Secret Unions Are Hinted.
"You may force the men and women
workers out of open unions he said,
"but you will be driving them into
the dark where there will be formed
secret organizations which neither
Legislative ukase nor judicial yinjunc-
tons can reach.
THE right to organize is sacred to
the laborer. 1t is the only way in
which he can protect himself. Without
it he is helpless in the industrial world
Labor organizations today are not only
the protection of the laborer, but they
are the greatest conservations of the
public peace"
i The registration clause of the pro
posed amendments was attacked as I'M
just. The amendments, the federation
feared said, should be so framed that
they would restore labor to the place
it occupied before the enactment OF
the Sherman law in 1901.
Mr. Littlefield asked Mr.. Gompers if
this would not relieve organized labor
from the operation of the recent de-
cision in the Loewe (hatters' uniop)
case, to which Mr. Gompers replied in
the Affirmative.
Then" asked Mr.. Littlefeld, las a
representative Of organized labor, you
favor the boycott"
81 do, sir" was the prompt answer
"And your organization contends fol-
the right to boycott?"
1T does.
A. B. Garretson of Cedar Rapids
Ia, president of the Order Of Railway
4 Conductors, urged amendments favor
able to labor unions, as did also Theo
dore Marburg Of Baltimore, who sale
the recent panic was caused by the
governments crazy policy of attack
ing railroads and the vindictive fine
Of $29,000,0 900 imposed on the STANDARD
Oil company