The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-20
.LABOR'S PROTEST
 BEFORE CONGRESS.  Delegation Presents Memorial
 To Speaker Cannon UNION LABOR INDIGNANT Samuel Gompers Leads the Delegation and Reads the Demands of Organ
 zed Labor For Amendment
 To Present Laws.
UNION LABOR INDIGNANT

Washington, March 19.-Speaker Can non and Vice President Fairbanks today announced their belief that the present Congress will pass an employers liability act which will meet and overcome the un- constltutlonallty of the present law point ed out by the supreme courtAo the Uni- ted States in a recent decision
 These statements were made unreserv- edly by Speaker Cannon and guardedy by the vice president to delegation led by President Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor. from S7 national and International trade and labor unions and organizations of farmers as- sembled in national conference in this city.
 The delegation called on the speaker to lay before the House of Representatives, through him, memorial entitled, Ia bor's Protest to Congress" The scope of this memorial was set forth in the fol- lowing opening paragraphs
 We, the official representatives of the national and international trade and labor unions and organizations of farmers, in national conference assembled in the Dis trict of Columbia, for the purpose of con- siderlng and taking action deemed neces- sary to meet the situation in which the working people of the country are placed by the recent decision of the courts, now appear before Congress to voice the earn est and emphatic protest of the workers of the country against the indifference, if not actual hostility, which Congress has shown toward the reasonable and right eous measures proposed by the workers for the safeguarding of their rights and interests.
 Necessity For Action.
 Tn the name of labor we urge upon Congress the necessity for immediate ac- ton for relief from the most grave and momentous situation which has ever con- fronted the working people of this coun- try. This crisis has been brought about by the application by the supreme court of the United States of the Sherman anti trust law to the workers, both organized and in their individual capacity.
 Labor and the people generally look askance at the invasion of the court upon the prerogatives of the lawmaking and executive departments of our govern ment.
  must share our chagrin and sense of Injustice when the courts exhibit 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 work CTS:
 ''The right to be mamed and killed wit hout lia hility the eVplOVPr
 ''rhe right to be discharged for be- longing to a labor union.
 ''rhe right to work as many hours as employers please and under any condi- tions which they may impose,
 Labor Is Indignant. Labor is justly indignant at the best at the granting of these worthless and academic rights by the courts, which in the same breath deny and forbid to the workers the practical and necessary pro tection of laws which define and safe guard their rights and liberties and the exercise of them individually or in as- sociation.
 The protest submitted by MT. Com pers and sis associates-Joseph Valentine, eighth vice president of the American Federation of Labor; w. R. Fairley, of the United Mine Workers Union of North America; c. NJ. Barnett, of the American Soclety or Equlty; w. D. Mahon, preSt- dent of the Almalgamated 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 Hat ters' case as them ost recent preversion of the intent of a law by the judiciary by which the Sherman antitrust law has been made to apply to laDor, all though 1t was an accepted fact that Con n fata t,N Iox to and might even have specifically ex- empted labor, but for the fear that the supreme court must construe such af- firmative provisions to be unconsttution- al.
 Cooperation Urged.
 'The workers" says the memorial" earnestly urge Congress to cooperate with them in the upbuilding and erect