The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-12-08

nothing. They insisted on a provision
that in a labor dispute no injunction
should issue except to protect a prop
erty right and specifically provided
that the right to carry on business
should not be construed as a property
right, and in a second provision their
bill made legal in a labor dispute any
act or agreement by or between two
or more persons that would not have
been unlawful if done by a single per-
son. In other words, this bill legal
lied blacklisting and boycotting in ev-
cry form, 1egaliZing, for instance those
forms of the secondary boycott which
the anthracite coal strike commission
so unreservedly condemned, while the
right to carry on a business was ex-
plicitly taken out from under that pro-
lection which the law throws over
property. The demand was made that
there should be trial by jury in con-
tempt cases, thereby most seriously i'm
pairing the authority of the courts.
All this represented course of policy
which, if carried out, would mean the
enthronement of class privilege in
its crudest and most brutal form and
the destruction of one of the most es-
sential functions of the judiciary in all
civilized lands.
The violence of the crusade for this
legislation and it's complete failure IL
lustrate two truths which it is essen
tial our people should learn. In the
first place, they ought to teach the
workingman, the laborer, the wage
worker, that by demanding what is
improper and impossible he plays into
the hands of his foes. Such a crude
and vicious attack upon the courts,
even if it were temporarily successful,
would inevitably in the end cause a
violent reaction and would band the
great mass of citizens together, forcing
| them to stand by all the judges, COM
petent and incompetent alike, rather
than to see the wheels of Justice
stopped. A movement of this kind can
ultimately result in nothing but dam
age to those in whose behalf it is
nominaIly undertaken. This is
most healthy truth, which it is wise
for all our people to learn. Any move
ment based on that class hatred which
at times assumes the name of "class
consciousness is certain ultimately to
fail and, if it temporarily succeeds, to
do farreaching damage. "Class con-
seriousness" where it is merely another
name for the odious vice of class
selfiShness is equally noxious whether
in an employers association or in
workingman's association. The move
ment in question was one in which
the appeal was made to all workingmen
to vote primarily not as American citi-
zens, but as individuals of a certain
class il society. Such an appeal, in
the first place, revolts the more high
minded and farsighted among the per-
sons to whom it is addressed and, in
the second place, tends to arouse q
strong antagOnism among all other
classes of citizens, whom it therefore
tends to unite against the very organ
ization on whose behalf it is issued.
The result is therefore unfortunate
from every standpoint. This healthy
truth by the way, will be learned by
the Socialists if they ever succeed in
establishing in this country an impor-
tant national party based on such
class consciousness and selfish class in
terest.
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
hatred have emphasized their sound
patriotism and Americanism. The
whole country has cause to feel pride
in this attitude of sturdy independ-
ence, in this uncompromising insist
ence upon acting simply as good citi-
zens, as good Americans, without re-
gard to faneied and improper class in
terests. Such an attitude is an object
lesson in good citizenship to the en-
tire 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
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, who
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 farsighted in see
ing that the workingman gets his
rights, are the men of all others to
whom we owe it that the appeal for