The Colorado statesman., 1908-03-21
EMPLOYERS
LIABILITY LAW
CANNON AND FAIRBANKS TELL
LABOR LEADERS 1T WILL
PASS.
PROTEST To CONGRESS
GOMPERS LEADS REPRESENTA-
TlVEs OF ElGHTY-SEVEN DIFF
FERENT ORGANIZATIONS.

ashington.-Speaker Cannon and
Vice President Fairbanks Thursday an
nounccd their belief that the present
Congress will pass an employers liza
bility act which will meet and over
come the unconstitutionality of the
present law pointed out by the Su-
prem Court of the United States in a
recent decision
These statements were made unre-
servedly by Speaker Cannon and
guardcdly by the vice president, to
delegation led by Samuel Gompers,
president of the American Federation
of Labor, from eighty-seven national
and international trade and labor or
ganizatios and farmers organizations
assembled in a national conference in
this city.
The delegation requested the speak
er to lay before the House of Repre-
sentatives, through him, a memorial
entitled "Labor's Protest to Congress"
The scope of his memorial was set
forth in the following opening para
| graphs:
I'VE, he official representatives of
the national and international trade
and labor unions and organizations of
farmers, appear before Congress to
voice the earnest and emphatic protest
of the workers of the country against
the Indifference, II not actual hos.
tiiity which Congress has shown to-
ward the reasonable and righteous
measures proposed by the workers for
the safeguarding of their rights and
interests
''In the name of labor we now urge
upon Congress the necessity for imme-
| diate action for relief from the most
grave and momentous situation which
has ev confronted the working people
| of this country This crisis has been
brought about by the application by
the Supreme Court of the United
States Of the Sherman antitrust 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 law
making and executive departments OF
| our government.
1.-The workers feel that Congress it.
self must share our chagrin and sense
of injustice when the courts exhibit an
utter disregard for the real intent and
purpose OF the laws enacted to safe
guard 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 workers:
The right to be MANNED and killed
without lie bility to the employer
THE right to be discharged for be.
| longing to labor union.
THE right to work as many hours
as employers please and under any con.
| nltiOnS
Labor is justly indignant at the be.
| stowal or the guaranteeing Of these
worthless and academic rights by the
+ courts, which in the same breath deny
and forbi.l the workers the practical
and necessary protection of laws which
define and safeguard their rights and
| liberties and the exercise of them indf-
vidually or in association"
The protest" submitted by Mr.. Com
| rers and his ssociates-Joseph P. Val.
entine, eighth vice president of the
American Federation of Labor; w. R,
Farley of the United Mine Workers OF
America: C. M. Burnett of the Ameri-
can Society of Equity; W. d. Mahon,
president of the Amalgamated Street
and Electric Railway Employees. and p.
j. McArdle of the Amalgamated Asso-
citation of Iron and Steel Workers.
fers to the Supreme Court decision in
the hatters' case as the most recent
! perversion of the intent of law by
the judiciary, by which the Sherman
antitrust law has been made to apply
to labor, although it was an accepted
fact that Congress did not intend the
law to so apply, and might even have
specifically exempted labor but fol
fear that the Supreme Court might con
strue such an Affirmative DrOyiSion to
be unconstitutional"