The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1908-12-08

| lhuuSJIldl CIVILIZATION WHICH mas grown
up in the last half century.
The rapid changes in our social and
industrial life which have attended
this rapid growth have made it neces-
sary that, in applying to concrete
cases the great rule of right laid down
in our Constitution, there should be a
| full understanding and appreciation
of the new conditions to which the
rules are to be applied. What would
have been an infringement upon lib
erty half century ago may be the
necessary safeguard of liberty today
What would have been an injury to
property may be necessary to the en-
| joyment of property now Every jul
dicial decision involves two terms
one, an Interpretation OF the law; the
other, the understanding of the facts
to which it is to be applied. The
great mass of our judicial officers are
believe alive to these changes of
conditions which so materially affect
| the performance of their judicial du-
| ties. Our judicial system is sound and
effective at core, and it remains, and
must ever be maintained as the safe
guard of those principles of liberty and
justice which stand at the foundation
of American institutions; for, as
Burke finely said, when liberty and
| justice are separated, neither is safe.
There are, however, some members of
the judicial body who have Jagged be-
hind in their understanding of these
great and vital changes in the body
polite, whose minds have never been
opened to the new applications of the
old principles made necessary by the
new conditions. Judges of this stamp
do lasting harm by their decisions,
because they convince poor men in
need of protection that the courts OF
the land are profoundly ignorant of
and out of sympathy with their needs,
and profoundly Indifferent or hostile
to any proposed remedy. To such
men it seems a cruel mockery to have
any court decide against them on the
ground that it desires to preserve Glib
erty" in a purely technical form, by
constructive sense. 1t is desirable |
that the legislative body should pos
sess, and wherever necessary exercise |
the power to determine whether in a |
given case employers and employees are
not on an equal footing, so that the |
necessities of the latter compel them
to submit to such exactions as to |
hours and conditions of labor as I'M
duly to tax their strength and only
mischief can result when such deter
mination is upset on the ground that |
there must be no interference with
the liberty to contract often merely
academic liberty" the exercise of
which is the negatfon of real liberty.
There are certain decisions by va
rious courts which have been exceed
ly detrimental to the rights of wage
workers. This is true of all the de- /
cisions that decide that men and wo-
men. are by the Constitution, guar
anteed their liberty" to contract to en-
ter dangerous occupation or to work /
an undesirable or improper number
of hours or to work in unhealthy
surroundings; and therefore can not
recover damages when NAMED in
that occupation, and can not be for
hidden to work what the legislature
decides is an excessive number of
hours, or to carry on the work under
conditions which the legislature de-
cides to be unhealthy. The most dan
gerous occupations are often the poor
est paid and those where the hours
of work are longest; and in many
cases those who go into them are driv-
en- by necessity SO great that they
have practically no alternative. Deci-
sions such as those alluded to above
nullify the legislative effort to pro- |
tect the wageworkers who most need
protection from those employers who
take advantage of their grinding need.
They halt or hamper the movement
for securing better and more equita- {
bic conditions of labor. The talk
about preserving to the misery hunted s
beings who make contracts for such {
service their liberty" to make them,
is either to speak in spirit of heart
less irony or else to show an utter
lack of knowledge of the conditions l
OF life among the great masses of our ;
a lack which I'M !
hts judge to do good service just as '
1t would unfit any executive or leg {
islative officer
There is also, I think. ground for
the belief that substantial injustice is {
often suffered by employees in con-
sequence of the custom of courts isl
suing temporary injunctions without t
notice TO them, and furnishing them {
for contempt of court in instances
where, as a matter of fact, they have I
no knowledge of any proceedings. Out
side of organized labor there is a Wide {
spread feeling that this system often g
works great injustice to wageworkers {
when their efforts in better their t
WORKING condition ,ar,,14 7