The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1909-02-13
FROM OUR EXCHANGES.
NOT A LABOR UNION MATTER.

Thoughtful citizens will not be be-
trayed, we trust, into misapprehend-
ing the real issue in the Geompers-
Mitchell-Morrison case, by any appeal
fact that the case originated in labor
| union methods which they dislike
| Whatever it may have been. in the
beginning, the case is no longer at
I bottom a labor union controversy. It
has raised the i1nmeasurebly higher
question Of whether one Of the great
traditions and guarantees Of American
liberty shall be wiped out. This case
| is to determine not whether a labor
| boycott is legal, but whether the right
to speak and publish freely shall re-
| main in full force in our country, sub
ject only to responsibility to a jury
for its abuse
For purposes of restraint upon free
dom of speech and press the process
of prohibition by injunction, Of trial
by judge without a jury, and Of
punishment by penalties for contempt
Is manifestly no part of the law Of
this land And that is none the less
true and none the less vital because
the alleged abusers of their constitu-
tional right happen to be working
men. It Is none the less true because
they happen to be workingmen Or
gained in unions. It is none the less
true because they happen to be poor
instead Of rich. g
The Washington injunction which
assumed to censor 1.-The American
icf' o,,I
tors to processes and penalties I'M
known for that purpose to the law
Of the land, was not court decision
to be respected by good citizens. 1t
was a wanton and dangerous usurpa-
|. ton of power to be unf1inchingly OPP
posed, both in court and out of court
by ballot and public appeal, as we'll
as through the judicial machinery
AS such, it was richly and lawfully
as we'll as commercially ignored by
the men whose constitutional rights
is assailed.
What Governor Altgeld predicted
When he denounced government by
lnjunction' is fast coming to pass.
In the Gompers-Mitchell-M Morrison
case we have the example Of the
participated use of the injunction pro-
cess as a substitute for jury trial for
alleged abuses of the right of free
speech and free press.
THESE labor unions and labor lead
ers and labor editors, if they abused
their rights of free speech and free
press by proclaiming the fact of a
labor boycott upon the Buck stoves,
or even by advising this boycott,
should have been prosecuted in the
regular, the orderly, the only lawful
way. They should have been sued
for damages Or indicted for crime,
and been tried by a jury That is
what the law demands if they were
to be tried at all. That is what peace
(and order require. That is what good
citizenship stands for
| And why is it that this was not
| done if these men had really offended
against the law? Only the discrderly
arc lawless or the ignorant an1ong
cur citizenship wouiI drrcand. and
only the despotic among our judges
would defend, any other course For
any other course involves usurpation,
and usurpat1on is tine worst of crimes.
BY Ignoring and thereby defying the
lawless injunction of the Washington
judge, an injunction we'll calculated if
not deliberately designed to deprive
them of lawful rights and a regular
trial for alleged abuse of those rights,
they have def1ed no law of this land.
1t is the judge that defies the law