Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1910-01-04

Some people swell up on emotion
brewed from absolute untruth
It's an old trick of the leaders of the
Labor Trust to twist facts and make
the sympathetic cnes'' weep at the
ice house" CHATS part of the tale
further on.)
Gompers ct al sneer at, spit upon and
defy our courts. seeking sympathy by
falsely telling the people the courts
were trying to deprive them of free
speech and free press.
Men can speak freely and print opin-
ions freely in this country and no court
viii object, but they cannot be allowed
to print matter as part of a criminal
conspiracy to injure and ruin other citi-
zens
Gompers and his trust associates
started out to ruin the Bucks Stove
Co., drive its hundreds of workmen out
of work and destroy the value of the
plant without regard to the fact that
: hard earned money of men who work
ed, had been invested there.
The conspirators were told by the
courts to stop these vicious trust
methods, (efforts to break the firm
that won't come under trust rule), but
instead Of stopping they dare" the
courts to punish them and demand
new laws to protect them in such de-
structive and tyrannous acts as they
NAV desire to do y The reason
Gompers and his band persisted in try
ing to run the Bucks Stove Works was
because the stove company insisted on
the right to keep some old employees
- rIO, Al mir r-6n n
them discharged ana some of de
gang put in.
Now let us reverse the conditions
and have look.
Suppose the company had ordered
the union to dismiss certain men from
their union and, the demand being re-
fused, should institute a boycott
against that union, publish its name
in an unfair list instruct other man
ufacturers all over the United States
not to buy the labor of that union, have
committees call at stores and threaten
to boycott if the merchants sold any
thing made by that union. Picket the
factories where members work and
slug them on the way home, blow up
their houses and wreck the works. and
even murder a few members of the
boycotted union to teach them they
must obey the orders of organized
Capital?"
1t would certainly be fair for the
company to do these things if lawful
for the Labor Trust to do them.
In such a case under our laws the
boycotted union could apply to our
courts and the courts would order the
company to cease boycotting and try
ing to ruin these union men. Suppose
tf1ereupon the company should sheer
at the court and in open defiance con- |
tinde the unlawful acts in a persistent, !!
carefully laid out plan, purposely in
tended to ruin the union and force its
members into poverty. What a howl I
would go up from the union demand |
ing that the courts protect them and /
punish their law-brealliRg oppressors. /
Then they would praise the courts and /
go on earning a living protected from |
ruin and happy in the knowledge that .
the peoples courts could defend them.
How could any of us receive prOtec-
ton from law-breakers unless the
courts have power to, and do punish
such men.
The court is placed in position where
il must do one thing or the other
punish men who persist in defying it's
peace orders or go out Of service, let
anarchy reien and the more powerful
destroy the weaker.
Peaceable citizens sustain the courts
as their defenders, whereas thieves,
rorgers burglars, crooks of all kinds
and violent members of labor unions,
hate them and threaten violence if I
their members are punished for break {
ing the law They want the courts to
et them go free and at the same time
demand punishment for other men I
outside de union" when they break +:
he law Notice the above '
difference is to violent" members of '
abor unions. The great majority Of =;
he "unheard" union men are peacea- {
lie upright citizens. The noisy, VIC I
ent ones get into office and the lead
RS of The great Labor Trust know how i
o mass this kind of men, in labor