The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1912-10-01
GOVERNMENT BY STRIKES

There have been many strikes for
at all. But now we have something
new in Lawrence, Massachusetts,,
where strike has been organized by
the leaders OF the Industrial Workers
OF the World against the proceedings
of the courts. The strikers in this
case object to the arrest and trial Of
two of their leaders. who are charged
with being accessories TO the murder
of woman millworker in Lawrence
during the former strike at that place.
And this is the sort of strike that no
one can defend.
1t is. Of course. quite possible that
the labor leaders who are about to be
tried are altogether innocent of the
crime charged against them. If so,
doubtless they will be acquitted Any
other presumption would be altogether
out of the question, because in Ameri-
can courts any one accused is far
more likely to be acquitted than found
guilty, especially if there is any rea.
sonable excuse for the acquittal, and,
indeed, often without reasonable excuse.
American juries and American courts
are not promo to unjust convictions.
Quite the contrary; unjust acquittals
are far more common.
This present Lawrence strike, there
| fore, is strike against law, against
| adJudlcature, and against the orderly
procedure of the Government. 1t is
n strike for anarchy, strike to turn
| over the processes of the Government
to an irresponsible mob. If success
| ful, it woulud take out of the hands Of
the court before the court has done
| with them, two men accused of a
cannot be tolerated, and is Of precisely
the same character as the mob rule
which would take out of the ju-
risdiction of the court an accused per-
SON and lynch him without trial. That
is a shocking tragedy, utterly inde-
fensible and wholly to be condemned
wherever the offense is committed. But
the other offense which this Lawrence
strike seems to stand for, is equally
to be reprehended. The courts must
be left to pursue their orderly proceed
ure without interruption from mobs
either bound on slaughter or on the
release of persons properly in the
hands of the court One form of mob
action is, 80 far as the law is con-
cerned, precisely as condemnable as
the other. The mob that will take a
prisoner from the hands Of court and
lynch him should be itself dealt with
severely by the court, and its leaders
rigidly punished. The other sort of
mob, that would take prisoner out
Of the hands of the court and free
him, should also be dealt with by
the court just as severely, in order
that the lesson that law and order
must prevail shall be sternly enforced
in this Republic.
There has been altogether too much
Of the mob spirit everywhere, and es-
pecially in connection with the pro-
cedure Of the courts. No section is
free from this sort of interference
with the court by the mob which takes
the law into its own hands and takes
the accused out Of the hands of the
officers. 1t is inconceivable that this
Lawrence mob should succeed in its
efforts, and it would be a grievous
thing for the State of Massachusetts,
if it should succeed; for when courts
are contemned and their authority
overridden, it is the ordinary citizen
that suffers the most, and the poor
man, otherwise defenseless, is the one
who is put under worse disability by
reason Of the mob spirit Government by
mob or riot is grievous thing; but
where an organized society undertakes
to exercise this mob government, then
there is nothing to do but to condemn
that society and its leaders without re-
serve; and whenever they commit an
overt act, that act should be punished
with the rigor that the law de.
| mands