El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-06-14
.HE conviction Of Patrick QuinIan,

m he conviction Of Patrick Quinlan,
the J. ". ". agitator, by a
Paterson, n. J., jury, was fol-
lowed by the usual cutlery among the
members Of that organization. says the
New York Evening Post SO far as
their evowed grounds or protest are
concerned, the issue they raise turns
on a question Of fact The indictment
charged that Quinlan on the opening
day Of the silk strike last February
made q motion in meeting OF
strikers that they ego to the silk mills
parade the streets, and club the work
ers out Of the mtlls-draS them out,
no matter how they got them out
On the question Of fact, the jury pro-
nOuuced its verdict when 1t found
Quinlau guilty as charged in the in
dictmeuL" His 7 W. W associates de-
clare, with all possible Vehemence, that
he said nothing Of the kind, that the
whole thing is q -frame-up-" With this
phenomenon. all the world is familiar
in every criminal case that is affected
with a great public interest Becker
friends said the like. The four gun
men" sentenced in his wake were not
without defenders who made the same
protest Il know Quinlan is innocent"
SAYS Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Il can
swear IT with my life If necessary"
But everybody knows in his heart
that the matter really at issue is not
20 facts. Whatever the facts might
have been, the conviction Of an ]. W ".
leader for Indictment To- violence would
have been followed by precisely the
same kind of Outcry, the same kind
Of threatenings of vengeance. This
verdict is a class verdict" says Miss
FLYNN. They shout for law and pro-
peCty,' cries IreSca, but for human
life they say nothing. Tt is an outrage,
an outrage that is what II is" Does
anyone imagine for n moment that
their attitude is in the least affected
by the question whether Quinlan did
or did not incite 10 viOlenCe2 Does
not everybody know that they believe
violence to be justifia5iC. that they
welcome il whenever It can promote
their purposes The issue really be-
fore the people OF New Jersey is not
whether Quinlan is guilty, but whether
the law is supreme, It should be
made Is clear as possible that there
viii be no trifling with the power
Of the law, no concession to the
lists
What is true OF Paterson is equally
IT. or many other places in the COun-
try Nor is there anything new about
this necessity for the laW-abiding Cftf-
zenship OF the country TO assert itself
1t existed, on gigantic scale. at the
time OF the railroad troubles Of 1877. It
rose 10 extraordinary dimensions dur
ing the disorders of 1894 which had
their center at Chicago, and which at
and security Of the whole country.
Viewed from the standpoint Of external
magnitude, there is nothing apparently
In prospect now that is at all cOmDar-
able TO those experiences on a
smaller and yet a very serious, scale. I
the conflict between labor violence
ana the law has presented itself in
almost countless instances and in
scores Of cases both the extent and
the intensity Of the trouble have been
1ar greater than anything with which
the country has recently been con-
Lonteo- But there IS one respect in I
which the present situation offers
ground for sOlicitude that has hitherto Z
Deen absent, or of minor importance /
Inc movement for far-reaching IeEaI
and administrative changes bearing
upon labor conditions has been accom- /
panied by widespread relaxing of I
fundamental convictions concerning the Z
status Of the law itself and Of the in
strumenralties for its enforcement
NJ TN this great movement, On its broa1
mes we are IN hearty sympathy; but /
the confusion Of thought and the weak
enlng Of the civic morale that have so 1
largely gone with it constitute a seri-