The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-07-24


 The EonhnIesfon on Industrial Rela- tfonsi IS acting wi sely in making care full inquiries as 1t g6es along ln the exantnation of recent Industrial dis tlirbancess to see to whae extent If any. the law Is being vio1ated by exec courts in denxing to strikers the fun darnentaI prot ion of the Bill of Rights
 Our censti ions both state and na- tionaI, of antee to every one freed ona 9f aApeea1s the right of as- sembIy, the right to inc writ of habeas corpus, freedom of lhe press, and the like all of which are ancient liberties of the English people. considered by our forsfathers absolutely essential to an American denoerac1
 Are FundannentaI Raets
 practical ?''
 Tn all the recent industrial disturb ances, including those in Isawrence in West Virginia, i'm Paterson, in Colo rado, things have been done which as given in the press at the time. would indicate that the Bill of Rights which includes all these constituti ionaI lfber- ties to which have referreds was not considered practical No conserva- tive public opinion has as yet been aroused since these violations cir they have been such1 of the Bi1l Of Rights have applied only to disconf tented poor people In the course of industrial dis turbances
 Most Of the court decisions by which these constitutional rights seem to have been denied have been made by Judges in petty courts whose Judicial opinions as such are quite negligible from the Standpoint of the law but far from negliEibIe from the stand point Of the working peopfe affected by them
 Take. for example, the Paterson de- cision by the local magistrate in the Scott case. If 1t had been affirmed in the supreme court of New Jersey. the liberty of the press would have been a dead letter in New Jersey. Similar decisions have been made by the police courts in Massachusetts branches of the Bill of Rights.
 Colorado and West Virginia.
 These decisions and the action of local executive and police officers, through which these decisions arise all seem to come from an idea that the Bill of Rights is not practical, in it's application at least to this large class Of foreigners who form the striking masses sof a majority of these indus trial disputes Colorado has apparent ly decided in a. number or cases that the Bill of Rights is not practical. and outrages upon those rights have been so frequent, if one may judge by re- cent magazine articles as to arouse the question as to whether, so far as the working class is concerned, a re-. publican form or government exists in that state.
 West Vfrginia. through it's governor, established a military tribunal in de- fance of a constitution which clearly declares that no such tribunal should ever be established in the state, and this tribunal denies the writ of habeas corpus in defiance Of a constitution which expressly forbids that it should ever be denieds The practical execu- tive saw that action was necessary to e-establish order, and. having reach ed that conclusion, he concluded that it was advisable to suspend the con stitution so far as the striking miners were concerned, and the highest court of West Virginia sustained him in what he did.
 Nfili4ary Power Challenged.
 As conservative an authority as ex- Chief Justice Cullen, of the New York Court of Appeals, has characterized these decisions in language which a judge rarely uses concerning decisions of the highest court of another state. He declared in an address before the New York State Bar Association in January of this year:
 '-These decisions exalt the military power beyond any height hitherto known in this country. They assert the power of the military at the un- controlled discretion of a single man to dispose of the life and liberty Of any person within the state, not by way of detention till the termination of an insurrec&ton nor where life is taken in the actual clash of arms. but purely as a punishment for acts which may not be offenses at all by the law, or. if offenses. subject to slight penal