Evening star., 1914-07-11
INDUSTRIAL BOARD
HAS VITAL ISSUES
George W. AIger Calls Atten-
ton to Commissions I'M
portant Work.
RECENT LABOR TROUBLES
SUBJECTS FOR INQUIRY
Must Judge Whether Bill of Rights
Is Being Disregarded in Ap-
plication to Strikers.

George W. Alger draws attention to
work the new commission on industrial
relations is doing in an article he has
prepared. entitled The Bill Of Rights:
Do Police, Mayors and Courts Violate
the Law?" which is printed In the Sur
vey.
Mr. AlSer discusses recent industrial
disturbances in Lawrence, Mass; in
West Virginia, in Paterson, n. j., and in
Colorado, endeavoring to ascertain
whether ancient liberties of the people
and the press are In danger in the United
States. He points out that:
'If the commission on Industrial re-
lations can so far assist us by getting
us the actual facts, so that we may
judge whether in its fundamentals the
bill of rights is being disregarded in its
application to strikers in Industrial dis
putes. it will aid a conservative body of
opinion to crystalline itself and make its
opinion felt"
Mr.. Alger. in his article, says:
''The commission on Industrial relations
is acting wisely In making careful in
quiries as it goes along in the examina
ton of recent Industrial disturbances to
see to what extent, if any, the law is be-
ficers and by the courts. In denying to
strikers the fundamental protection of
the bill of rights.
GUARANTEES of Institutions.
Our constitutions, both state and ma
tional of course. guarantee to every one
freedom of speech, the right Of assem-
bly,, the right to the writ of habeas
flyo
all OF which are ancient liberties of the
English people, considered by our fore
fathers absolutely essential to an Ameri-
can democracy.
In all the recent industrial disturb
ances including those in Lawrence, in
West Virginia, in Paterson, in Colorado,
things have been done which, as given in
the press at the time, would indicate that
the bill Of rights, which includes all these
constitutional liberties to which / have
referred. was not considered practical
NO conservative public opinion as yet
has been aroused, as these violations,
If they have been such, of the bill of
rights have applied only to discontented
poor people in the course OF industrial
disturbances.
Most Of the court decisions by which
these constitutional rights seem to have
been denied have been made by judges
as such are quite negligible from the
standpoint Of the law, but far from
negligible from the standpoint of the
working people affected by them.
Paterson Decision Quoted.
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. che lib
erty Of the press would have been a
dead letter in New Jersey. Similar de-
cisions have been made by the police
courts in Massachusetts, and in New York
on other branches of the bill Of rights.
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 of a ma
tority Of these Industrial disputes. Col
orado has apparently decided in a num-
ber of cases that the bill of rights is
not practical, and outrageS upon those
rights have been SO frequent, if one may
Judge by recent magazine articles, as to
raise the question as to whether, go
far as the working class is concerned, a
republican form of government exists in
that state
West Virginia. through it's governor,
established military tribunal in de-
fiance 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 cor
pus in defiance of a constitution which
expressly forbids that 1t should ever be
denied. The practical executive saw that
action was necessary to re-establish Or
he concluded that it was advisable to
suspend the constitution SO far as the
striking miners were concerned, and the
highest court of West Virginia sustained
him in what he did.
Rare Language by Jurist.
"As conservative an authority as for
mer 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 uncontrolled dis
cretion of a single man to dispose of the
state, not by way of detention till the
termination Of an insurrection, nor where
life is taken in the actual clash of arms.
but purely as punishment for acts
which may not be ofenses at all by the
law. or, if offenses, subject to slight pen
alties.'
1T is true conservatism to regard the
bill of rights as something fundamental,
as belonging to all Of us. which cannot
exist at all If it is denied to one class
and preserved only to a more prosperous
class, which economically needs 1t least
There are many of US who have no
sympathy whatsoever with the class of
agitators who are today shouting for
free speech, believing them to be insin-
cere and lawless in their purposes The
mere fact that we do not sympathize
with them is no reason why we should
permit any Of the fundamental guaran-