Valdez daily prospector., 1914-12-01

ed and detested dogma-the power Of
 suspension. Nevertheless it was true.
 Since that time, in three other states,
 the workingman has settled his trou-
 bles out of court where counsel may
 be heard and witnesses testify, settled
 them at the point of the bayonet.
 What a glutton arbitrary power is for
 the rights and the interests of the
 weak. It generally come forward at
 the bidding of the rich and the pow
 erful and preys upon the interests and rights of the poor and the helpless. Why the Appeal To the Bayonet?
 These men who came to me were
 asking for what? They were asking
 for hearing in the courts, before : this tribunal, whose judgments they informed me they were willing to
 take. They were praying for the common-law court and its machinery
 just as it had been worked out and l fought for in the humble days of our English ancestors to the humble days of their descendants on Paint and Cab- in Creek in one of the great com monwealths of this union. And what was the answer to the charge when we arrived upon the ground? When we asked why have these men charg- ed with offenses under the statute and guaranteed trial in a common law court been denied the right of the humblest citizen when charged with crime, what was the answer? The answer was not that riot and war had closed the courts, but that excitement and feeling in the community would render them ineffective in all proba- bility. When we inquired further, the fear was that these laboring men would likely be acquitted. What, be- fore the courts, acquitted under the processes and according to the man. ner that guilty men have been pun ished and innocent men acquitted for ten centuries? Then they must be innocent. But the logic seemed to be that, guilty or innocent, they must be punished. Force must be established and certainty as to results must be had.
 The Courts the Poor Mans Only De- fense.
 Do not the workingmen understand that in the end their fight will be to maintain these courts in all their pur ity, independence, and strength? Do they not understand that if we can not have somewhere an independent tribunal free from the passions and conflicts of contestants to distribute justice, that civilization must do again what it has done in the past crumble and fall? Does not the av- craze citizen of this country, whoever and wherever he is, understand that in the end he must find justice here in these tribunals or not find it at all? Does he not understand that after they are gone and law and or der have departed he will shortly come to be the victim of violence and cruelty and injustice, the plaything of arbitrary power.
 The fruits of industry, the wages of o;1> of ;tp1 are all affected fostered, encouraged, and sustained to the extent that or der and law obtain throughout the land While a strong and fearless government may sometimes seem quick to prevent those steps and block those paths which seem to lead to violence and bloodshed, yet ultimate ly the benefits to flow from such pro cedure must rebound to the peace and hapipness, the contentment and prosperity of the whole people. It was Ii bknecht, the great Socialist,
 who truly said, Violence has been for thousands of years a reactionary factor" Show me a country without courts fully equipped in every way to deal with all the intracicies of each
 particular case as the facts appear, show me a country with it's business and industry under the clamp of bu-
 reaucracy, its courts weakened, cow
 ardly, and powerless, and will show you a country where the laborer is no better than a slave-the miserable.
 ignorant, unclad dupe and plaything of
 arbitrary power.