The labor advocate. [volume] (Cincinnati, Ohio) 1912-1937, 1916-04-22
WHAT LABOR EXPECTS
FROM OUR COURTS

As society and industry are organized
today the individual is helpless. The
problems which affect the several
groups in society can only be worked
out through collective effort, and labor
has the right to expect that as the in
dustrial problems are being worked
out, no right or privilege will be al
lowed to any one group which is not
fully granted to the others.
Labor believes that the courts should
set aside as antiquatcd. impractical and
Unjust much OF the common law based
upon judicial prccedents which are es-
tablished at a time when the conception
OF the relationship between employers
and workmcn differed from what it is
at present.
We have passed the time OF owner
and slave: the implication contained in
the term master and servant as APP
piled years ago, is repugnant to our
present conception OF the workers
rights as free men and citizens.
The industrial condition today. which
forces the workmen to depend upon the
owners or controllers OF tools and capi
tai for labor and wages. differs as much
from the former condition which eX-
listed as Our steam railways contrast
with the period when overland trans
portation was by stagecoach and turn
| pike. Instead OF depending upon preC-
edents handed down at period when
conditions were lar different than at
present, labor expects OF the American
courts that they shall. first OF all, make
a study OF the actual conditions affect
ing labor today. and, il necessary, have
the courage to establish precedents by
their present decisions which will aim
towards establishing equality OF rights,
privileges and opportunities under con-
ditions which affect the workers today.
Ii the workers. who compose the
great mass OF our people, are to make
progress. they must work out their sal
vation largely through their own initia-
tive. They must abandon the individual
effort as wholly inadequate and instead
use their efforts collectively. If they
are to have an adequate voice in regu-
lating the terms and conditions under
which their labor is to be performed.
they must do this through collective
action: they must establish democracy
in the industries so that government in
the shop. like government in the ma
ton. shall be through and by the con-
sent OF the governed,
lnree great struggles nave takel
place among mankind to establish those
conditions OF liberty which would make
men truly free. Religious liberty ant
political liberty have been firmly estab.
lished in the progressive and civilized
nations OF the earth Industrial liberty
still remains more of a shadow than a
substance for large portion OF the
wage -earncrs. and it is unfortunate that
many OF the wage-earners' efforts to es-
tablish a necessary degree OF industrial
liberty have been frustrated through
judicial decisions which seemingly have
for their foundation the belief that
what labor desired to accomplish in
freeing itself was an interference with
or an injury to some property right OF
capital Industrial democracy or indus
trial liberty, call it by any term we wish,
the condition where the workmen ;
rights will be as sacredly protected as
the rights OF capital or property, is COM
ing. 1t is at hand Labor has the right
to expect that our courts will assist
rather than retard the growth and the
application OF the true principles OF de-
mocracy in the industries.-JoHN p
FREY. Editor Iron Molders' Journal.