The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1916-03-31
WANTS Impair TlAL JUSTICE.

Much of the Common Law, Based Upon
judicial Preoedents, Is Antiquated
and Unjust-CoiIeotive Effort the
Main Source of the Wage Earner's
Power.
One thing which labor expects of the
courts and has right to demand is
that whatever right the employer may
enjoy a similar right Shall not be de-
MED to workmen, writes John F. Frey
In the American Federationist.
Labor also contends that the courts
In their Interpretation aud application
of the law shall go still further and
see to it that no unfair or preponderat-
ing advantage is given to any one of
the group into which our citizens are
divided so that no seeming equality
before the law shall operate to the ad-
vantage of one group and the injury of
another. The courts do not give equal
protection by merely assuming that
there is equality before the law. If
the law says that an elephant may step
upon a mouse no equality in practice
has been established if the courts hold
that the mouse shall have an equal op-
portunity of trampling upon the ele-
phant. The abstract reasoning that if
equal rights are given TO both justice
has been done fails to give the mouse
any protection whatever.
As society and industry are organiz-
ed today the individual is helpless.
The problems which affect the several
groups in society can only he worked
out through collective effort and labor
has the right to expect that as the
Industrial problems are being worked
out no right or privilege will be allow
ed to any one group which is not fully
granted to the others
Labor believes that the courts should
set aside as antiquated, impractical
and unjust much of the common law
based upon judicial precedents which
were established AT a time when the
conception of the relationship between
employers and workmen differed from
what it is at present
We have passed tile time OF owner
and slave. The implication contained
In the term master and servant" as
applied years ago is repugnant to our
present conception of the workers
rights as free men and citizens.
The industrial condition today, which
forces the worl,men to depend upon
the owners or controllers of tools and
capital for labor ana wages, differs as
much from the former condition which
existed as our steam railways contrast
with the period when overland trans
portation was by stagecoach and turn
pike. Instead of depending upon prece-
dents handed down at Il period when
conditions were far 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 if necessary have
the courage TO establish precedents by
their present decisions which will aim
toward establishing equality of rights,
privileges and opportunities under CON
ditions which affect the workpers to-
day.
If 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 individ-
ual effort as wholly inadequate and in
stead use their efforts collectively. If
they are to have an adequate voice in
regulating the terms and conditions
under which their labor is to be per-
formed they must do this through col
lective action They must establish
democracy in the industries SO that
government in the shop, like govern
.ment in the nation, shah be through
aud by the consent of the governed.
Three great struggles have taken
place among mankind to establish those
conditions of liberty which would make
men truly free Religious liberty and
political liberty have been firmly estab-
lished in the progressive and civilized
nations of the earth. Industrial liberty
still remains more of shadow than
substance for large portion of the
wage earners, and it is unfortunate
that many of the wage earners' efforts
to establish a necessary degree of in
dustrial liberty have been frustrated
through judicial decisions which seem
ingly have for their foundation the be-
lief that what labor desired to accom-
plish in freeing itself was an interfer-
ence with or an injury to some prop
erty right of capital Industrial de-
mocracy or industrial liberty, call 1t by
any term we wish, the condition where
the workmen's rights will be as sacred
ly protected as the rights of capital or
property, is coming 1t is at hand.
Labor has the right to expect that our
courts win assist rather than retard
the growth and the application of the
true principles Of democracy in the in
hustries
Triple Wage Increase.
The Florence Iron works, Florence,