The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1917-05-18

following Charter of Freedom" con-
corning labor's position, rights and
obligations in the immediate time, was
written by Frank ?. Walsh, Chairman
of the Committee on Industrial Re-
lations, for the April number of the
American Railway Employees Jour
nal:
an view of the wide circle of dem
ocracy growing out of the war, such
as the shaking off of the Romanoff
in Russia and the insistent demand
for more genuine democracy in Eng
land; with the mighty protest against
the German autocracy, what will be
the contribution of America in the
onward march toward the genuine
freedom of mankind?
"The old political bulwarks have
become obsolete. Our advance must
be the winning of industrial freedom.
The word liberty has vastly differ
ent meaning today from what it had
when the original thirteen colonies
threw off the English yoke. We
fear no monarch, and are not threat
ened by an individual autocrat. The
autocracy which enslaves the millions
of today is based upon money, and its
representatives are the masters of
industry. A new charter of human
liberty must be the following:
Ask Court to Abdicate
l. 'That the supreme court of the
United States, and the supreme courts
of the several states, should at once
abdicate the autocratic power which
they have usurped, in declaring laws
passed by the people to be unconstitu-
tional and void.
2. "a general amnesty should be
declared liberating all industrial
prisoners of war now confined in jails
and penitentiaries throughout the
United States.
"The number of men and women
thus confined throughout the United
States will be found to be simply ap-
palling; many of them convicted for
alleged violations of injunction; many
on trumped-up charges of crime
through the state courts, and many
under city ordinances.
3. "That no man shall hereafter be
held to have lost his liberty or prop
erty by due process of law unless all
questions of fact in his case have been
passed upon by a jury democratially
selected.
"By this is meant that jury in
every court, state and federal, must
be drawn from jury wheel which
contains the name of every qualified
juror in the county or district in
which the case is tried.
"In virtually every jurisdiction in
the United States, even where the
property qualification does not exist,
the assumption is INDUCED that some
official has the right to select So
called good jurors
Trial by Jury Mockery
'Trial by jury is sham and mock
cry unless every man, high and low,
rich and poor, is eligible to jury SER
vice and actually serves his turn
The jury list from which the jury
was drawn that sent Tom Mooney to
death in San Francisco was taken
from list of approximately two
thousand persons, selected by the
judges. The jury list in San Fran
cisco should amount at the lowest es-
innate, if democratically selected, to
at least one hundred thousand persons.
A house to house canvass should be
made for jury lists in precisely the
same way as the city directory is
compiled.
'In Kansas City we have a close
approach to a Economically selected
jury, where the names are taken from
the voting list and the personal tax
roll 1t is a matter of such vast i'm
portance for the fair administration
of law that an efficient method should
be adopted to get the name of every
qualified juror in large wheel, from
which all jurors could be drawn for
the trial of both civil and criminal
cases.
4. Claws should be enacted in all
the states and by the United States
Congress covering interstate com
merce, making it an offense punish
able both by fine and Imprisonment
to discharge a man or woman or dis
criminate against them in any way
on account of joining or belonging to
a labor organization. These laws
should be practically the same as the
Kansas law which was declared un-
constitutional by the supreme court
of the United States, the judges there