The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1917-06-29
Continued from page y


?. That congress enact a statute,
or, if necessary, initiate constitu-
tional amendment, specifically pro-
hbiting the courts from declaring
legislative acts unconstitutional.
3. That congress enact that in all
federal cases where trial is by jury,
all qualified voters in the district
shall be included in the list from
which jurors are selected, and that
they shall be drawn by the use Of
a wheel or other device designed to
promote absolute impartiality. That
a similar provision be made for all
state courts
A. That congress provide for the
drastic regulation of private detective
agencies doing business in more than
one state, restricting their activities
to the bona fide functions of de
tecting crime, or, if this should not be
feasible, prohibit them altogether as
private enterprise
5. The enactment by congress of
statute prohibiting the transporta-
ton of men from state to state either
under arms or for the purpose of
arming them as guards or as agents
Of either employers or employees.
6. The enactment by congress of
statute prohibiting the interstate
shipment of cannon, machine guns,
and similar weapons, except when
consigned to military agencies of the
state or federal governments.
Denial of the Right to Organize
Organization is fundamental and
necessary for the freedom and we'll
being of the workers. For it is
obvious that people can free them
selves from oppression only by or
gained force. No people could
gain or maintain their rights or lib
critics singly, and any class of citi-
zens in the state subject to unjust
burdens or oppression can gain re-
lief only by combined action"
The extent to which the workers
are oppressed and subjected to in.
justice and industrial despotism has
been shown in detail already. The
message of the commission to the
workers is that they can free them
selves only by organized action. The
commission says bluntly that the
workers cannot and must not ex-
pect freedom, justice or fair division
of the products of industry through
the good will of employers, or
through legislation by the state or
nation. What the workers gain they
must win for themselves. They are
responsible for what they suffer.
In the words of Chairman Walsh:
"The responsibility for these evil con-
ditions in industry, and such blame
as attaches thereto, cannot be held
to rest upon employers, since in
the maintenance of the evils of low
wages, long hours and bad factory
conditions, and in their attempts to
gain control of economic and politi-
cal advantages which would promote
their interests, they have merely fol-
lowed the natural bent of men in
volved in the struggle of COMPETE
tive industry. The responsibility
for the conditions which have been
described above, we declare, rests
primarily upon the workers, who,
blind to their collective strength and
oftentimes deaf to the cries of their
fellows, have suffered exploitation
and the invasion of their most sacred
rights without resistance. A large
measure of responsibility must, how
ever, attach to the great mass of
citizens who, though not directly in.
volved in the struggle between CAPT
tai and labor, have failed to realize
that their own prosperity is depend
ent upon the welfare of all classes
of the community, and that their
rights are bound up with the rights
of every other individual. But I'M
til the workers themselves realize to
the full their collective power, no ac-
ton, whether governmental or al
truistic, can work any genuine and
lasting improvement"
Collective action on the part of the
workers has been rendered difficult,
and in many cases impossible because
when they have sought by organic
ing to lift themselves from helpless
ness, to wiring living wages from
their employers, they have found ar
rayed against them not only the
massed power of capital, but every
arm of the government that was
created to enforce guarantees of
equality and justice.
1t is a first duty, therefore, not
only to the workers, but of all citi-
zens who sympathiZe with them in