Norwich bulletin., 1917-12-11
Decision Adverse
 to Labor Unions
RENDERED YESTERDAY BY THE
 SUPREME COURT
COURT DIVIDED 6 TO 3
Finding UphoIds Injunetions Restrain ing Union Officials From Attempting to Organize Employees in "Open Shops"-AII PeaeeabIe Measures Are Not Lawful.

Washington Dec. 10.-Decisions de- fining in general terms the rights Of
 both organized labor and the employer
 were rendered today by the supreme court While the right of WorkInen to organize for lawful purposes was re- affirmed, the court held that employ CTS legally may operate their plants as "open shops" and prevent conspiracies labor organizations.
 Entitled to Operate Open Shops. The opinions were rendered in the cases of the Hitchman Coal and Coke company and the Eagle Glass Manu featuring company of West Virginia, titled to operate their plants as ''open shops," and upholding injunctions is sued by Judge A. G. Dayton restrain ing union officials from attempting to decrees holding that the United Mine Workers of America and the American | Flint Glass Workers union were ilie- gal organizations and that under the Sherman law they were secret con | spiracies in restraint of trade were ignored by the supreme court opinion. All Peaeeabie Measures Not Legal. In the Hitchman case the majority 1 of the court held that the officials of 1 the miners union deliberately. and advisedly selected that method of en- i larging the union membership which would inhict injury upon the con- pany and it's loyal employees and de-
 clared that the conduct in so doing
 court also declared that it is 'errone-
 ous to assume that all measures which
 may be resorted to in the effort to
 unionize a mine are lawful if they are
 of physical violence or coercion
 through fear of it." It added that
 the purpose of the defendants to bring
 about a strike al the mine in order
 to compel plaintiff through fear of i financial loss to consent to the union-
 ization of the mine as the lesser evil | was an unlawful purpose
 l Three Justices Oissented.
 l The court divided in the Hitchman case six to three, Justices Brandeis. Holmes and Clark dissenting. No for Emal dissenting opinion vas rendered, .texcept brief statement made by Justice Brandeis. who said he be- l lieved the union had a right to do the tthings to which the other members of the court objected.
 1 Contempt Proceedings Pending. l Contempt proceedings instituted last l month by the Hitchman Coal and Coke 1 company against President Frank J. Hays of the miners union and fifteen other officials and members for alleged Iviolation Of the iniunctions are still 1pending and. according to the com pany's counsel, will be pressed. The {, court today granted the defendants ] sixty days in which to present their case.
 Gompers' View of Decision. l Today's opinion was characterized I in a sta atement issued tonight by Pres tident Samuel Gompers of the Ameri- can Federation of Labor as "far-reach- ling and unwarrantable." He said i through it John Mitchell, former pres iident, and William B. Wilson, former secretary treasurer of the miners in- iternational union, are stigmatized as iconspirators.- Despite the opinion, he declared, the work of organizing the 1 workmen of the country in order to l reach our goal for a better concept of not only political but industrial de- mocracy' will continue unabated.