The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1917-12-28

the industrial conditions that brought
on the strike, the employers de
pending on hysteria and the SYM
pathetic ears of corporation-traine
judiciary to secure for them an in
junction against fellow citizens en-
gagged in an effort to improve the
condition of wage-earners. Why is
it that an employer can get the aid
of courts to resist the efforts of
wage-earners to improve the condi-
tions in industry, while at the same
time the wage-earners can get no
help from courts to bring about such
Improvement? Are the courts for
the employers only, or are the wage
earners negligent in invoking their
power?
A political campaign approaches.
The year 1913 will be one in which
legislatures and courts will be par
TALLY or wholly elected by the votes
of sovereign citizens who own no
man king save their own conscience.
We have enjoyed, or, rather suffered
from the usurpation of power by
courts almost wholly in sympathy
with the buyers of labor, buyers
who regard it and treat it as com
modify, in spite of the high-sounding
dictum of the Clayton act We have
suffered from the indifference, even
the antagonism, of legislative bodies
made up of business and professional
men, politicians and plain blockheads.
And nine-tenths of the population is
made up of these who are poor,
who are wage-earners or agricul-
turists, who are victims of the legis-
lation called into being by vested
interests, predatory and corporate
interests, while the producing and la
boring elements are represented in
these legislative bodies by an oc-
casional Johnny Campbell or D. P.
Reid. Bearing in mind our su-
perior numbers and our minimum
of representation in legislative bod
les, and also our entire lack of rep
resentation in the judiciary, one
may well inquire where we get our
excess of asininity.
Did not the people of this state
at the polls repudiate the anti-picket-
ing measure enacted by the late but
little lamented legislature? They
surely did that very thing. Did
the courts hearken to the voice of
the people? Not so you could no.
tice it. When the mill companies
rushed into lower courts for in
functions against the timber work
ers and the shingle weavers in their
recent effort to establish the eight
hour day in the lumber industry,
unions, as unions, were absolved by
the courts, but union men were pun
ished for violating judge-made in
functions. And the repudiattion by
the sovereign voting strength of the
state of the anti-picketing measure
had about as much bearing on the
situation as a fly on a cartwheel.
We hear a lot in these days of
war about the necessity of the wage
earners giving loyal support to the
Government. 1t is being given.
Wage -earners and their unions, in
spite of cost of living mounting
at rapid rate to record prices, while
wage increases creep slowly upward,
are buying Liberty Bonds and Thrift
Stamps and giving their money to
the Red Cross and their sons to the
battlefield. But none of the wage
earners have bee n summoned to
Washington to answer to charges of
profiteering, while Presidents Com
missions investigating strikes and
labor troubles invariably, in their
settlement, compel the unwilling buy
er of labor to grant wage increases
and other improvements. Have you
heard of any arbitration board ad-
vising a reduction of wages or a
lengthening of hours?
We hear a lot about being pa
triotic, and if the conduct of the
wage-earners is not and has not
been patriotic, then the word is a
Pigment Of imagination, diatribe on
common sense. The wage -earners
are in truth, the only ones who have
been patriotic. True patriotism is
sacrifice for the common good. How
can one sacrifice if his share of
wealth prevents any sacrifice except
that of a false pride?
While the winter is upon us, while
we ponder over the struggle in the
blood-run trenches of France that
liberty may not die on this earth,
that democratic government and not