The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-12-11
RIGHTS OF LABOR AND EMPLOYER ARE DEFINED BY COURT Right to Organize Affirmed. Employer Can Operate
 "Open Shop"
DECISION COMES IN
 TWO COAL CASES
Gompers Declares Supreme Courts Decision Is Far Reaching and Unwar- rantable" in State
 ment Last Night

Washington, December 10.-De-
 cisions defining in general terms
 the rights of both organized labor
 today by the supreme court. While
 the right of workmen to organize
 for lawful purposes was reaf-
 firmed, the court held that em-
 ployers legally may operate their
 plants as .open shops" and pre-
 vent conspiracies to bring their
 nonunion employees into labor or
 ganizations.
 The opinions were rendered in the cases of the Hitchman Coal and Coke company and the Eagle Glass Manufac turing com ~any West Virginia, the court decid..lg thas 3th were entitled to operate their plants as "open shops and upholding injunctions issued by Judge A. J. Dayton restraining union officials from attempting to organize their employees. Lower court decrees holding that the United Mine Workers of America and the American Flint Glass Workers union were illegal or ganizations and that under the Sher- man law they were secret conspiracies in restraint of trade, were ignored by the supreme court opinion.
 Tn the TIitcnman case the majority of the court held that the officials of the miners union "deliberately and advisedly selected that method of en- larging the union membership which would inf1ict injury" upon the company and it's loyal employees, and declared that the conduct in so doing was un- lawful and malicious,
 The court also declared that "it is erroneous to assume that all measures which may be resorted to in the effort to unionize a mine are unlawful If they are peaceable, that is if they stop short of physical violence or coercion through fear of it.'' It added that 'the purpose of the defendants to bring about strike at the mine in order to compel plaintiff through fear of finan- cial loss to consent to the unioniza- tion of the mine as the lesser evil was an unlawful purpose
 The court divided in the Hitchman
 
 and Clark dissenting. No formal dis senting opinion was rendered except brief statement made by Justice Brandeis, who said he believed the union had right to do the things to which the other members of the court objected.
 Contempt proceedings instituted last month by the Hitchman Coal and Coke company against President Frank I. Hays of the Miners union and 15 oth- CT officials and members for alleged violations of the injunctions are still pending and, according to the com pany's counsel, will be pressed. The court today granted the defendants 60 days in which to present their case.
 Today's opinion was characterized in a statement issued tonight by Presi- dent Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor as "far-reaching and unwarrantable" He said through it John Mitchell, former president, and William B. Wilson former secretary treasurer of the miners international union, are stigmatized as conspira : tors Despite the opinion he declared the work of organizing the workmen of the country in order to reach our goal for better concept of not only political but industrial democracy will
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