The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1919-12-05
Washington Letter.
WILSON FOOLED LABOR
IN INJUNCTION SUIT

AlN ANJ ONS11OIN QUIZ
Clayton Act Was Used in 1916 to Help
Get Vote of Workers for Dem
ocratic Ticket
Especial Correspondence.)
Washington, d. Cit is the con-
sensus of opinion in political circles
in the National Capital that the Will
son Administration has irreparably
lost its hold upon labor because of it's
use of the injunction in the coal strike
after its promise, written into the
Clayton antitrust act, not to do so.
Just as the President in 1916 gave
an implied promise to keep the coun-
try out of war and failed to do so be-
cause of circumstances which he and
others had foreseen, and just as he
repeatedly asserted on the stump ear
lier in the year that the league of ma
tions covenant would end all future
wars in spite of preparation in sew
eral parts Of the globe. for conflict, SO
put through Congress an injunction
law which is now abandoned in face
of the necessity of getting coal.
Labor had for years been making a
vain attempt to limit the use of the
injunction by the courts in labor dis
putes as a means of protecting prop
erty and placing strikers at dis
advantage. In 1914 its leaders were
therefore delighted when the Clayton
act included the following provision:
"That no restraining order or in
junction shall be granted by any court
of the United States, or a Judge or
judges thereof, in any case between
an employer and employees, or be-
tween employers and employees, or
between employees, or between per-
son employed and persons seeking en-
ployment, involving, or growing out of
dispute concerning terms or condi-
tions of employment, unless necessary
to prevent irreparable injury to prop
erty, or to a property right, of the
party making the application, for
which injury there is no adequate
remedy at law, and such property or
property right must be described with
particularly in the application, which
must be in writing and sworn to by
the applicant or by his agent or at
torney."
Though the war has been over for
more than a year, Judge Anderson's s
injunction was, granted because of
the application - Of the government,
through the Attorney General, based
upon the terms of the Lever war act
to prevent any attempt to limit the
production and distribution Of food
and fuel. 1t has been particularly dis
tasteful to the mine workers because
of the promise made in the law and
not kept, as because violence to prop
erty had not been resorted to and the
injunction was issued even before the
strike began. Miners and all union
workers are therefore incensed at the
Administration which made it's in
junction legislation one Of the bases
for it's plea for support from labor
that and the Adamson law and "thank
God for Wilson, he kept us out of
war;"
What makes union labor all the
hotter is the following statement is
sued by Secretary of the Treasury
Carter Glass:
Goal operators generally in the
United States in the years 1914 and
1915 lost money when normal deple-
tion and depreciation are taken into
consideration. What is meant by this
is that proper item in fixing costs, is
depreciation of plant and depletion of
the cost or value of the coal in the
Z, ground.
"In 1913 conditions were not so good
in the Appalachian and central COM
petitive districts, profits being reduc-
ed 25 to 80 per cent less than for the
preceding year, the range being from
Is to 800 per cent on invested capital
In the West conditions in 1918 were
better than in 1917, the profits in the
Rocky Mountain districts ranging as
high as 400 per cent on invested cap
ital.
"Unoficial figures for 1919, incom.
plete of course, indicate that profits
Of the operators are less than fol-
1918, some of the operators. claiming
to have actually lost money"