The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1919-07-04
4. F. OF |. CONVENTION PASSES
WELL-CONS|DERED LEGISLATION
Continued from Page One)

determine their own destinies. While
proud of our accomplishments in
behalf of peoples Of Europe, we have
nevertheless been neglectful of sin
lister influences constantly at work in
our body polite, which are slowly
but surely sapping the virus of in
dependence from our institutions
and are creating an autoCracy equal
In power and authority to that cX-
erCised by the most tyrannical deS-
pot ever known to human history.
"Our nation is founded on the
principle that every citizen is a SOW
ereiEn unto himself and that the
powers of government extend only
to that degree to which the consent
of the governed has been freely,
fully and fairly obtained. The gov
ernmental authority of our nation
has been so divided and designed to
prevent the usurping of authority
and power by any one department of
government not fairly and freely
delegated to it by the expressed Will
of the people. Despite all these pre-
cautions, to safeguard individual
liberty and freedom of action, de-
spite the fact that the early constitu-
tional convention denied the right to
our courts to pass on the constitu-
tionality of laws enacted by Con-
gress, our courts and judges have
been slowly and surely disregarding
these restrictions and limitations
and now freely and uninterruptedly
exercise powers which even the
monarchs and kaisers dared not ex-
ercise with all their claims to power
by inherent divinity.
THE power of our courts to de-
clare legislation enacted unconsti-
tutional and void is a most fragrant
usurpation of power and authority
by our courts and is a reputation
and denial of the principle of self
government recognized now as a
world doctrine. The continued eX-
ercise of this unwarranted power is
a blasphemy on the rights and
claims of free men of America.
This usurpation of power by our
courts to subordinate the legislative
and executive departments to their
will and compel the activities of
free people to their whims and die
tates is paralleled and equalled only
by the further usurpation of author
ity by our courts to legislate and
punish people in direct defiance of
constitutional safeguards to personal
liberty and freedom of action. By
the issuance of injunctive DEGREES by
our courts, by the restraint they
place upon the normal and rightful
activities of a free people, by the
furnishing of free men in the eXer-
else of their constitutional rights
without opportunity to a trial by
jury, by the removal of safeguards
thrown around the individual against
extreme and excessive punishments
and the denial of an opportunity of
executive clemency, our courts have
vested themselves with power
greater than any despot ever here
tofore possessed.
The fate of the sovereignty of
American people again hangs in the
balance. 1t is inConceiVable that
such an autocratic, despotic and tyr
annical power can long remain in a
democracy. One or the other must
ultimately give way, and your COM
mittee believes that this Convention
should declare that as wage earners,
citizens of a free and democratic re-
public, we shall stand firmly and
conscientiously on our rights as free
men and treat all injunctiVe DEGREES
that invade our personal liberties as
unwarranted in fact, unjustified in
law and Illegal as being in violation
of our constitutional safeguards, and
follow.
your committee further recon-
mends that immediate steps be taken
by the Executive Council and by all
State organizations for the early en-
actment of adequate laws to deny
the further usurpation of these I'M
warranted powers by our courts, and
that Congress be petitioned to i'm
peach all judges from office who
may hereafter exercise government
tai functions and authority not eX-
pressly delegated to them. 1t is the
viewpoint of your committee that
the widest possible publicity should
be given this subject and that the
pumlic mind and conscience should
be fully aroused to the dangers con-
fronting the liberties of our people
to the end that the judicial autocracy
and despotism which has been
slowly developing in our midst will
come to an early and definite end"