The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-01-14
KNOCKING THE COURTS.

Samuel Gompers charges that the
supreme court of the United States
has Joined forces withS"the anti-union
shop movement" in its decision that
the Clayton act did not make legal
secondary boycott as waged against
the Duplex Printing Press company.
He calls it blow at efforts for hu-
man freedom.
Always there has been "a tendency
on the part of individuals and organ
izations to approve the Judgment of
terests and denounce it when it went
against them. Shakespeare recognizes
this tendency in the Merchant of
Venice" when he portrays Shylock as.
giving hearty approval to the judg-
ment of Portia, until it began to go
against him.
For years Mr.. Gompers has been
seeking immunity from the laws for
himself and his followers while they
are engaged in efforts to gain their
own ends. Those efforts reached a
elimination in 1913 when there was
inserted in the sundry civil appropri-
atoms bill, in connection with the item
making appropriations to enable the
department of justice to enforce the
antitrust laws. a provision as follows:
THAT no part of this money shall be
spent in the prosecution of any organ
ization or individual for entering into
in view the increasing of wages, short
ening of hours, or lettering the condi-
ton of labor. or for any act done in
furtherance thereof not in itself I'M
lawful"
President Taft in vetoing that bill
wrote:
''Under the law of criminal conspir-
acy acts lawful in themselves may be-
come the weapons whereby an unlaw-
full purpose is carried out and accom-
plished. This provision is class
legislation of the most vicious sort
|. 1t Is because am unwilling to
be party to writing such a provision
into the laws of this republic that I
am unable to give my assent to a bill
which contains this provision"
Altho that particular bill failed to
provision has appeared in every sun
dry civil law that President Wilson has
approved.
Encouraged by the favorable atti-
tude of the president and the majority
in congress, Mr.. Gompers and his
friends went step farther and OBJ
tanned the inclusion in the so-called
Clayton antitrust act, approved by Mr.
Wilson October Is, 1914. of a provision
reading in part as follows: Nothing
contained in the antitrust laws shall
be construed to forbid the existence
and operation of labor organ
izations, or to forbid or re-
strain individual members of such or
CARNATIONS from lawfully carrying out
the legitimate objects thereof; nor
shall such organizations, or the mem
bers thereof. be held or construed to
be illegal combinations or conspiracies
in restraint of trade. under the anti
trust laws"
Regarding this portion of the Clay
ton act the court says: 1.-THE section
assumes the normal objects of a labor
organization to be legitimate, and de-
clares that nothing in the antitrust
laws shall be construed to forbid the
existence and operation of such organ
izations or to forbid their members
from lawfully carrying out their legit-
innate objects. But there is nothing
in the section to exempt such an or
ganization or its members from ac-
countability where it or they depart
from its legitimate objects and engage
in an actual combination or conspir-
acy in restraint of trade. And by no
fair or permissible construction can It
be taken as authorizing any activity
otherwise unlawful"
1t is probable that If the court had
held that the language referred to did
permit a certain class of society to
commit unlawful acts It would have
decreed< the law unconstitutional and
void.