Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-05-19

mends the adoption of the following
resolution:
Resolved, that the action of
Judge James G. Jenkins in issuing
said order Of December 10, 1893, be-
ing an order and writ of injunction
at the instance of the receivers of
the Northern Pacific Railroad Com
pany directed against the employees of
said railroad company and, in effect,
forbidding the employees of said
Northern Pacific Railroad Company
from quitting its service under the
limitations therein stated, and in issu-
ing similar order of December %
1898, in effect forbidding the officers
OF labor organizations, with which
said employees were affiliated, from
exercising the lawful functions of
their office and position was an op-
presslve exercise of the process of his
court, an abuse of judicial power, and
a wrongful restraint upon said en-
ployes and the officers of said labor
organizations; that said orders have
no sanction in legal precedent, were
an invasion of the rights of American
citizens and contrary to the genius
and freedom of American institutions;
and, therefore, deserving of the con-
demnation OF the representatives of
the American people,
The Railway Brotherhoods carried
the case to the United States Circuit
Court of Appeals and, on October /,
1894, Judge Harlan, Justice of the
Supreme Court, decided that:
Equity will not enjoin employees
of the railroad from quitting service.
Employees of railroad may lawfully
confer together upon the subject of
proposed reduction in wages and may
withdraw in body from such service
because of such reduction.
"a strike is not unlawful if it is
merely combination among en-
ployes having for its object their or
DERBY withdrawal in large numbers
or in body from their employers
service to accomplish some lawful
purpose.
IF two equal rights conflict it does
not, and cannot rest with any court
to declare which of these shall give
way. No court can subordinate the
right of labor to the right of the en-
ployer. Nor can any court declare
that capital shall abate any of its
rights of labor.
ut is not logical to say, that a
railroad is public highway and owes
a duty to the public, and that it must
be kept going-concern although it
prove unremuneratiye to the share
holders and at the same time shift
this duty over to the public from the
shoulders of the company and it's
shareholders to the wage earners,
who in any event can have no interest
in the profits.
THE workmen are not the actors;
the receivers are the aggressors. The
sole reason for the change is lack of
profit to the shareholders.
st would be an invasion of ones
natural liberty to compel him to work
for, or to remain in the personal
service of another. One who is placed
under such restraint is in the condi-
ton of involuntary servitude--a con-
dition which the supreme law of the
land declares shall not exist in the
United States, or in any place sub
ject to their jurisdiction.
Courts of equity have sometimes
sought to sustain a contract for serv-
ices requiring special knowledge OF
peculiar skill Equity will not compel
the actual affirmative performance oil
an employe of merely personal serv-
ices any more than it will compel ar
employer to retain in his personal
/ service one who, no matter for what
cause, is not acceptable to him fol
service of that character.
THE right of employees engaged t.
! perform personal service to quit that
service rests upon the same basis al
the right of an employer to discharge
him from further personal service"
Had congress given statutory sup
/ port to the report submitted by It's
committee which had investigated
Judge Jenkins injunction, or had il
been governed by Justice Harlan:
decision in which he reversed Judge
jenkins injunction, the fragrant abus.
es which have been inflicted upon
wage eaners by equity courts, both
state and federal. and their invasion
and negation of the most essential
/ rights to citizens solemnly guaran.
ted in the Constitution and the
Declaration of Independence, would
not have occurred.
As it is, we are compelled to ex-
anime record replete with evidence
that government by injunction, gov
eminent by man, has in many in
stances supplanted government BY
law in the United States, the equity
judges conscience" superseding the
guarantees of the constitution and the
law. ~
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