Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-10-03
THE GUARANTEE OF FREE SPEECH

THE GUARANTEE OF FREE SPEECH
While some of the speakers at the labor mass meeting
held here Sunday to protest against the injunction granted
IN the railroad shipments strike left several %loopholes in
their arguments which showed a certain inconsistency, the
fundamental principle on which the mass meeting was
based is altogether sound.
When labor protests against a return to normally
and insists on retaining wartime wages it cannot object to
war time prices. As one of the speakers ~truthfully said, it
is impossible to get something for nothing. If the men
want something in the labor movement they must be will
ing to pay for it. This, of course, was intended to mean that
If the men want to have big wages and short hours they must
be willing to make the sacrifices that strikes call for in order
to get them. But it also means that if the men want big
wages and short hours they must be willing to pay the big
prices, big rents and big taxes. We cannot expect to have
wages stay up at the peak while everything else comes down.
It was brought out at the meeting that eighteen months
ago the building trades were receiving 1925 and $1.75 an
hour. To-day the employers, in some instances, are bidding
even higher than that for labor. But when these same
laborers who are receiving on an average OF S12 a day for
their work seek a house to live in and are compelled to pay
forty or fifty dollars a month for rent for a place that used
to rent for $25 a month, they object. Yet, when the cost of
building that house is so greatly increased and the cost OF
keeping the house in repair is so great on account OF the big
wages being paid labor, it is apparent that the landlord has
got TO get big rents to make even a nominal profit on his in
vsstment.
One of the speakers at the meeting glorifed in the fact
that the miners are back to work at war wages. Very we'll,
hut labor in general can find no fault if they are still COM
PEELED to pay war prices for their coal to keep themselves
warm this winter. In other words, we can't have war wages
without war prices.
But, after all, this was not the purpose of the meeting
at which all this matter was brought out. 1t was a meeting
to register a protest against the granting of a certain injunc-
ton, and here the speakers were on solid ground. Think
ing men and women cannot help but resent this attempt to
abridge free speech which is the greatest heritage that has
come down to us from the founders of the nation. The
trainers of the constitution which we all pretend to cherish
so highly. wrote into that famous document the following:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establish
ment of religion or expressing the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right
Of the people peacefully to assemble, and to petition the
government for a redress of grievances"
This constitutional guarantee of a free press and Tree
citizenship has made the United States the most enlightened
nation in the world. 1t was this guarantee that was taken
away bv the Injunction that was issued. To attempt, through
a court order, to prevent men meeting to discuss a matter
which they believe concerns their welfare; to prohibit them
from talking or even writing to one another on a great public
matter, is SO un-American in its purpose that not only labor,
but every citizen of this great republic who values MS OF her
liberties as guaranteed by the constitution, will rise up am
protest.
AS one of the speakers at the meeting Sunday declared,
IL IS the abuse of the injunction, not the injunction itself that
is objected to. There is a use for the injunction, but 1t
ought never to be used to prevent free speech or to curtall
the freedom of the press. When that abuse creeps IN then,
indeed. are the free institutions of America threatened.