The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-09-11
Government Seeks TIE Have
Rail Injunction Made Final.
Daugherty Supported by For
midable Legal Battery.
MAY REQUIRE SEVERAL DAYS
Twenty-Five Murders Included
in Conspiracy Charge.
Defense Counsel Says Unions
Not Guilty of Violence.

Chicago, Sept. 11.-Arguments in
the governments motion to make per-
manent the temporary injunction
against the rail strikers opened at
1885 o'clock this morning before Fed
eral Judge H. wilkerson. Blackburn
Esterline, assistant to the solicitor
general. opened for the government
with the formal reading of the list of
defendants on whom personal service
had been obtained.
Donald R. Richberg, attorney for B.
M. Jewell. president, and John Scott,
secretary treasurer of the railway
employees department, A. F. o. L.,
called attention to the motion he filed
Saturday asking dismissal of the in
junction so far as it relates to his cli-
ents and said it should take prece-
dence over the governments motion.
Mr.. Esterline objected after Rich
berg had stated his plea and moved
the court proceed to consider the gov
ernment petition. Wilkerson ruled
there was a distinction between a mo-
ton to dismiss the bill and a motion
to set aside the temporary restraining
order, and said he would hear the
strikers attorney on the former ques-
ton.
Says Strike Lawful
Mr.. Richberg declared in his open
ing statement that the acts involved
in the calling and conducting of the
strike were entirely lawful. The re-
straining order he said, was one the
court had no power to issue because
he maintained it is unconstitutional
| and violates the Clayton act. If the bill
| is stripped of it's conspiracy allegations
| he continued all that is left is bill to
enjoin criminal acts by unknown per-
sons who may or may not be members
OF the strikers organization.
The bill, Mr.. Richberg said, is based
on an assertion that the defendants
are under a legal duty to obey the
decisions of the United States railroad
labor board. There is nothing in the
! transportation act creating the labor
board providing any method for en-
! forcing its decisions except by public
opiinon, he said. Even If the board s
decisions were legally binding they
| could not be lawfully enforced to pre-
vent the workers from Withdrawing
from service. He quoted Congress
| act, as saying in congress that there
| is nothing of an anti-strike nature in
the law, and also read a similar state
ment by Senator Cummins, whose
name the law also bears.
From the message of President
Harding to congress on the present
railroad strike, the attorneys read sec
tions in which the president brought
| out the same absence of mandatory
provisions for the enforcement OF the
boards orders.
Chicago. Sept. Unsupported by
one of the most formidable legal bat
teries the government has ever thrown
into one court action, Attorney GEN
eral Harry NJ. Daugherty set his forces
! in motion today towards obtaining a
permanent injunction in the railroad
| strike.
Reinforced by great mass of evil
dence on an alleged gigantic plot of
sabotage and terrorism, the attorney
general presented his petition to Fed
eral Judge James H. Wilkerson, who
| granted the temporary restraining or
der September /. Arrayed against the
governments lawyers and denying
their charges of a widespread con-
spiracy of vandalism to cripple the
nations transportation machinery was
Donald Richburg, attorney for the
striking shop crafts. against whose
Continued on Page Two)