The Alaska daily empire., 1923-04-26
DECKER REPEALmr BILL DEFEATED
 BY LARGE VOTE
Effort Repeal Syndicalist Law Badly Beaten - Only
 Three Support 1t.

With very little Fireworks on the part of the opposition but in unmis- takaIble seriousness. the House yes terday afternoon killed the Decker bill for the repeal of the Territorial syndical law by a vote of 13 to 2. Representative Decker, author of the repeal bill Wilson and Ross voted flor it's passage.
 MT. Decker spoke in defense of the bill and for one hour and 40 min utes. MT. Ross, the only other mem Der to advocate it's passage, talked less than two minutes. No extended arguments were made against the Decker bill, Representative Policy, Daily, Keys and Shepard speaking very briefly. At Mr. Daly's sugges- tion the law which was sought to be repealed, passed by the 1919 ses- sion of the Legislature, was read in full by Clerk Blossom.
 Three Points Raised
 MT. Decker read his speech from a carefully prepared manuscript, quot ing frequently from various works by noted statesmen and authors to sup port various contentious made by him. He acknowledged at the outset that he had been placed in an un- enviable position by the unpopularity of the bill and referred briefly to the nature of the criticism directed against both himself and the measure. Out of 1t. he said. had grown accu- stations that he was a radical and l. w. w. These he denied and declared that there was no word of truth in reports that he was connected with the Centralia Armistice Day disor- ders. In this connection he read a letter from Centralia to H. l.. Faulk ner, which was given him by MT Faulkner, and which MT. Decker said, had been at one time in the posses sion of J. w. Kehoe, of the American Legion, denouncing the letter as false
 He based his argument for the bill on three main contentious. First, that the law it proposed to repeal IS un-American and abridges the free dom of speech and of the press; sec ond, that there are plenty of laws without it, and third, that it is vicious, directly and indirectly, lead ing in many states to prosecutions and not to convictions. In support of his contention that it infringed on the Constitution, he quoted from dissenting opinions by Justices Bran deis and Holmes, of the United States Supreme Court, in number of cases taken there from state courts where prosecutions had been brought un- der such acts. None of those quoted however, were majority opinions oi the court.
 He quoted writers on the abridge ment of free speech and writings ana the attendant dangers to the republic
 Ho quoted from Congressional com mittee hearings to show that there are sufficient laws on the Federal stitute books to handle sed1,ious ac tivities without syndical acts. He referred to the Federal criminal COZ spiracy act and a similar law pro- hibting melting of crime by single person These he said were strong and broad enough to cover all sit iIations
 Legion Discriminates
 The American Legion, he intimat- ed. discriminates in its condemnation of those who seek repeal of certain laws. When the Eighteenth Amend ment is denounced and efforts made for its repeal, the Legion does not denounce those who seek to bring 1t about. It had denounced him for seeking to repeal the syndicalist law.
 The direct viciousness of such laws, he said, had been evidenced in the far-fetched prosecution of persons in a number of states. Washington and elsewhere. Indirectly it had vicious influence cn the public mind. It was also the cause of clandestine meetings and resulted in bringing about some of the very evils it sought to prevent, he said In conclusion, after reading from a pamphlet of the proceedings of the Methodist confer ence of Puget Sound churches, he doc1ared ha was backed by the