The Connecticut labor news., 1924-07-26
SENATOR PEPPER WARNS OF
 LABOR INJUNCTION MENACE
Tells Brother Lawyers That Confidence In the Federal Judiciary Is Being Destroyed; Cites Daugherty- -Willzerson Order as Reason
 for Increasing Protest of Public

men, senator Pepper sad
 Every thoughtful lawyer who has not already done so should read that order and mediate upon it's signifi- canoe.
 ''In so doing he should have in mind that during the shopmen's strike in 1922 nearl y every one of the Pol Class 1 railroads and a number of short line railroads applied for injunctions in the various federal courts.
 No applications were denied. In
 all nearly three hundred were is- .
 sued against the strikers.
 Naturally enough there has
 been bitter protest from the ranks
 of labor. To the striker it seems
 like tyranny to find such vast
 power exercised mot by a jury of
 ones neighbors, but by a single
 official who is not elected but ap-
 pointed and that for life, and whose
 commission comes from a distant
 and little understood source."
 Senator Pepper advanced the view that the courts relation to the indus trial problem Is not primarily the prob lem of changing the point of view of federal judges but of determining what the community attitude toward organ ized labor is going to be, and added:
 "In the last analysis the atti-
 tude of the community will be de-
 termined by the workers them
 selves.
 If their uncoerced judgment is fav- orable to organization and collective action as the surest guaranty of in dustTial welfare, then the sentiment of the community-your sentiment and mine-will settle down to an accept ance of that view.
 If the persistent judgment of de- cisive majority of the individual work CTS were to be that social development can best be pursued through morgan ized effort then the unions would lose their reason for existence." Court Protection of Strikebreakers.
 Commenting on the disposition of federal courts to protect strikebreakers by the injunction process against pick eting, the Senator had this to say:
 From the organized workers point of view the strikebreaker Is not mere ly a formidable industrial competitor. He is committing a social offense against his class.
 Any group of people with class
 consciousness can be counted upon
 to show bitter resentment against
 the man who ought, they think, to
 be with them and is in fact work
 ing against them. It requires tre-
 mendous self f-control in such sit
 uation to keep bitterness from ex-
 pressing itself in violence. |
 The thing called picketing may ac cordingly be regarded as much more than an effort to persuade or intimi- date non-union workers. It may be conceived of as the protective action of a great social group who feel out ragged at what seems to them the be- traya1 of their class.
 'In a community which so conceives of it, picketing' is not a thing to be stopped by injunction. It is rather a thing to de domesticated along with the strike Attending at or near the plant or near the non-union mans house for the purpose of persuading him to abstain from working, becomes 2 normal and inevitable course of con duct.
 If you object that such conduct may easily lead to violence, the answer will be made to y6u that the administration of criminal law must in that event be relied upon for protection.'
 Urged to Compare Methods.
 Sneator Pepper advised his fellow lawyers while abroad to note with care the attitude of the British people to- ward organized labor. II do not mean the mental or emotional reactions ot selected individuals but the sentiment of the community a expressed Tn legis- lation and in legal policy
 "You will fnd," he continued, that our DI1tlSH DIelHIeH nave uoeiol eu llio' acts done by agreement or combination in contemplation or furtherance of trade dispute are not actiOnable unless they are such as to be actionable in the absence of agreement or combination. In other words, actionable conspiracy in such cases no longer includes con- spiracy to do things in themselves law full
 He directed attention to the fact that in Britain the people and the courts have come to recognize peace able picketing as a legitimate concom- itant of strike, but have trained the guns of their criminal procedure upon 1.-b;clo breaCh nf fha