Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1924-07-25
PLAIN TALK
JUDGES USURP
AUTHORITY
United States Senator Pepper Does
Not Hesitate to Criticise Many
Supreme Court Rulings

Philadelphia-In discussing the lab
Or injunction before a joint meeting
of the national and state bar asso-
ciatios in this city, United States
Senator Pepper gave broad intimation
that the labor injunction Judge usurps
his power
In referring to the loss of popular
confidence the courts suffer as a re-
suit of the labor injunction, Senator
Pepper asked this significant ques-
ton:
"To maintain such confidence must
we not confine the courts to the
sphere in which the creators of our
constitutional system intended them
to live and move and have their be-
ing?"
The senator declared that opposi-
tion to the labor injunction can de-
velop a revolutionary sentiment in
this country. He said that conf
dence in our judicial system is pretty
nearly essential to national safety"
and our policy of dragging the courts
into industrial disputes tends to less
en- popular confidence and respect
The remedy for this situation is
not legislation, but public opinion that
organized labor should be a leading
factor in developing, according to
Senator Pepper. He gave this hint
to trade unionists on the value of
agitation and their power to create
public opinion:
wherever organized labor has fail
ed to create an overwhelming senti-
ment for the closed shop, it can not,
in the absence of such sentiment, sue
cessfully do the things which other
wise public opinions would approve"
GAS long as the enlightened sense
of the community fails to recognize
the difference between the self-pro-
lection of an industrial class and
mere Wanton conspiracy to injure
property and business" continued
Senator Pepper, "just so long judges
who have power in their hands are
likely to use it when urged thereto
by the owners of the property and
the business or by the official repre-
sentative of the government of which
the judges are themselves a part. The
problem is not primarily the problem
of changing the point of view Of fed
eral judges, but of determining what
the community attitude toward or
ganized labor is going to be.
"In the last analysis the attitude
of the community will be determined
by the workers themselves"
Senator Pepper deplored continu-
Gus efforts to compel United States
courts "to take up the shock of our
industrial warfare" He referred to
| h. T1off
States supreme court in the leather
workers case wherein six justices to
three held that picketing to prevent
the manufacture of goods which, ii
manufactured, would have been ship
ped in interstate commerce, was not
conspiracy in restraint of inter
state commerce within the antitrust
act.
"Any other decision," said Senator
Pepper, "would have subjected to fed
eral jurisdiction every strike in a
single factory the product of which
was destined to swell the volume of
interstate commerce.
"Under such a system of govern
ment as ours the maintenance of we'll
nigh universal confidence in the ju-
dietary is pretty nearly essential to
national safety. Is it not worth our
while to place elsewhere than upon
our federal judges the burden of solv-
ing for US our legislative and execu-
tive problems?
"To maintain such confidence must
we not confine the courts to the
sphere in which the creators of oul
constitutional system intended them
to live and move and have their be-
ing?"