Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1925-04-24
A Bad Supreme Court Decision

Two decisions Of the United States supreme court
will attract much attento and will draw vide comment.
The court holds that compulsory arbitration of industrial
disputes unconstitutional That puts the Kansas court
gust about down and out Submission to the awards of
that court compulsory under the law sponsored by
former Gov. Henry Allen.
Once upon a time Goveror Allen to New York to-
debate the industrial court idea with Samuel Gompers
The United States Supreme Court now has sustained
Samuel GOmpers.
This decision is thoroughly in accord with the idea of
American freedom 1t is in line with the letter and spirit
Of the American Constitution. 1t is good
The other decision gives material dealers the right o
refuse to sell materials contractors who employ union
men, This case from San Francisco where the open
shop building material dealers had carried on that kind
of warfare.
1t has been held by courts that where advertiser
by mistake advertised article at price lower than he
intended he bound by his offer just though it had
been made in good faith. He had to sell to whomeverI
wanted to buy at the announced price
Under the present award it appears that dealer, OIL
combination of dealers, refuse to sell to anyone III
they don't SELL If they refuse to sell to those
employ union men, what is to prevent them from refusing
sell to those who have blue eyes, who wear certain
kind of clothes? What is to prevent the most malicious
practices in merchandising?
The fact it appears to be- in this is that the
Supreme Court has taken distinct backward STEP In
stead of smoothing the road to industrial peace it has
made it Instead of making for progress this de-
cson appears to make for going Observation-Disclosures to
sheer struggle and test of endurance Perhaps the SUI
peme Court based its decision the law but surely did
not base it on good sense.
But out of it all there is this clear and unmistakable
fact: Industrial progress going to be achieved not by
courts but by industry itself working out its prob
lems arriving at its constructive decsos and enforc
ing them by virtue of its moral authority over its
own people.
Industry in the last analysis has got to work its own
way through its problems, develop its machinery of
Justice its own machinery of democratic sef-conro, and
get at the workings of things by ITSELF within itself and
for the benefit of society.
When decision such this comes along it he ps to
point out the inevitable road because it shows the futiy
and the tragedy of trying to industry and solve in
dustral problems by laws made by who don't know
anything about industry and in half of the made by
men who lived and died before modern industry even
came into being
Even a good decision by the Supreme Court doesn't
change that truth bad one helps to prove it. good
is generally accident; bad is tragedy pro-
duced by maladusment, which is another for a
condition which puts the political state in position Of
supremacy ndustry-over what will some day be an
industrial nation directing its destines in coopera-
ton WITH but not in subsevience to- the political state
That is something for wage eaners employers, legis
lators and to think about 1t labors program
boiled down.