Southwest Washington labor press. [volume] (Hoquiam, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1925-09-11
LABOR WILL not BOW
TO UNFAIR AND BIASED
COURTS, SAYS FREY

By international Labor News Service
BOSTON, Mass, Sept. 10.-Trade
unionists intend to be governed In the
conduct of their affairs by the broad
guarantees Of human liberty of the
United States Constitution and not
by the ediets Of injunction judges,
John p. Frey, president Of the Ohio
State Federation of Labor, told a big
Labor Day meeting here on Boston
Common,
Frey handled reactionary judges
and court decisions without gloves,
declaring that trade unionists would
never surrender their rights at the
behest of biased and unfair judges.
Pointing out that one of the labor
movements gravest problems is found
in courts of equity, which in many in
stances, he said, are SO subservient
to the employers desires that they
issue injunctions with utter disregard
of labor's rights, Frey went on to
say:
"Much of the authority which our
courts of equity exercise today is a
self-developed, seIf-assumed author
ity, an authority exercised in. connec-
ton with labor disputes which flag
rantly violates all of the basic rules
of equity.
Courts Ignore LabOr's Rights
Zone of these rules is that equity
shall be used to protect property
rights only when property is threat
ened with iFreparable damage, and
there is no adequate remedy at law.
Many of our courts of equity have
held that your labor, which is some
thing inseparable from yourself as a
human being, is property, something
which the employer owns, something
to be bought and sold like any other
commodity or article of commerce.
What our courts Of equity are SEEM
ingly unwilling to recognize is the
fact that the employer has prop
erty right only in the product of labor
and not in labor itself, for if the en-
ployer has a property right in the
human being who performs labor,
then the wage-earner is not and can
not be a free man.
Another basic rule of equity is
that those who seek its assistance
must come into court with clean
hands.
Judges Aid AggressOr
"The aggressor, the one who
strikes the first blow, is not entitled
to any writ of injunction, yet in
thousands of cases where the en-
ployer has struck the first blow,
where the employer is the aggressor,
where the employer is bent upon de-
stroying the trade union of his en-
ployer, his attorneys go into court
and secure injunctions which, by a
stroke of the judges pen; denied to
the trade unionists enjoined the right
Of free speech, of free press, and
binds them with judicial mapacles
which leaves them helpless, while the
employer is left at liberty to work
his will against them.
mot only have our equity courts
time and again denied to US our con-
stitutional rights, but they have
evolved methods by which trade I'M
ionists charged with offenses are de-
MED a trial by jury, and instead of
enjoying the protection guaranteed to
those accused Of violating the law of
the land, they are hailed before the
Judge who issued the injunction, and
there they find in him an individual
sitting as law-maker, prosecutor,
judge and jury.
Remedy In LabOr's Hands
"You have it within your power to
so educate and organize the wage
earners Of this state that none of
them will barter their right to trade
union organization as the price of
holding a job, and you have it in
your power to reverse the judicial
decisions which have created nothing
else than class distinctions. These
decisions must be overturned, they
must be invaladated before you can
enjoy in full the liberties and the
rights which are yours.
unjust judicial DEGREES have been
issued in the past, and they win be
in the future. But you are free men.
The wage earners compose the ma
jority Of the voters, and you have it
in your power to elect men to your
legislature who win enact laws defin-
ing and reestablishing your rights,
which no court win dare ignore or
set aside"