The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-03-08
Fight the Injunction Menace!
Rv /. JEROME.

seriousness. The law OF the proper
tied few sought to stem the tide of
revolt of the propertyless masses. In
the beginning the ban. fell on the
right of the workers to organize. But
when in the face of all repressive
statutes, in the face of prosecutions,
imprisonments, beheadings, and mas
sacres the trade unions proved by
their power that they had come to
stay, their legal status became defi-
nitely established Then property.
defeated in the first engagement, fell
back on another, an astuter line of
defence: The strike, labor's princi-
pal mode of. warfare, must be out
lawed! Labor's mighty weapon must
be rendered useless! Thus came
about the injunction as we know it
today.
What an Injunction" Is.
An injunction, in legal terminol-
ogy, is civil writ issued By a Judge,
restraining person or group Of per-
sons from doing or not doing par
tieu'al thing, the doing or not doing
eh would cause irreparable
= TO another With one stroke
49, pen judge can annul all the
se-~alled guarantees of liberty and
equality by which the civilized ma
lions are pleased to distinguish them
selves from barbarians In labor dis
putes, especially, the injunction is
turned into sword, with the hilt in
the hand of capital and the edge
drawn against the workers. BY their
power to issue restraining orders in
times Of strikes the courts hold sway
over the destiny of the workers. An
insignificant judge, guided by his
personal discretion, and by his class
and personal interests, can set him
self up as the captain of the work.
ers' fate. By his fiat the private
property rights of single individual
are upheld against the elementary
right to live of thousands, hundreds
of thousands, of workers.
What Judges Are.
When we consider who the gentle
men are that sit in judgment over
US, we do not wonder at the brand
of justice they dispense. The Judge
are the hirelings of entrenched CAPT
tai. They are chosen, not by the peo-
pie, but by the Bar Association. And
The Bar Association is but an abbre-
waited term for the association for
the protection of high finance. Who
then, but the judges, should be inter-
ested in breaking strikes?
In America injunctions have fallen
upon fertile soil. Not daring to an
tagOnize the workers by open legis-
lation against trade unions, the
bosses have resorted to an insidious
back-door law-making against la
boris rights They have depended
for support upon the usurped power
Of the supreme court, a power that
is maintained by virtue OF an uncon-
stitutional seizure of the right OF judi
cal review. They have brought to
their aid the judicial tyranny grown
out OF the unchecked, ventury-long
encroachments of judgecraft upon
the rights of the American working
class. With the courts as arbiters,
the bosses are assured of an unfail-
ing ally in their attacks upon the
workers. For where the laws are
anti-labor the judges, claiming to be
merely administrators of the law, adj
minister against labor; and where, as
result OF the workers struggles
statute reads to favor labor, the
Judges, being reviewers of the law,
review against labor.
The Strike Weapon.
The strike is the workers formid-
able weapon. All his gains have
come to him through strikes or
through the capitalists fear of his
power to strike. Not single pro-
gressive statute, not a single allevi-
alton, not single concession was
ever granted to the workers through
the generosity of the bosses or their
law-givers. In every gain of labor,
all through history, final analysis
proves this. The driving power be-
hind labor's every gain has always
been the power fthe workers to
wrest that gain from their exploiters.
The strike is the indispensable tao
tic of organized labor. 1t is the life
force of workers in union. To limit
strikes is to castrate labor!
What Has Been Done?
What have the American workers
done to combat injunctions Speci-
fically, what has the American Fed
Grafton of Labor done to combat in
functions? The answer is to be found
in the philosophy underlying the
general policy of the American Fed
Grafton of Labor. For decades the
A. F. Of l.. leadership has installed
into the workers a fatalistic accept
ance of the present social order. II
has taught that the course of the
American working class is set into
an eternal rotation within the ines
capable orbit of capitalism. There
Is no change, no tomorrow, and
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