The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-03-24
Hasn't Been Held Illegal

The orthodox point of view is that a sitdown strike is 8 serious viola- ton of law and order, that 1t con- stitutes trespass, and that the foun- dations of our government are ripped asunder 8 few more yards for every additional day a striker is allowed to remain in factory, hotel or hve-and-ten-cent store.
 Yet, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins cautiously remarked some time ago Shat the legality of the sitdown strike had yet to be deter mined.
 And you can find many a New
 Deal lawyer who will privately
 talk your ear off to demonstrate
 that the sltdown striker and his strike usually have as much
 standing in the courts as the enl-
 plOyer and his property.
 One seasoned lawyer, Henry T. Hunt, former mayor of Cincinnati and counsel for the National Re- sources Committee, points out that neither the Supreme Court of the United States, nor any state Su- preme Court has yet held the sit- down strike illegal.
 "The great employing corpora tions are on strike against federal labor legislation, violating the right of collective bargaining, the right of self organization and the right to be free of company unions," says Hunt.
 "The law, when relief by in- junction Is sought, is that he who
 seeks equity must do equity. When
 an employer brings about strike
 by failing to observe the law, he
 is in no position to complain about
 the strike."
 Other lawyers doubtless will claim to find bugs in such reasoning. But such arguments are cited because indications are that there will be more and more effort to justify sit- down strikes by legal argument be- fore you hear the last of them. On Four Propositions
 Green says, in his magazine are ticle, that the case for the sitdown strike rests upon four fundamental propositions:
 "l. Employees have an interest in the industrial relation distinct from any property interest or interest of personality. Such interest Is a valu- able one of the same dignity as that of property and is given the recog- milton and protection of the courts as property.
 ''2. Disputes between employers and employees, with respect to indus trial relations, involve economic and political questions outside the juris- dictions of the courts; the problems involved are of such great difficulty administratively that courts will not undertake to adjudicate them but will leave them to other agencies of government, and to the parties themselves in the absence of such agencies.
 "3. Courts will not prejudice the issues between industrial employers and employees by assuming jurisdic- ton of issues incidental to the main dispute inabsence of physical yio- lencc or fraud directed against the persons or property of the parties.
 4. Occupation in good faith and peacefully of plant devoted to in- dlistry by employees awaiting the ad- justment of differences growing out of the industrial relation Is but an incident of the industrial relation and in no sense unlawful" Courts have shown no tendency to follow the legal philosophy of Pro- lessor Green. Crises in sitdown strikes come when judge formally orders strikers out of a plant. It then becomes the legal duty of law officers to evict the strikers. The only reason strikers haven't been evicted in certain conspicuous cases has been the unwillingness of offi- cials to take course which would lead to bloodshed.
 Copyright, 1937. NEA Service. Inc.)