The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1909. A LABOR REVERSE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2432, 22 February 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1909. A LABOR REVERSE.

In tho United States the leaders of both the workers and tho employers have always set their faces steadily against efforts to promote industrial peace by such measures as our own Arbitration Act or other devices that have been tried in other countries. One of the chief reasons lias been an inherent distrust of the integrity of any tribunals that might be set up but, whatever the cause the result has been to keep a perpetual state of warfare existent between the elements of labor and capital. The principal weapon of the worker is naturally the strike and the number of disturbances which take place is almost inconceivable to a person not familiar with the facts. Thus, in such a city as Chicago there is an average of more than one strike per day, and it is only those of exceptional dimensions which receive publicity in tlio daily press. The strike, however, is not the only means employed by labor to fight for its alleged rights. Aloi'o effective than the strike is the use of the boycott, and it is in connection with this that American Unionists have suffered a serious reverse. It has been the custom of the American Federation of Labor to publish throughout tho country a list of those firms who refuse to comply with its demands, the obvious, intention being to persuade all members from patronising them. AYhen it is remembered that the American Federation of Labor boasts of a membership of 2,000,000 it will be seen that the publication of a firm’s name in such a list could very easily make a tremendous difference to its output.. One of tho firms so named trading under the style of “Buck’s Stove and Range Company” took tho issue to the courts .and in December 1907 Air Justice Gould filed an injunction in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, forbidding, the publication of this firm’s name on the list. Such a decision was of immense importance for presumably it settled tho question for all other employers and in all probability individual applications •would result in the proprietors of tho “Fedcrationist” being compelled to cease publication of such a list. However, the Labor leaders were not disposed to part with tho boycott weapon without a struggle. Air. Samuel Gompers, President of the Federation, who ie also editor of the “Fedcrationist”, in an editorial iin that journal mind© known his intention not to obey the Court’s order, contending that tlie injunction issued was a derogation of tho rights of labor and an abuse of the injunction power of the courts. Subsequently, Gompers, together with John Alitcliell, A 7 icc -President, and Frank Alorrison, secretary of the Federation, were summoned for contempt of court. Their case was before the courts for many months before Air Judge AVright finally delivered his decision just before the last

mail left New York. The Judge] found, according to the evidence, that members of labor unions were coerced by all manner of means into assisting the boycott of firms named in the “'unfair” list. The customers of the stove company, the court said, had been intimidated, browbeaten and coerced out of their business relations with their customers “by direct interference with and boycott of their (the customers’) trade relations witn their own customers and the public generally.” Following an exhaustive discussion of conspiracies in restraint oi trade, J ustico Wright said : “From the foregoing it ought to seem apparent to thoughtful men that the defendants to the bill each and all of them have combined together for the purpose of: „ “1. Bringing about the breach of plaintiffs’ existing contracts with others. “2. Depriving plaintiff of property (the value of the good will ol its business), without due process of law. “3. Restraining trade among the several States. “4. Restraining commerce among the several States.” Summing up the case Judge Wright said: “The position of the respondents involves questions vital to the preservation of the social order, questions which smite the foundations of civil government and upon which the supremacy of the law over anarchy and riot verily depend. “In the opinion of the court, even where a tribunal had fallen into error in the determination of a cause which is was invested with jurisdiction to ‘hear and determine,’ the duty and necessity of obedience remain nevertheless the same.

“Is not law wide enough and its shield big enough to avert from annihilation that which its tribunals have taken in hand for the very sake of decreeing whether it shall not be saved ? Yet, everywhere, all over, within the court and without, utter, rampant, insolent, defiance is heralded and proclaimed, unrefined assault, coarse affront and vulgar indignity measures the litigant’s conception of the tribunal’s duty wherein his cause still pends.” In conclusion, the court said: “Before the injunction was granted these men announced that neither they nor the American Federation of Labor would obey it ; since it issued they have refused to obey it; and through the American Federation of Labor disobedience lias been successfully achieved, and the law has been made to fail; not only has the law failed in its effort to arrest widespread wrong, but the injury has grown more destructive since the injunction than it was before. There was a studied, determined, defiant conflict, precipitated in the light of open day. between the decrees of a tribunal ordained by the government of the Federal Union and of the tribunals of another federation grown up in the land : one or the other must succumb.

‘ After this somewhat violent expression of his views Judge Wright proceeded to sentence Gompers to one year's imprisonment, Mitchell to nine months’, and Morrison to six months’. Notice of appeal was given and all of the defendants were let out on bail. The severity of the sentence appears to have come as a surprise to most; people, and some claim that it will kill the “boycott system” in the United States. A Washington correspondent telegraphed, just after the verdict as follows:

It is tlxe opinion of lawyers competent to pass a fair opinion, that the sentencing of Gompers, -Mitchell and Morrison to jail sentences, if upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States, will have the effect of annihilating labor organisations as they now exist. The .lawyers who have been advising Gompers, Mitchell and "Morrison believe the highest tribunal will reverse Judge Wright, but if it does not they will be ready to advise their clients as to what further steps should be taken.

The labor leaders themselves have discussed the question, and it is known that they have canvassed the probability of their having to convert their organisations into secret unions, such as were necessary in England before the old common laxv was changed by acts of Parliament so as to make legal unions and the weapons they vise to enforce their programmes. It will be gathered from the foregoing that a position of tremen..ous importance in the labor work! has been created, and the progress of the case in the Appeal Court will be watched with keen interest.