case of Gompers et al. v. Buck Stove and Range Company (221 U. S. Reports, 418):

"The law recognizes the right of workingmen to unite and to invite others to join their ranks, thereby making available the strength, influence and power that come from such association. By virtue of this right powerful labor unions have been organized. But the very fact that it is lawful to form these bodies, with multitudes of members, means that they have thereby acquired a vast power in the presence of which the individual may be helpless. This power, when unlawfully used against one, cannot be met except by his purchasing peace at the cost of submitting to terms which involve the sacrifice of rights protected by the constitution, or of standing on such rights and appealing to the preventive power of a court of equity."

THE REAL REASON

From all this it seems evident, not alone that such an enactment would be subversive and unjust to employers, but that there is absolutely no necessity for it so far as the laborers are concerned that is if, as Mr. Gompers would have us believe, labor's only purpose is to secure for the unions the right to exist and the right to work for the accomplishment of their legitimate objects in fair and proper ways. It is beyond doubt that the unions already have the right to exist, and why, if they only seek to accomplish their legitimate objects in fair and proper ways, should there be any need of such legislation? And, if there is no need of it, why should it be enacted at all when, if it should be sustained by the courts, it would, with the sanction of law, make possible the use by leaders who may not be as virtuous as Mr. Gompers professes to be of means that are inequitable and economically unsound?

It seems equally evident and this from these provisions of the Clayton bill themselves-that THE REAL PURPOSE IS TO ENABLE THE LEADERS OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR TO CONTROL, AND THUS MONOPOLIZE,

THE SALE OF, PRACTICALLY, THE WHOLE OF THE LABOR POWER OF THE COUNTRY, AND THEREBY ACQUIRE THE CONTROL OF ITS COMMERCE THAT SUCH A CONSUMMATION MUST BRING. This is rather a startling idea. But why not? What else could the insertion of such provisions mean? What are the circumstances?

Since the organization of the American Federation of Labor, more than thirty years ago, and notwithstanding all the wonderful things its leaders boast of having accomplished in its name, the membership of its constituent unions has increased in the aggregate to only a little over two millions (according to the Federation's own figures)-a very small percentage of the forty or more millions of socalled working men, women and girls in the United States, a very much smaller percentage of all those who work in this country. This is a very slow growth considering all the benefits the labor leaders declare that unionists derive from their membership in such organizations, an aggravatingly slow growth. If there had been any such widespread condition of tyranny and abuse as Mr. Gompers charges in the part of his argument above quoted. it would seem that the workers would have rallied in hordes under the standard of the Federation as soon as its purposes were made known.

And it is matter of common knowledge that in places in which the unionists have already succeeded in obtaining control of the sale of labor in certain of the industries, many of their members have been coerced into joining, principally by their inability either to secure employment without the union card or to hold their jobs if already employed. The methods made use of during the recent strike of the copper miners in Michigan and during the strike of the coal miners in Colorado that is still going on are instances of the tactics to which they resort when seeking to acquire this control.

But lately these tactics, though they have been successful in many cases in the past, have signally failed. Ap

preciating at last the danger of a tyranny far worse than that imaginary kind of which Mr. Gompers tells us, employers have joined forces and resisted as never before. The validity of certain of these tactics has been contested in the courts and their injustice and unlawfulness established. Within the past three years the great strikes at Lawrence, Akron, Paterson and in West Virginia and Michigan have been lost by the unions and the condition of affairs in Colorado holds out no hope of success.

Perpetrators of dynamiting outrages have been convicted and punished. Conspiracies of labor leaders with unscrupulous employers to destroy competition by non-union concerns have been exposed. Non-union workmen have asserted and dared to defend their independence. Mine owners in western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois have become restive under union domination and shown fight. There is danger that other employers similarly placed will attempt to throw off the yoke. Something had to be done or the Federation could not go ahead.

Apparently, however, this was a situation that had been foreseen by the labor leaders years before, for much legislation had already been procured with a view to the removal of legal obstructions from their path and much more had been proposed in the states and to Congress. With the comingin of the present administration, the remainder of the program was urged. I shall not enumerate all the various proposals. I have not the space. Examples are the bill (which has already passed the national House of Representatives) to restrict immigration for the purpose of minimizing the avail able non-union labor supply and the proposal to make it unlawful in time of strike for employers to station guards about their property to protect it and their non-union employes from violence when the authorities have no adequate force for the purpose.

The chief proposal, however, is that which is embodied in these exemption, anti-injunction and trial by jury for contempt provisions of the Clay

ton bill. So far as labor is concerned, it first provides that nothing contained in the anti-trust laws shall be construed to forbid the existence and operation of labor organizations that are instituted for the purpose of mutual help, have no capital stock and are not conducted for profit, and that they shall not be construed to forbid the carrying out by individual members of the unions of the legitimate objects of such organizations. It further provides that labor organizations and their members shall not be held to be combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade.

It also provides that no restraining order or injunction shall issue from any court of the United States in any proceeding by an employer against an employe or employes, or by an empioyer against another employer, or by persons employed against persons seeking employment, in which a dispute respecting terms or conditions of employment is involved, unless such order or injunction would be necessary to prevent irreparable injury to property or to a property right of the party who makes application for it, and unless there is no adequate remedy at law. It further specifically provides that no such order or injunction shall issue under any condition to prohibit

"Any person or persons from terminating any relation of employment; or from ceasing to perform any work or labor, or from recommending, advising or persuading others by peaceful means so to do; or from attending at or near a house or place where any person resides or works or carries on business or happens to be, for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating communicating information, or of peacefully persuading any person to work or to abstain from working; or from ceasing to patronize or to employ any party to such dispute, or for recommending, advising or persuading others by peaceful means so to do; or from paying or giving to, or withholding from, any person engaged in such dispute any strike benefits, or moneys or things of value; or from peacefully assembling at any place in any

lawful manner and for lawful purposes; or from doing any act or thing which might lawfully be done in the absence of such dispute by any party thereto; nor shall any of the acts specified in this paragraph be considered or held unlawful."

It also provides that in cases of contempt of court-in this instance, wilful disobedience of any lawful writ of a District Court of the United States, or of any process, rule, decree or command of the court-the defendant may demand trial by jury if the act with which he is charged is of such character that it also constitutes a criminal offense under any statute of the United States or at common law, and if not committed in the presence of the court or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice; that, if the accused should be found guilty, he may have his case reviewed by an appellate court according to the procedure in criminal cases, and that, pending the judgment of the appellate court, he shall be admitted to bail; that the punishment may be by fine or imprisonment or both, but that in no case, when the accused is a natural person, shall the fine exceed $1,000 or the term of imprisonment

six months.

In other words, these provisions that "nothing contained in the antitrust laws shall be construed * * to forbid or restrain individual members of such organizations from carrying out the legitimate objects thereof," and that they shall not "be held or construed to be illegal combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade," are utterly without (expressed) qualification, and that they were intended to be at least so far as activities other than such as might violate the criminal statutes of the United States are concerned is shown by the quotation. from the report of the House Committee on the Judiciary that appears in Part I of this article.

If, therefore, they should be enacted and sustained by the courts as valid under the Constitution, not only would the right of such organizations, merely as such, to exist be legally unassailable if their objects were legitimate, but

they could not be held to be combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade, no matter what they or their individual members might do in attempting to accomplish those objects, nor could they for any such reason be dissolved, as could a combination or conspiracy of employers as such. or as could a trust or a combination or conspiracy of capitalists or corporations, unless, perhaps, they or their members should violate or threaten or attempt to violate some criminal statute of the United States.

For there is a rule, affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of the United States v. Kirby (7 Wallace's Reports, 482) that "all laws should receive a sensible construction. General terms shoud be so limited in their application as not to lead to injustice, oppression or an absurd consequence. It will always, therefore, be presumed that the legislature intended exceptions to its language which would avoid results of this character. The reason of the law in such cases should prevail over its letter." And, if these provisions of the Clayton bill should become law, it would hardly be presumed that it was the intention of Congress to license the labor unions and their members to commit crimes.

Also it was suggested in the debate in the House of Representatives that they might still be amenable under the common law; but to this attorneys who have appeared in behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers have replied that "there is no such thing as the common law of the United States". As stated by Mr. James A. Emery: "The common law of the states is as different as the states. It varies very greatly. It was accepted wholly by some and partially by othThe federal jurisdiction cannot undertake to apply forty-eight standards to any given act.'

Besides there is a question whether even if such a thing as the common law of the United States does exist. it would not be annulled so far as its provisions could affect contracts, combinations or conspiracies of labor unions or their members in restraint of

trade. The Clayton bill does not say that nothing in the Sherman or other statutory laws shall be construed to forbid the things it describes, but that nothing in the "anti-trust laws" shall be so construed, and under the above quoted rule of construction, this might well be held to include all principles of the common law that forbid contracts, combinations or conspiracies of that character, for that is the evident purpose of the provision in the

bill.

common

But, to prevent any misconception, the bill in effect goes on to provide that in a dispute involving terms or conditions of employment no federal court shall interfere by restraining order or injunction even if it should be decided that there is a law of the United States and even when the common or statute law of the state in which the dispute may occur is being violated or is in danger of violation, "unless necessary to prevent irreparable injury to property or to a property right of the party making the application, for which there is no adequate remedy at law." What is intended to be embraced in the terms "property" and "property right" is left to conjecture, and, except in cases in which such relief can be obtained from the state courts, all preventive measures for the protection of personal rights would be denied.

And then the bill expressly declares that no restraining order or injunction shall issue in any event in the cases set forth in the paragraph above quoted, even to prevent irreparable injury and even when there is no adequate remedy at law. This might be construed to deprive the federal courts of the power to interfere by restraining order or injunction. when strikers resort to trespass, picketing of the kind that is now unlawful, assembling in large numbers on or near the premises of the employer for disorderly purposes, intimidation by demonstrations, taunts and threats, and other like tactics. "Nor shall any of the acts specified in this paragraph." the bill adds, "be construed or held unlawful." True, these methods must be peacefully made use of. But could

such acts, even when actual violence is not resorted to, be calculated to have any other effect than intimidation?

Then that the laborites may not be deterred by fear of summary trial and punishment from doing things to prevent which the federal courts might still issue restraining orders and injunctions, the bill concludes by providing that in certain cases when an offender is arrested for contempt of court, that is, wilful disobedience of any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree or command," he may have trial by jury, with all the delay and advantage that trials and appeals under the technical criminal procedure involve, and including freedom on bail during the years that might elapse before final disposition of the case. The Gompers, Mitchell and Morrison contempt proceedings were dragged out over a period of nearly seven years even under present conditions and then the defendants escaped punishment by virtue of the statute of limitations.

Also, under this new provision, the situation in each case would be fur

ther complicated by the solution of the question whether the rule, process, order or writ, or whatever it might be, is or is not a lawful one-whether it is one that the court is empowered to issue under the particular circumstances in the case. For it is now an established principle that whether or not an order or injunction is lawful is not for the defendant or his counsel to decide. to decide. Right or wrong, it is his duty to obey it, and, if in his opinion it is wrong, then to resort to proper proceedings in court to have it set aside. "If a party can make himself a judge of the validity of orders which have been issued," the Supreme Court of the United States has said, "and by his own act of disobedience set them aside, then are the courts impotent and what the Constitution now fittingly calls 'the judicial power of the United States' would be a mere mockery.'

But that the courts might be rendered impotent seems to have been a matter of no concern to the labor

leaders at least to such extent as the courts might interfere with their own potency-so this word "lawful" was inserted for the purpose of making these leaders primarily the judges as to the validity of the judicial command, with only a sort of right of review in the courts, and this only in the event of the arrest and trial of an offender. This, it will be seen, would leave the leaders, and the defendant himself after his release on bail, virtually free to continue the enjoined practice pending the litigation. In the meanwhile the necessity for its continuance would cease because the strike or dispute in which it might be employed would come to an end. If such a provision as this were to become law, then would the judicial power of the United States be a mockery indeed.

* * *

If these exemption and anti-injunction provisions should pass the Senate and be approved by the President, it would be possible by means of the boycott for labor unions and their members to combine or conspire with impunity to put inimical concerns out of business, for the bill as it passed the House of Representatives says that "no such restraining order shall prohibit any person or persons from ceasing to patronize* * * * any party to such dispute, or from recommending, advising or persuading others by peaceful means so to do." Under such a provision as this the union. originally involved in the dispute might cease to patronize the product of a manufacturer, for instance, it might then combine with other unions to withdraw their patronage, and might also conspire to prevent patronage by his merchant customers by threatening not to patronize those merchants themselves if they should not comply with their demands.

Under other provisions a union might with impunity conspire with unscrupulous employers to injure or destroy competition by non-unionized concerns, as has been done and held unlawful by courts under present conditions; or it might combine with other unions by means of a general strike in some locality to put an end

to commerce altogether in that locality for the time being if the combination were strong enough to intimidate nonunion workmen sufficiently to prevent their taking the strikers' places, yet the courts could not interfere except with such individual members as might incidentally violate some criminal statute of the United States. Eventually by such tactics the American Federation of Labor might well accomplish its great object: the monopoly of practically the whole labor power of the country and the control of its commerce if only it could keep its organization intact and prevent a repeal of the provisions should they become law.

It is all very well to say, as Mr. Gompers does in his brief, that labor would not do these things because that would destroy business and to destroy business "would frustrate the end sought". These labor leaders do not believe, at least profess not to believe, that it would destroy business to unionize all the industries, and obviously that is the real end sought, and they have repeatedly attempted to do most of these things in the past. often have actually done them, and have only been prevented when the courts have interfered.

Labor unions are strong in the West and especially strong in a city where, on Hallowe'en, the boys pulled a lot of pickets off the fence belonging to a house in which a union barber lived and made a bonfire of them. The barber bought some new pickets and nailed them on his fence himself. Whereupon he was promptly fined fifty dollars by the council for doing carpenter work which should have been done by a union carpenter. The barber thought this over for some time. Then he presented the Carpenter's Union with a bill for $1,375.

"What's this for?" asked the chief of the Carpenters' Union.

"Why," the barber replied, "that's what's due the barbers because the carpenters shave themselves."

His fine was remitted.-Saturday Evening Post.