PROTEST CONFERENCE

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL A. F. OF L AND EXECUTIVE OFFICERS INTERNATIONAL UNIONS AND FARMERS' ORGANIZATIONS TO CONSIDER RECENT SUPREME COURT DECISIONSLABOR LEGISLATION. WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH 18, 1908

Vol. XV.

No. 4

W

E, THE official representatives of the national and international trade and labor unions and organization of farmers, in national conference assembled, in the District of Columbia, for the purpose of considering and taking action deemed necessary to meet the situation in which the working people of our country are placed by recent decisions of the courts, now appear before Congress to voice the earnest and emphatic protest of the workers of the country against the indifference, if not actual hostility, which Congress has shown toward the reasonable and righteous measures proposed by the workers for the safeguarding of their rights and interests.

In the name of Labor we now urge upon Congress the necessity for immediate action for relief from the most grave and momentous situation which has ever confronted the working people of this country. This

WASHINGTON, D. C., March 19, 1908.

crisis has been brought about by the application by the Supreme Court of the United States of the Sherman anti-trust law to the workers both organized and in their individual capacity.

Labor and the people generally look askance at the invasion of the court upon the prerogatives of the law-making and executive departments of our government.

The workers feel that Congress itself must share our chagrin and sense of injustice when the courts exhibit an utter disregard for the real intent and purpose of laws enacted to safeguard and protect the workers in the exercise of their normal activities. There is something ominous in the ironic manner in which the courts guarantee to workers:

The "right" to be maimed and killed without liability to the employer.

The "right" to be discharged for belonging to a union.

The "right" to work as many hours as employers please and under any conditions which they may impose.

Labor is justly indignant at the bestowal or guaranteeing of these worthless and academic rights" by the courts, which in the same breath deny and forbid to the workers the practical and necessary protection of laws which define and safeguard their rights and liberties, and the exercise of them individually or in association.

The most recent perversion of the intent of a law by the judiciary has been the Supreme Court decision in the Hatters' case, by which the Sherman anti-trust law has been made to apply to labor, although it was an accepted fact that Congress did not intend the law to so apply and might even have specifically exempted labor but for the fear that the Supreme Court might construe such an affirmative provision to be unconstitutional.

The workers earnestly urge Congress to co-operate with them in the upbuilding and educating of a public sentiment which will confine the judiciary to its proper function-which is certainly not that of placing a construction upon a law the opposite of the plain intent of Congress, thus rendering worthless even the very moderate efforts which Congress has so far put forth to define the status of the most important, numerous and patriotic of our people, the wage-workers, the producers of all wealth.

We contend that equity power and jurisdiction, discretionary government by the judiciary for well-defined purposes and within specific limitations, granted to the courts by the constitution, has been so extended that it is invading the field of government by law and endangering individual liberty.

As government by equity, personal government, advances, republican government, government by law, recedes.

We favor enactment of laws which shall restrict the jurisdiction of courts of equity to property and property rights, and shall so define property and property rights, that neither directly nor indirectly shall there be held to be any property or property rights in the labor or labor power of any person or persons.

The feeling of restless apprehension with which the workers view the apathy of Congress, is accentuated by recent decisions of the Supreme Court.

By the wrongful application of the injunction by the lower courts the workers have been forbidden the right of free press and free speech and the Supreme Court in the Hatters' case, while not directly prohibiting the exercise of these rights, yet so applies the Sherman law to labor that acts involving the use of free press and free speech, and hitherto assumed to be lawful, now become evidence upon which triple damages may be collected and fine and imprisonment added as a part of the penalty.

Indeed, the decision goes so far as to hold the agreements of unions with employers, to maintain industrial peace, to be "conspiracies" and the evidence of unlawful combinations in restraint of trade and commerce; thus effectually throttling labor by penalizing as criminal, the exercise of its normal, peaceful, rights, and activities. The fact that these acts are in reality making for the uplift and the betterment of civilization, as a whole, does not seem to be understood or appreciated by the courts. The workers hope for a broader and more intelligent appreciation from Congress.

It is not necessary here to enter into a detailed review of this decision.

The workers ask from Congress the relief which it alone can give from the injustice which will surely result from the literal enforcement of the Sherman anti-trust law as interpreted by this decision. The speedy enactment of labor's proposed amendment to the Sherman anti-trust law will do much to restore the rights of which the toilers have been shorn.

We submit for consideration, and trust the same will be enacted, two provisions amendatory of the Sherman anti-trust law, which originally were a part of the bill during the stages of its consideration by the Senate and before its final passage, and which are substantially as follows:

"That nothing in said act (Sherman anti-trust law) or in this act is intended nor shall any provision thereof hereafter be enforced so as to apply to organizations or associations not for profit and without capital stock, nor to the members of such organizations or associations."

"That nothing in said act (Sherman anti-trust law) or in this act is intended nor shall any provision thereof hereafter be enforced so as to apply to any arrangements, agreements, or combinations among