nary intelligence can, if he honestly wishes, know what they are. The courts have repeatedly laid down the rules in the plainest terms.

The Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, wisely recognizing that it was in position to remove all possible excuse for debate on the subject, again stated these rules. The trouble with the people who want this legislation is that they do not accept such doctrine as to what their rights are. And it is not because the courts deprive them of any of these rights that they are here with this complaint, but it is because they are determined, desperately determined, to secure what these plainly stated rules deny to them as their rights. And it is my humble judgment that if the verdict of this tribunal and of the Congress of the United States on the issue joined between them and the courts should result in any encouragement to them in the prosecution of this desperate purpose, succeeding Congresses will be besieged by the representatives of employers and citizens' associations in demonstrations against it which the present one may not now seem to the uninformed to forebode.

In conclusion, gentlemen, I respectfully submit that there is no excuse whatever for any intelligent and patriotic citizen to take sides against the courts in this controversy, much less is any justification to be found in the premises for any statesman to do so.

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with a firm faith in the right as God gives us to see the right," we, the defenders of the courts, assume to speak for the law-abiding, for those who believe in American institutions, including the courts. We come to you not with a threat of revenge, but a promise of hope. We entreat you to trust the people, to trust their intelligence, their sense of justice, their loyalty to their public servants who espouse the right. And we promise for them, for the American people, that they shall prove still worthy of the confidence reposed by the great Lincoln when he said that he was willing to trust all the intelligence of the country to take care of all the ignorance of the country, and all the virtue of the country to take care of all the vice of the country.

STATEMENT OF MAJ. ALBRIN P. PEASE, SECRETARY OF THE EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATION OF BOSTON, MASS.

Mr. PEASE. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I appear before you to represent the Employers' Association of Boston. This association is composed of thousands of business men engaged in manufactures, merchandising, transportation (embracing all the various industries in these lines), as well as a great many other citizens who are interested in industrial peace by virtue of their patriotism and American citizenship. Millions of capital invested in greater Boston, a community of more than a million souls, is also represented in the business of its membership.

They desire to express their most emphatic protest against the bills which are before this honorable committee, which, if they become law, would prohibit the courts from granting a restraining order or temporary injunction at any and all times, whenever the pickets of organized labor are surrounding their factories and other places of business, attempting to intimidate and drive away not only members of labor organizations who do not desire to leave the employment in which they have been engaged upon terms satisfactory to themselves

individually and to their employers, but other persons not members of labor unions who are desirous of obtaining employment upon terms satisfactory to themselves.

They know from practical experience covering a long term of years that there is no such thing as "peaceful picketing," and the Standard Dictionary defines picketing to be, "A committee of men sent out to annoy nonunion workmen, especially during a strike." It denotes a state of war.

The courts are the conservators of peace, and only with rare exceptions have been misled by false statements as to facts when applications for restraining orders have been applied for by citizens who have had occasion to ask for this protection. It is well known that if these bills now proposed to be enacted into law should be placed upon the statute books then riot and assault, with the accompanying bloodshed, would follow as surely as the sun shines.

It has occurred in the past in all parts of the country, as is witnessed by the disturbances in Colorado during the miners' strike of two years ago, the coal strikes of the last twenty-five years in Pennsylvania, and the teamsters' strike in Chicago, and lately the printers' strike in New York and elsewhere throughout the country.

There is now in Boston a strike against the wagon and carriage manufacturers, and while it is only a week old, the pickets have intimidated and driven away' hundreds of peaceable citizens who have attempted to apply for work in these plants, and the building in which the office of the Employers' Association of Boston is situated has been picketed to such an extent that the police have had to be called upon to clear the street in order to allow citizens who desired to apply for work through the labor bureau of the association to gain access to our offices.

I have received through the mails anonymous communications threatening all kinds of dire results to any and all of the employers who have dared to assert their right to employ whom they please and to discharge those in their employ who are not satisfactory to them.

This state of affairs has come about in less than eight days after the strike had been declared. Does any reasonable person think that more serious results will not follow if the employers hold out and insist upon their rights and succeed even partially in filling the places

of the strikers?

Now, if the courts could not be invoked to restrain these acts at once, what would follow? A teamsters' strike will occur in Boston on the 19th of March if the union carries out its ultimatum just issued to the employers, and the man who was the most prominent factor in the teamsters' strike in Chicago, and who is under indictment and awaiting trial in Chicago on various charges which helped incite to the murder of several nonunion teamsters, is now in Boston inciting the union to carry out his behests. I allude to Shea, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Straws show which way the wind blows, and it is in the air at Boston that there is to be a determined and desperate effort to regain the ground lost by the various unions who have failed in their efforts during the past few years to run the business of their employers instead of allowing it to be run by the men who have built up the business, thereby giving these same men the chance to earn a living for themselves and their families.

Therefore, the members of the Boston Employers' Association desire to impress it upon this committee, and partcularly upon the honorable gentleman who represents the Commonwealth of Massachusetts upon the committee, that the environments which already surround the manufacturers of Massachusetts are so unsatisfactory that they are doing business at a very small percentage of profit and in many cases at a loss in order to keep their plants going, rather than to shut down, thereby throwing their workmen out of employment and bringing disaster upon the community in which they are situated, that should this proposed legislation be enacted and they have no immediate redress in an action by the courts to protect their property in time of strike riots, they would certainly have to go out of business rather than run the chance of having their property and business ruined by the conditions that would confront them.

We believe that "no self-constituted body of men has the right to usurp the power of arbitrarily dictating to others their course in following their trade, occupation, or business; and no organization has the right to limit the opportunity of a man to better his condition by honest labor or the right of the American youth to follow the trade of his choice."

Gentlemen, believing this, and that whenever any individual or organization or its representative attempts to take this right away from any citizen by declaring him to be a "scab," "rat." or by other foul epithets in order to intimidate him from pursuing that right, or failing to intimidate him by these epithets thugs and slugging crews are brought into requisition, as has been done everywhere when other means fail, we believe the rights we now have, to invoke the courts to restrain these individuals from acts of intimidation and violencewhich are so frequent as to be almost universal-should not be taken away from us, but that the unbiased judgment of the equity courts should be our safeguard in the future as they have been in the past. We ask no better guaranty for the safety of our interests than is vouchsafed in President Roosevelt's message to Congress two years ago, in which he said:

Whenever either corporation, labor union, or individual disregards the law or acts in spirit of arbitrary and tyrannous interference with the rights of others, whether corporations or individuals, then, where the Federal Government has jurisdiction it will see to it that the misconduct is stopped, paying not the slightest heed to the position or power of the corporation, the union, or the individual, but only to the one vital fact-that is, the question whether or not the conduct of the individual or aggregate of individuals is in accordance with the law of the land.

Every man must be guaranteed his liberty and his right to do as he likes with his property or his labor so long as he does not infringe the rights of others. No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor.

We do, however, want the protection which the courts now give and which, if taken away, means the complete undoing to our industries whenever the so-called "walking delegate " sees fit to call the men of his particular union out on strike, and then immediately commences the overt acts that prevent other men from attempting to take the place of the strikers.

We believe that the gentlemen composing this committee, composed as it is of lawyers of long experience and national reputation, do not

A-I-06 -9

need any legal argument from our association, as that has been fully covered by other gentlemen representing other parts of the country and other associations; but I am instructed by our executive committee to say to you that they do not expect anything but exact justice, and upon this they rely. They also desire me to say that they know no politics or partisanship upon questions brought before them for adjustment, and they represent no politics or partisanship here or elsewhere.

STATEMENT OF MR. CHARLES QUARLES, OF MILWAUKEE, WIS.

Mr. QUARLES. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the Little bill is vicious, first, because it is class legislation. It relieves from the operation of the injunction a combination to injure property and business only when the conspirators belong to a certain class and are engaged in conspiring for a particular purpose, viz, advantage in regard to labor conditions. (Connolly . Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S., 540.)

A body of men may be enjoined from perpetrating threatened mischief to a given property and business; yet another body of men will be immune from restraint and may perpetrate the same mischief, provided the purpose of their conspiracy is to compel an employer to change his methods of business against his will.

Citizens generally are, and must be, subject to injunctional process to prevent injury to property; so-called "laboring men " alone are to be exempted.

This is what Mr. Gompers calls "absolute equality before the law." Second. While the bill works rank injustice to the employer, it protects no right of the employee.

Mr. Gompers and the rest use loose language. They assume that injunctions have been issued prohibiting lawful acts. In all their arguments before the Judiciary Committee of the House at its former sessions they have failed to prove an instance where this occurred since the case of Arthur v. Oakes (63 Fed. Rep., 310).

That case is the law of the land just as much as a statute would be. And it distinctly holds that no injunction can go to prohibit combinations for the performance of lawful acts.

Before the workingmen are entitled to have this bill considered, they must point out a single mandate in any injunction which has been actually issued by any court since Arthur v. Oakes, which prohibits the doing of a lawful act. This they can not do.

Third. Mr. Gompers and his associates should point to some act which is forbidden by some one injunction, the performance of which act Mr. Gompers and his associates will say is within the right of the workingmen.

For instance, the injunction in Christensen . Kellogg Switchboard and Supply Company commands the workingmen to refrain from obstructing or stopping the business of the plaintiff or obstructing its. employees in the operation of its business.

Is it one of the lawful rights of a discharged employee to obstruct the business of his former employer?

It also enjoins them from trespassing upon the premises of the plaintiff. Is it one of the inalienable rights of a workingman to commit trespass?

It also enjoins them from using force or violence against the employees of the plaintiff. Let Mr. Gompers justify the use of force or violence. If not, he can not complain.

Also from congregating about the premises of the plaintiff for the purpose of intimidating its employees or officers or preventing them from discharging their duties to the plaintiff.

Also from driving away employees by intimidation or violence. Also from interfering with the plaintiffs' business or molesting any persons employed by them or seeking employment.

Also from interfering with its employees in going to and from

their work.

Also from going to the homes of the employees and threatening their wives and families.

If Mr. Gompers will justify any of the acts which are forbidden by this injunction, he has some standing in this discussion.

If not, he and his associates are in this position: They are asking a dispensation for workingmen to enable them alone, of all citizens, to injure their former employer in his property and business by methods which no one of them dares to justify or condone.

Their plea is that they be relieved from the operation of the preventive writ in order that they may do evil. If they have no desire to perpetrate the injurious acts, their liberty of action is in no way restrained.

I have read carefully all of the arguments before this committee at the former session of the House, and, when generalities are passed, find nothing in the plea of the workingman except that they alone may be free from interference in wrongdoing.

Loose language is not sufficient. When they give a specific instance, not from hearsay, but by production of a copy of the injunction, they will be entitled to be heard-not before this committee, but before the court granting the injunction.

The case of Arthur v. Oakes would cover that case just as much as a statute would.

Fourth. The whole argument of Mr. Gompers and his associates is that there is an adequate remedy at law.

What they mean is that there is an alleged remedy at law. That because a man committing mischief may be punished if he can be caught and identified the accomplishment of the destruction must be permitted, and that society and the employer who loses his property or whose business is destroyed are adequately protected by the criminal law.

This is absurd on its face and is preposterous if Mr. Gompers says truly that all that his people wish is absolute equality, since the writ of injunction is awarded in all other cases to prevent the mischief, although in all other cases there is the same remedy by civil or criminal action that exists here.

The difficulty is that actions for damages and the criminal law furnish no remedy whatever to the employer for the injury done and furnish no adequate remedy either to society or the employer. Fifth. It strikes me that the bill is unconstitutional, not only because it is class legislation, but because by it Congress assumes jurisdiction over factories in the various States simply because they are engaged in trade or commerce between the several States. This is