You take the legislation in the interest of capital and there is no end to it. You have your national banking law and you have laws of various kinds. You have bankruptcy laws in order to help business men, and I can not begin to enumerate them. There are volumes

and volumes of such statutes. And I say that where labor asks so little, and asks it upon such obvious reasons of justice, simply asking you to go back to recognized fundamental principles, and give labor what it has always been conceded it was entitled to until the modern era of usurpation, I think, gentlemen, you ought to give it very careful consideration, and I hope to see the best results from this attempt to get a bill. And whether you adopt this bill that I have proposed here as a substitute or some other bill, I hope we will get a favorable report from this committee.

I wish to close now unless I am reminded of something.

Mr. FURUSETH. By these usurpations these Federal courts simply create certain crimes and use the equity power to punish them.

Mr. SPELLING. I am under great obligations for the patience with which you have listened to me, and I suppose that if it seems to be necessary after somebody else is heard, if anybody else is heard, I will be allowed a few minutes to reply.

Mr. GILLETT. I think so. And if you have any matters there you wish printed, if you will hand them to the stenographer they will be printed.

Mr. SPELLING. I will say in regard to House resolution 17976, introduced by Mr. Henry on April 10, that it simply provides for the giving of notice, and that is incorporated in the bill that I have been discussing this morning.

Mr. PEARRE. Except that your bill provides a certain number of days, five days, and that is reasonable notice. The bill in your hand provides for "reasonable notice," while the substitute provides for five days' notice.

Mr. SPELLING. Just flat five days.

Mr. GILLETT. You mean that you can make it ten days or fifteen days, but it can not be less than five days?

Mr. SPELLING. I wouldn't object to six months' notice.

Mr. GILLETI. That is the least notice, five days?

Mr. SPELLING. Yes, sir. It depends on the character of the case the time the judge will give, but it must be five days.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you going to have your bill introduced?
Mr. SPELLING. I understand that is not necessary.

The CHAIRMAN. No; that is not necessary.

Mr. SPELLING. I understand that the committee can report a substitute for any bill.

The CHAIRMAN. Certainly.

Mr. SPELLING. Now, in regard to this other bill, No. 17975, introduced by Mr. Henry, of Texas, on the same day. I have glanced over it. It has a great deal to do with the criminal procedure for contempt of court, a subject that we have not touched upon, and in which I suppose the Federation is interested, but I say this is a separate subject and the subject for a separate bill, and the matters covered by this bill that I have been discussing ought not to be embodied in this bill. Mr. PEARRE. Is it not very easy to be associated in carrying out the purposes of the bill which you offer?

It seemed that the subject was so closely allied that you would like to give the committee some views on the subject, probably.

Mr. SPELLING. I will say this, my friend, that the subject of contempt is one that requires the attention and consideration of this Congress.

Mr. PEARRE. I think so, too; I quite agree with you.

Mr. SPELLING. But it is one that has been given no attention because it had nothing to do with this. But I will say that I see no reason why this should not be settled either by reporting this by a separate bill or making it a section in this substitute bill, or by incorporating the provisions of the substitute bill in this bill. I do not care. We have no pride of opinion. We are simply seeking the ends of justice, as I conceive it, and we do not care how you gentlemen frame this matter or in what form it appears. I submit you should consider the two bills together, and frame the legislation we are entitled to.

Mr. FURUSETH. Mr. Chairman, since Mr. Gompers is not here it might be well, perhaps, that I should say what is the position of the Federation precisely on that matter, something that Mr. Spelling has not been consulted about at all. That is this, that where an injunction is proper and necessary, there the penalty must be swift and certain, or the injunction itself will be of no value. The contention that labor has been making for several years here is this, that injunctions as such have been issued where they had no business at all to be issued. As illustrating the matter, I can say: Supposing I have a piece of land on which there is timber, and somebody goes upon this piece of land and begins to cut the timber. I do not want to have it cut at all. An injunction is the thing to prevent damage being done to that property, and there is the legitimate use of the injunction. and a legitimate use of the power swiftly and certainly to punish.

Mr. DAVENPORT. Might I inquire of the gentleman whether he or the organization which he represents would be in favor of a law in a case where it was a legitimate use of the injunction to require a previous notice to the party where the doing of the act would, following the giving of the notice, as in the instance that is cited, threaten waste, or the negotiation of a note or negotiable instrument which had been obtained by fraud for the payment of money?

Mr. FURUSETH. I want to say that so far as the question of notice is concerned as to mercantile transactions, neither I, nor I think the American Federation of Labor, has any knowledge about them so as to be able to speak. You gentlemen know that much better than we do. The question we are interested in, let me say to you, is this, that personal rights of men are being filched from them through those processes of injunction.

Mr. DAVENPORT. We understand it

Mr. FURUSETH. And we want to get back on solid ground.

Mr. DAVENPORT. But the attention of Mr. Spelling was called to a bill which, it was assumed by him, was confined to labor disputes. The bill covers every kind of injunction in every kind of case, and it takes out of the law that provision which was put there so carefully and deliberately by the Congress of the United States in 1872, upon the bill drawn by Senator Carpenter, of Wisconsin, which would make it impossible, provided it was constitutional, to restrain the doing of many acts which have no relation whatever to labor disputes. I do not understand that the American Federation of Labor want to identify themselves with anything which would be held to cripple or

disable the courts from doing anything-issuing injunctions in these cases?

Mr. FURUSETH. Is this a criticism directed to the so-called substitute bill introduced here to-day?

Mr. DAVENPORT. No; it is only directed to the one introduced by Congressman Henry.

Mr. GILLETT. It is not to the one introduced by Mr. Spelling at all? Mr. DAVENPORT. No, sir.

Mr. FURUSETH. Mr. Spelling has had it simply in his hands and has been giving his opinion on it.

Mr. SPELLING. That is a question that has been discussed before, but I see no occasion for taking it up now, as it is not in the bill that is now before the committee. But at any rate, Mr. Chairman, I wish to know whether there is any good reason, or whether it is necessary that this discussion be continued over from this day. I came here two weeks ago to discuss this legislation. I was told that the matter had been continued in order to give the other side an opportunity to be notified and to be present and participate in this discussion. I came here to-day fully expecting to finish up this matter and expedite this bill through the committee, and it seems, if I am not mistaken, that there has been an intimation that it was going over again in order to give them a chance to discuss it. Is that correct?

The CHAIRMAN. All the information I can give you is that when this hearing was determined upon it was said that we would commence this morning and hear arguments for and against the constitutionality of these several bills, and that the further hearing would be on the 18th, for the purpose of hearing any gentleman who wanted to discuss the merits of the law on either side. That was the arrangement that was agreed to unanimously by the committee.

Mr. SPELLING. I have said very little about the constitutionality of this bill, because I did not want to discuss that extensively. It is because its constitutionality has not been assailed.

Mr. GILLETT. I suppose perhaps they would assail it on the 18th. Mr. SPELLING. Why do they not do it to-day? They are here.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee does not control these things, and if there is anybody else here to be heard we will hear them, and if not, the committee will stand adjourned.

Mr. SPELLING. Will it be taken up on the 18th?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. The committee will stand adjourned. (Thereupon, at 1.10 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned.)

STATEMENT OF MR. LOUIS A. STERNE.

Mr. STERNE. Mr. Furuseth stated that in view of the fact that he had talked with Mr. Turner, this letter was addressed to him. This reads as follows:

THE NEW WILLARD, Washington, D. C., April 7, 1906.

MY DEAR FURUSETH: I am called home to the coast suddenly, and inclose herewith the letter promised. I have not had time to elaborate it as I told you I would do. With best wishes.

Sincerely, yours,

GEORGE TURNER.

The letter referred to, which was inclosed, is as follows:

THE NEW WILLARD, Washington, D. C., April 7, 1906.

ANDREW FURUSETH, Esq., Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: I am not prepared to express an opinion concerning the policy of the proposed law to which you have called my attention, but I have no hesitation in repeating the opinion, expressed to you verbally, that the courts of the United States, as at present constituted and empowered, have no authority to issue injunctions or restraining orders in controversies growing out of labor disputes, except in cases where interference with some actual physical property or property right of one side or the other has taken place or is threatened. Injury to property, either actual or prospective, is the foundation on which the jurisdiction of courts of equity rests.

It is beyond the power of such courts to attempt to enjoin strikes or to control labor organizations in their efforts to make labor strikes effective, so long as such efforts do not go to the destruction or injury of property. Men must have liberty in this country to work or not as they please and to use lawful means to induce others to refrain from working if it is to their interest to do So. This liberty is matter of constitutional right and can not lawfully be interfered with by any form of legal procedure. But, unfortunately, in their efforts to make strikes effective, men sometimes go further than the employment of lawful means, and it becomes important in such cases to determine what the remedies are provided by law for such excesses.

In such cases the criminal law may punish and the civil law give compensation in damages for injuries inflicted, but when the injured party goes into a court of equity the question of the right of such a court to proceed is still to be answered by the test I have suggested, namely, Does the wrongful act complained of do injury to some property or property right? In this sense an employer has no property or property right in the labor which he employs, and he has no right to come into a court of equity to invoke its jurisdiction simply because he has been deprived of such labor through the efforts of third persons. Undoubtedly if those efforts constitute breaches of the criminal law, the guilty parties may be punished, but equity does not interfere because acts are criminal. Undoubtedly if those efforts are unlawful and result in injury, the injured party may have damages in a civil action, but equity does not interfere in every case where the common law gives a remedy in damages. Equity only interferes where, by the course of its established procedure, it is proper for it to interfere, and it has been established by the wisdom of the great men who have presided in courts of equity since their foundation that it is not proper to interfere with the personal conduct of individuals except where that conduct affects property or property rights.

These principles are laid down in the text-books and are illustrated by the decisions of the courts. The cases of In re Sawyer (124 U. S.. 200) and Northern Pacific Railroad . Whalen (149 U. S., 157) well illustrate them. In re Debs (158 U. S., 564) does not depart from those principles. In that case there was actual interference with physical property, actual injury and destruction of property, which property constituted an interstate highway, thus constituting a nuisance which the United States, as the sovereign, had the right under a well-recognized head of equity, to apply to the courts to abate and enjoin.

There is no denying, however, that a number of the inferior courts of the United States have departed from these principles in dealing with labor troubles, and in doing so have set some bad precedents. Their action is an illustration of the old adage that "hard cases make bad law," and is a strong argument against any legislation which might be construed as a recognition of such a practice.

Very truly, yours,

GEORGE TURNER.

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
Wednesday, April 18, 1906.

The committee met at 10.40 o'clock a. m., Hon. John J. Jenkins in the chair.

ARGUMENT OF T. C. SPELLING, ESQ.-Continued.

Mr. SPELLING. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, in closing the other day I remarked that no attack had been made upon the constitutionality of this bill, and so, as there has not been such an attack, it may not be necessary to touch upon that.

Mr. LITTLEFIELD. To which bill do you refer, Mr. Spelling?

Mr. SPELLING. The bill that has been introduced-H. R. 18171. Mr. LITTLEFIELD. That is the bill that Mr. Spelling himself proposes, is it?

Mr. SPELLING. That is the bill introduced by Mr. Pearre, a member of the committee, by request.

Mr. LITTLEFIELD. Is this the one drawn by you?

Mr. SPELLING. Yes.

I am not going to detain you more than ten or fifteen minutes. I am going to read something from a manuscript here on the constitutional question, giving you a few authorities; but first I wish to propose a few amendments to this bill. I will not argue them, and I would be obliged if some member of the committee would propose those amendments as I offer them. Of course nobody is committed to anything. He does that tentatively; that is understood. In the first place, strike out after the word "employment," line 11, down to and including the word "granting," in line 3, page 2.

Also strike out in line 10, page 2, the word "mere." In line 25, page 2, between the words "the" and "carrying," insert "entering into or." In line 3, page 3, between the same words insert those same words "entering into or."

In line 4, page 3, strike out the word "when." In line 5, page 3, strike out the word "done" after the word "would." In line 5 insert" if done or not done "

Mr. ALEXANDER. How would it read then-" would, if done?" Mr. SPELLING. Just that part, you mean?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Yes; in line 5, page 3.

Mr. SPELLING. Beginning with line 4 "agreement be restrained or enjoined unless such act or thing would if done or not done be of the character described in the first section of this act."

I will say, in regard to the first amendment, that we do not care to mix up the issues. We think that the judge ought to have discretion to require notice or not to require it. It is too important a matter for us to impinge upon in this matter.

Mr. LITTLEFIELD. To do what?

Mr. SPELLING. We do not care to interfere with this matter of notice. Our main contention is something else—that is, to lop off this excess jurisdiction.

Mr. LITTLEFIELD. That is the fundamental basis of the Gilbert bill-notice. So your proposition is that the Gilbert bill in no instance is supported by the people you represent-that is, you absolutely disavow that?