Mr. FULLER. Do you think any one of these bills would legalize violence on the part of anybody? Mr. EMERY. It would come dangerously near it in regard to the anticonspiracy bill. Mr. FULLER. And you could not answer yes or no to that question? Mr. EMERY. I think it would have a dangerous tendency in that direction. The idea is this, if you please: That the injunctions used by courts are preventive remedies and they are called into existence to give a protection to attacks upon person or property and incidentally and accidentally they operate to prevent the commission of acts of violence which would otherwise occur in the attacks made either upon the personal liberty or the personal property of the individual aggrieved. Mr. FULLER. I understand, but my question was wholly on the question of prosecution under criminal law. Would any of these bills take away from the authorities the right to punish a man for a crime that he is now punishable for under the law-that is, for violence? Mr. EMERY. I don't think that; no; directly, no. Indirectly the moral effect upon State laws with respect to conspiracy, or even to United States statutes with respect to conspiracy, might have that very dangerous effect. I do think that at the time when it is apparent that the full force of the court's law is required it is a very dangerous thing to repeal the power of the courts in that regard, especially when the attack is very largely made upon the very integrity of the court itself, and that legislation, basing the reason for it upon that argument, would be a distinct reflection upon the court itself and would have a dangerous tendency to destroy the confidence of the people in that branch of our Government. Mr. FULLER. Did I understand you to say that you represent some labor organizations? I did not so understand in the beginning, but later you said something of the kind, I think, and I would like to ask whether you would care to say what organization of labor you represent? Mr. EMERY. I said that I had the right to say that I represented labor in organizations; for instance, the Industrial Citizens' Association, in St. Louis, composed of 11,000 members, and I do not think over 3.000 of them are employers. Mr. FULLER. But you represent no labor organization as such? Mr. JOB. I would like to ask whether the speaker knows whether or not the American Federation of Labor, either one or two years ago, voted from its treasury financial aid for the defense of Moyer and Heyward and others of the Western Federation Miners? Mr. EMERY. I think that is a matter of record. Mr. Gompers would be the highest authority in that case, and I know the committee can appeal to him and secure the information; and I think he will say that there was a question as to the manner in which the thousand dollars was expended. I think Mr. Mitchell, of the United Mine Workers of America, also contributed. Mr. DAVENPORT. The statement was made yesterday that a distinguished judge of the United States, former Senator Quarles, had announced that he would not grant any more injunctions without a previous notice of hearing, and I will ask the gentleman whether or not he has any definite information on that subject from Judge Quarles? Mr. EMERY. I am glad you mentioned that. I would like to say that when this newspaper states, and when it also appeared in the American Federationist, that Judge Quarles had declared that he would never issue a temporary injunction without notice and hearing that I wrote to Judge Quarles and told him that I desired to be informed on the rules the courts made from time to time in regard to such things, and I received the following letter: JAMES A. EMERY, Esq., New York, N. Y. UNITED STATES Courts. DEAR SIR: Your letter of 13th instant at hand, and in reply beg to state that no rule on the subject of injunctions has been promulgated by me. Neither has there been any official declaration or ruling on the subject in my court. Sometime since, having issued a restraining order in an important case, wherein I got an erroneous understanding of the facts from an ex parte statement and was compelled to issue a second restraining order against complainant, in conversation with some attorneys, after the matter was disposed of. I remarked that hereafter I proposed to exercise greater care and caution in the matter of restraining orders and to call in the other side informally, where it could be done in important cases, before issuing any temporary injunction, etc. I was not aware that any newspaper man was present, and the matter was not intended for publication. In some way the reporter learned of the remark and started sensational articles distorting and enlarging the statement, and I have been much chagrined by the erroneous publications. Now, I have given you the exact facts in the case, as I recognize your right to be informed in the premises. •You are authorized to represent this association at the hearing before Judiciary Committee on anti-injunction bills. BUILDING TRADES EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATION. NEW YORK, March 13, 1906. Hon. JOHN J. JENKINS, Chairman Judiciary Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: We, the undersigned, members of the Typothetæ of the City of New York, an association of employing printers and publishers, beg you to use your influence against the enactment of the so-called anti-injunction bills now before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives. Neither the Gilbert bill nor the Little bill will be of service in the pacification of labor troubles. They will make these troubles worse, for they are positive incentives to lawlessness. Recent writers have deplored this increasing tendency to lawlessness. The cause seems apparent. Never before were thieves, forgers, incendiaries, highwaymen, and murderers so well provided with legal means of escape from punishment. Never before have trustees of money been so surrounded with opportunities for wrongdoing. Every law that favors release from individual responsibility and allows individual wrongdoing to be imputed to a society in its corporate capacity tends to make the wrongdoer go too near the danger line, and even to go beyond it. Awed by the clamor of labor leaders, many States have repealed or made ineffective the old conspiracy laws which every civilized community has found necessary for its protection. Unfortunately, the trade unions that have profited most by this unwise legislation are not incorporated, and too often escape punishment for malicious mischief and violation of common-law rights. They have been so petted and pampered by indulgent legislators that they consider themselves a coordinate or superior authority in government. Typographical Union No. 6, of this city, and its 400 associate unions, binds every member by an extra judicial oath to obey a union order when it is in opposition to civil, ecclesiastical, or political laws. It practically claims superiority over statute law. It is this arrogation of supreme power that actuates the leaders of the Italian Black Hand and that leads to similar results. The tolerance by legislators of the mischief-making powers of unions is a serious mistake, for it has led to arson, maiming, and murder. The benefit that unions may have accomplished in the increase of wages could be offset by statistics showing the loss of life and of property and the increased antagonism between employers and employed that invariably have followed the repeal of conspiracy laws and the clothing of trade unions with privileges that are denied the individual. This deference to unions rests on a flimsy basis. The members of unions constitute but about one-fourth of the working force of the nation, and more than half of their members are restive under the tyranny put upon them by their leaders. It is not the peaceable member, but the mischief-seeking leader that clamors for anti-injunction bills. Is it not a mistaken policy to legislate exclusively for the benefit of these leaders? The injunction order, now sparingly used, is the great safeguard of the employer against the machinations of oath-bound conspirators who secretly plot the destruction of his business. It is an employer's right that should not be delayed or denied. The theory of lawmaking is the prevention more than the punishment of wrongdoing. To wait for the commission of felonies or high misdemeanors when this commission can be prevented is not the practice of a civilized government, but this procedure is favored by these anti-injunction bills. The anti-injunction bill strips the judge of his power to quell trouble at its beginning. It is a practical order to employer and trade union to fight out their quarrel to a finish between themselves. Law will not interfere. Is it a wise policy to allow either side to make and execute law for itself? An employer will surely resent this neglect of duty by a judge whose business it is to see that justice shall be done. It should not be expected by legislators that manufacturers who have spent years in the building of useful industries will meekly accept orders from an irresponsible trade union about wages. hours, and shop rules, in whose making they have no voice, or that they will submit to the infesting of approaches to their shops by pickets" who annoy and sometimes assault the free men who offer to take their places, to the boycotting of advertisers and customers, to the malicious damaging of machinery, and to frequent outspoken and printed declarations that they intend to coerce the employer to submission by every means in their power. Is it wise to give additional power to passionate men who have proved their inability to use with discretion the limited power they now have? Harmony between employers and employed will not be had by anti-injunetion bills. Attempts at harmony must begin, not with the legislators, but with the unions themselves. When unions give up the policy of the closed shop and attempts to prevent employment of free men there will be no clamor for antiinjunction bills, and there will be less of arson, maiming, and murder before the courts. Yours, respectfully, Theo. L. De Vinne & Co., Burr Printing House, Star Electrotype Co., Brown, Lend & Pelt, Mergenthaler Linotype Co., W. N. Columbine, Sackett & Wilhelms Litho. and Printing Co., The Methodist Book Concern of the City of New York, A. K. Brewer & Co., Patteson Press, Wm. Green, Grannis Press, L. Middleditch Co., Hill Publishing Co., The American Printer, Styles & Cash, Iram H. Blanchard & Co., Bates Advertising Co., John C. Rankin Co., W. T. Vanden Hooten. STATEMENT OF MR. LOUIS L. DRAKE, REPRESENTING THE NATIONAL PAINT, OIL, AND VARNISH ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES, 27 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK. Mr. DRAKE. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I shall not impose upon the courtesy you have extended to me by attempting to add anything to the arguments that have already been presented to this committee at this and previous hearings against the legislation under consideration. Those arguments from men versed in the law and better able than I to point out the legal defects of the proposed legislation, and from men whose business experience as employers has brought them into contact with the physical conditions which would be affected by the bills, have covered, I believe, every point that has been raised by the advocates of the measure and every point that its provisions would suggest to its opponents. My appearance here as the representative of the National Paint, Oil, and Varnish Association is simply to give personal utterance to the protest of its members against the passage of these bills. This association is a federation of local organizations in the larger cities of the United States, and has a membership of about 700 firms and corporations, most of which are manufacturers and large employers of labor. While they have perhaps suffered as little as any other class of employers from troubles with unionized labor, our Chicago members have at least had personal experience with the lawless tyranny of unions, and their experiences actuate the sentiment of the more fortunate members, who fully realize that exemption from these troubles can not be guaranteed them, and who appreciate the necessity for safeguarding the interest of the employer at least to the extent of continuing to him the protection of the courts which these bills aim to destroy. The necessity for that protection has been made plain to you gentlemen by the history of labor struggles which have been placed before you at these hearings, and which, indeed, are plainly put before every man who reads the daily papers. The men whom I represent do not oppose the organization of labor, nor do they believe that a man should be compelled by law, or by any force other than the necessities of himself and his family, to work when or where he does not wish to. But they assume that it is not possible by injunction or any other process of law to make service under any particular master compulsory, and equally they assume that the man who desires to work for any particular master should not be prevented from so doing by law, unless it be invoked to prevent the violation of a contract. Certainly he should not be prevented by force, and it is to restrain the force that has been so often employed for this purpose that the intervention of the courts is asked, as affording a method less violent and more efficient than the physical restraint exercised by police or military power. The organization which I represent asks you gentlemen to seriously consider how badly the employer who is financially responsible for his acts, and who is generally law-abiding, is handicapped in dealing with irresponsible and lawless mobs which make violent interference between him and his employees. Except for the restraint which has been extended by the mandate of the court, employers and loyal employees, in every case where injunction has been issued, I believe, would have been powerless to maintain the relations into which they bad mutually entered. It is because of this realization of their possible dependence upon the courts for the protection necessary to enable them to carry on business at all, in the event of strikes in their works, that those whom I represent and thousands of other employers similarly situated protest against the enactment of this legislation. I ask you, therefore, in the name of the National Paint, Oil, and Varnish Association, to add the numerical strength of that organization and the standing and importance of the industries which it represents to the weight of protest already lodged with you against the passage of these bills, for the reasons, obvious to you, which make it a menace to the rights and interests of every employer and every man who desires to control his own services. STATEMENT OF MR. HORACE KENT TENNEY, OF CHICAGO. Mr. TENNEY. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I appear here at the request of the Chicago Typothetæ, an association of printers and publishers, and I must assume that these gentlemen have asked me to come because they thought that a matter before the Judiciary Committee had in it perhaps some tinge of professionalism which would make the presentation of one side of the case better if conducted by a lawyer. Since I have examined these bills and given some attention to them, since I have heard the discussion upon both sides here, I have come to understand more clearly than I did at first that this question which is before you here is one in which every man as a citizen must necessarily take an interest, and that no man who is a citizen in the real sense can fail to appreciate that the propositions here presented concern him in a very personal sense. I am not here to make a demand upon you as to the manner in which you should exercise the judgment which your position enables you to exercise and makes it your duty to exercise; I regard the use of the word "demand" as out of place in a discussion before those who must be presumed to have full sense of their responsibilities. I can only present to you, not with any backing of a demand, some considerations which have impressed themselves deeply upon me, and present them to you only as lawyer to lawyers, as a citizen to other citizens who occupy an official position. Mr. PEARRE. Which of these bills do you refer to? Mr. TENNEY. I speak more particularly, Mr. Chairman, with reference to the bill 4445, which is entitled “A bill to limit the word 'conspiracy' and the use of injunctions and restraining orders in certain cases." It can not be doubted that this is class legislation. Indeed, it is openly proclaimed as such. Even if the consideration of the terms of the measure did not itself disclose the fact, it is class legislation; it is designed, programmed, arranged in the interest of one class and against another. The first speaker who spoke yesterday in advocacy of the bill appreciated that, and appreciating also the good policy in a controversy of taking up at once a proposition which is clearly apparent upon the other side, spoke of it as class legislation, and spoke of the trouble which often came to a measure from having a name given to it. Now, gentlemen. I shall not stop in the short interval which any speaker can claim here for his own audience to enter into a technical |