Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

both employee and employer may appeal for an adjudication and settlement of their differences.

Arbitration is a failure because it means compromise. The very word, in the popular understanding, implies concessions from both sides without respect to which side is right or wrong. Thus, neither the employer nor the employee is satisfied with arbitration, and the employee, after some experience with arbitration, although first its advocate, is now its opponent. History is full of illustrations of the danger of great organizations of individuals to the safety and security of the State. Some system must be devised in this country whereby no class will find it necessary to maintain a great and powerful organization of individuals for any purpose. The trouble with large and powerful organizations of individuals-I mean individuals of a class-is that the organization soon conceives the idea that it is bigger than the State, more just than the State, and should govern the people above the State. They sometimes become so imperious that they actually ignore the State. They do not even undertake to influence the State, nor to govern through it, but they go over its head and run things to suit themselves. This has been the history of strong class organizations. Since labor has begun to organize, many of its leaders have sought

universal control.

In 1869 the Third International Labor Congress assembled at Basel, Switzerland. By a vote of fifty-four to four that Congress declared that "landed property should be abolished, that the soil belongs to society and is inalienable," and demanded "the destruction of all states, national and territorial, and on their ruins the founding of the International State of la

borers."

It seems that the leaders of these labor organizations, as a usual rule, endeavor to inspire class hatred and contempt for

the Government.

Last August the Railroad Brotherhoods in this country exhib ited their contempt for the President and Congress, and finally served notice that they proposed to have their own way without awaiting a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. No Roman conqueror ever charioteered down the Appian Way

amid his sycophantic outriders and retainers and gave his com. mands with more peremptory arrogance than the representa. tives of the railroad brotherhoods gave their orders to the President and Congress. When the brotherhoods, impatient with the delay of the Supreme Court in Wilson v. New, served notice on the railroads that they proposed to take the law in their own hands, representatives of one of the orders visited the editor of one of our daily papers in Muskogee with a view to obtaining avertising space in which to write up their side of the question. The editor remarked that the Supreme Court of the United States would pass on the question in a short time and that ought to settle it, to which one of the representatives replied: "To hell with the Supreme Court-what do we care about what it decides." Having successfully bullied Congress the brotherhoods, as well as other organizations, have conceived the idea that they are above the Government and that it is a condescension and courtesy upon their part to permit the State or Federal Government to deal with any subject in which they have an interest. In this world war we find agents of labor parties, social democrats, and other nondescript organizations. arrogating to themselves the functions of ambassadors clothed with full authority to command a cessation of hostilities in Europe and negotiate and dictate terms of peace. It seems that some of the notoriety seeking self-important egotists claiming to represent the dear people in the billegerent nations had rather have the prestige of a counterfeit delegate to a spurious Peace Congress than to free their country of a ruthless invader. Given a little vain authority they flourish on newspaper advertisement, without which they, along with one little so-called United States Senator, Robert Lafollette, would soon wither away from public view.

As certain as the tadpole develops into the frog, the walking delegate develops into the self-appointed Master of the State. The State must assert itself. The jurisdiction of the labor organizations must be curtailed and some of their weapons taken away. A strike is the most effective weapon, and it is one I readily concede they are entitled to hold unless the States assumes the responsibility of creating a State agency whose pow

ers and duties shall be such as to render the strike wholly unnecessary. As heretofore suggested, if the employees are making just demands, they should not be compelled to resort to the strike and suffer its consequential losses; and, on the other hand, if their demands are unjust, the employer should not be subjected to the irreparable damage and injury entailed by the strike. The goverment should no longer stand neutral in such controversies, but must intervene and perform its natural and necessary functions.

JUDGE J. C. WILSON: I move you, sir, that the thanks of the Convention be extended for the most excellent and vigorous paper which we have just heard, and that, in accordance with the custom of the Association, we elect the reader an honorary member of the Association.

This motion was duly seconded, and upon being submitted to a vote was unanimously carried.

MR. GEORGE S. RAMSEY: Gentlemen, I appreciate the honor very much.

MR. JORDAN STOKES: Before we take a recess, I think we ought to have something more to say in regard to that able paper, than simply passing the resolution. I do not know when it has been my pleasure to hear a subject, such a great one, discussed so ably and so fearlessly as our honored guest has done today.

Mr. President, if we had in the halls of the Representatives men of that type, our government would not be today cringing before the power of the I. W. W.'s of the West, and the labor unions in our own midst. We have fostered by political moral cowardice on the part of our representatives this very danger, and they have succeeded in developing it now to the stature of a giant, notwithstanding our courts have always stood against it. You remember the scene that oc curred in Cincinnati when that great jurist, Taft, rendered that first opinion adverse to the power of the strikes. Notice was served upon him that if he dared to read that opinion in public he would be assassinated on the Bench. I know whereof I am speaking. His friends went to him. Judge Taft said,

"I will make no distinction between that decision and any other," and he read it publicly.

'What we need today is men of the type of our guest, and in the judicial chair men of the type of Judge Taft, and we would be able then to control this great danger that now threatens our country. To me it is an anomaly for the Government to say we have the power to lay our hands upon the coal mines and say what you shall charge, and lay our hand upon food, and say what the farmer shall charge for his wheat, and lay our hand upon the munition factories, and say what you shall charge the nation, and then to say, when it comes to labor, "This is sacred, holy ground, in which the Government shall take no part." That, it seems to me is an anomaly, and one that we have got to get out of if we intend to protect our country.

THE PRESIDENT: We desire to extend a more elaborate resolution of commendation of Mr. Ramsey, if you desire to do it. What is your suggestion-you suggested that it be more than a formal resolution of thanks.

MR. JORDAN STOKES: Yes, sir, more than a formal one. THE PRESIDENT: I appoint you a Committee to draft the resolution.

THE PRESIDENT: There are two Committees, one known as that on Admission to the Bar, and one specially directed to memorializing the Supreme Court of the State, and then we have the Committee on Legal Education, which of course is a standing committee of the Association. We will first have the report of the Committee on Legal Education, which will be followed by the report of the special Committee, and after that we want a report on this vital question of Admission to the Bar. Mr. Evans, Chairman of the Committee on Education, will now read his report.

MR. GILES L. EVANS proceeded to read the report of the Committee on Legal Education, which was as follows:

BAR ASSOCIATION OF TENNESSEE, 1917.

Report of the Committee on

LEGAL EDUCATION AND ADMISSION TO THE BAR. To the Tennessee Bar Association:

Your Committee on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar would respectfully report that this Association adopted at its annual meeting last year two resolutions which this Committee thinks of the most vital importance to the legal education and the general standing of the members of the Bar in Tennessee. The first of these resolutions requested and urged the Justices of the Supreme Court of Tennessee to so amend the rules concerning the admission of applicants to the practice of law in the State as to require at least two years' study of the law in some reputable law school or in the office of some reputable lawyer who has been a member of the Supreme Court Bar for at least five years, preceded by a high school education or its equivalent, as a condition precedent to eligibility for examinations for admission to the Bar. This resolution further provided for the appointment by the President of this Association of a committee of three members of the Association to present this. matter at the regular December session, 1916, of the Supreme Court. Judge John W. Judd, of Gallatin; Mr. F. A. Wright, of Knoxville, and Mr. Robert F. Spraggins, of Jackson, were appointed on this committee, but at the time of the preparation of this report your Committee had no information as to what action these gentlemen took or what results they accomplished. The second of these resolutions receited the fact that the laws concerning the admission of applicants to practice are not properly enforced, and requested the members of the Bench and Bar to lend their co-operation and support to the strict enforcement of these laws. An examination of the reports of former Committees on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar shows, from the report of the committee at the 1915 meeting of the Association, that in 1912 a similar resolution to the first was passed by this Association; but as yet your Committee knows of no action of the Supreme Court on this request eitber granting or denying it.

As your Committee understands the situation, there are three

« ForrigeFortsett »