But I want now to read what that astute and, I think, most unfair gentleman, then in the White House said. In my opinion he, in effect, libeled the chairman of this committee who had presided over the Denver convention; and he, in effect, libeled the millions of his fellow citizens who comprise the Democratic Party by unfairly representing that the silence of Mr. Bryan on the subject of Mr. Gompers's wild statements would be clear proof that the Democratic Party stood for this bill and would make it a law if successful in that presidential campaign. He did this for the purpose of accomplishing the defeat of our party and our candidates in that campaign.

Mr. Chairman, I want to rescue from oblivion and to preserve for future use this remarkable document. It is, perhaps, in a general way familiar to you all, so I will ask that without stopping to read it now, since it would take too much time, it may be made a part of the record of my remarks at this point:

LETTER TO SENATOR KNOX.

WASHINGTON, October 21, 1908. MY DEAR SENATOR KNOX: In your admirable speech of yesterday you speak of the action of Mr. Bryan and certain gentlemen claiming to be the special representatives of organized labor, foremost among them Mr. Gompers, to secure the support o laboring men for Mr. Bryan on consideration of his agreement to perform certain acts nominally in the interests of organized labor, which would really be either wholly ineffective or else of widespread injury not only to organized labor but to all decent citizens throughout this country. You have a peculiar right to speak on labor questions, for it was you, who, as Attorney General, first actively invoked the great power of the Federal Government on behalf of the rights of labor when for the first time in the history of the Government, you speaking for the Department of Justice, intervened in a private lawsuit which had gone against the widow of a brakeman and by your intervention secured from the Supreme Court a construction of the safety-appliance act, which made it a vital remedial statute, and therefore has secured to hundreds of crippled employees compensation which they would not otherwise have obtained.

LETTER FROM GOMPERS.

The daily papers of October 13 contain an open letter from Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, appealing to workingmen to vote for Mr. Bryan.

In that letter are certain definite statements which interest the wider American public quite as much as those to whom Mr. Gompers makes his appeal. These statements warrant all you have said in your speech, and they would warrant you in asking Mr. Bryan to say publicly whether Mr. Gompers states correctly the attitude of his party and himself on a subject that is of vital concern to every citizen, including every business man, as well as every farmer and every laboring man, who looks to the courts for the protection of his rights.

Mr. Gompers in his letter asserts that the judiciary of this country is destroying democratic government and substituting therefor an irresponsible and corrupt despotism in the interests of corporate power, and he further makes clear that the means by which he believes this alleged despotism has been set up in the place of democracy is by the process of injunction in the courts of equity.

Mr. Gompers in his letter states that his appeal to the Republican convention at Chicago for remedy against the injunction was denied, and he then goes on to state not only that the Democratic Party promised a remedy but promised him the particular remedy that he had already asked of Congress.

His words are:

"Labor's representatives then went to the Democratic Party. That party made labor's contentions its own. It pledged its candidates for every office to those remedies which labor had already submitted to Congress."

The last sentence in this quotation indicates very definitely the specific remedies to which Mr. Gompers understands Mr. Bryan's party has pledged itself.

His statement now makes perfectly clear an important plank in the Bryanite platform which has heretofore seemed puzzling to a vast number of earnest minded, think

ing people who are sincerely interested in the steady advance and the legitimate aspirations of labor, and who carefully read both platforms to know precisely what hopes each held out for the improvement of the condition of wage earners.

That plank reads as follows:

"Questions of judicial practice have arisen, especially in connection with industrial disputes. We deem that the parties to all judicial proceedings should be treated with rigid impartiality, and that injunctions should not be issued in any cases in which injunctions would not issue if no industrial dispute were involved."

REMEDY PROMISED.

This is the plank that promises the "remedy" against injunctions which Mr. Gompers asked of Mr. Bryan's party. In actual fact it means absolutely nothing; no change of the law could be based on it; no man without inside knowledge could foretell what its meaning would turn out to be, for no man could foretell how any judge would decide in any given case, as the plank apparently leaves each judge free to say when he issues an injunction in a labor case whether or not it is a case in which an injunction would issue if labor were not involved. Yet this plank is apparently perfectly clear to Mr. Gompers, and in his letter to his followers he indicates beyond question just what he understands it to mean. He asserts that he has the requisite inside knowledge. His statement that it was Mr. Bryan's party (for it was Mr. Bryan who dictated the platform) pledged itself "to those remedies which labor had already submitted to Congress" is a perfectly clear and definite statement.

The "remedies" which Mr. Gompers has already submitted to Congress are matters of record and the identification of his "remedy" against injunctions in labor disputes is easy and certain. This "remedy" is embodied in House bill No. 94 of the first session of the Sixtieth Congress, the complete text of which is hereto appended. The gist of the bill, as can be seen by referring to the complete text, is this: First. After forbidding any Federal judge to issue a restraining order for an injunction in any labor dispute, except to prevent irreparable injury to property or a property right, it specifically provides that "no right * * * to carry on business of any particular kind, or at any particular place, or at all, shall be construed, held, considered, or treated as property or as constituting a property right."

Second. It provides that nothing agreed upon or done by two or more parties in connection with a labor dispute shall constitute a conspiracy or other criminal offense or be prosecuted as such unless the thing agreed upon or done would be unlawful if done by a single individual.

The bill here described is not only the "remedy" that Mr. Gompers has "already submitted to Congress," but it is the one and only remedy which he and those associated with him in his present movement have announced that they will accept in the matter of his grievance against the courts on the injunction issue.

FEDERATION ON RECORD.

The counsel for the American Federation of Labor and Mr. Gompers, its president, are both on record to this effect.

At a hearing before the House Committee on Judiciary the counsel for the American Federation of Labor on February 5, 1908 (as appears from the printed hearings). stated:

"The bill was considered by at least two sessions of the executive council of that organization and unanimously approved. It was considered by two of its national conventions--the two latest-and by them unanimously indorsed. And in the face of many propositions to amend it, in the face of many proposed substitutes, in the face of pressure from every direction, from high sources and sources not so exalted, the organization has stood by and is to-day standing by this bill without amendments. Mr. Gompers himself in discussing this bill before the same committee on February 28, 1908 (as appears from the printed hearings), went on record as follows:

"Events have demonstrated clearly to my mind that there is only one bill before the committee that can at all be effective to deal with this abuse, with this invasion of human rights, and that is the Pearre bill.”

Further on in the same page of the hearings. Mr. Gompers states:

"I will say this, that I think I will try to make my position clear that the American Federation of Labor has so declared itself that it must insist upon the principals involved in the Pearre bill, and that I explained as best I could the position of laborthat we would rather be compelled to bear the wrongs which we have for a longer period than to give our assent to the establishment of a wrong principle, believing and knowing that time would give the justice and relief to which labor-the working people are entitled.”

DEMAND OF GOMPERS.

This bill, then, and none other represents exactly the relief that Mr. Gompers demands in the way of anti-injunction legislation; and if the statement in his letter is correct this bill represents what Mr. Bryan and his party are pledged to in the matter of anti-injunction legislation.

The injunction plank in the Bryanite platform may sound vague and hazy, but there is nothing vague or hazy about this bill.

It is more than a bill; it is a program of the most fixed and definite kind; and if Mr. Gompers is correct this bill becomes, as it were, an authorized appendix to Mr. Bryan's platform or a footnote explaining in detail the briefer and vaguer injunction plank in that platform.

Does Mr. Bryan accept it as such?

Mr. Bryan should state publicly whether he in fact accepts the principle of this bill, which is the official program of Mr. Gompers and those who stand with him. Mr. Gompers announces publicly that Mr. Bryan's party has made this program its own. Is Mr. Gompers correct in this statement?

Either Mr. Gompers is mistaken as to what Mr. Bryan's party has promised him in this matter of anti-injunction legislation or those who drafted his party's platform in their haste failed to make the promise so clear that the general public would understand it precisely as Mr. Gompers understood it.

Mr. Bryan failed in his letter of acceptance to discuss this labor plank of his party's platform. So far as I am aware he has failed to discuss it since."

There should be such discussion as a matter of common fairness, not only to labor but to all citizens alike. On a question of such grave consequence the people are entitled to know where Mr. Bryan stands.

Mr. Taft has repeatedly explained exactly where he stands in this matter of regulating injunctions.

Are we not entitled to know with equal clearness exactly where Mr. Bryan stands? Mr. Gomper's public statements as to what his party has promised make it imperative that Mr. Bryan declare himself.

This bill to the principle of which he says Mr. Bryan is pledged, declares that the right to carry on a lawful business in lawful way shall not be regarded as a property right or entitled to the protection of a court of equity through the process of an injunction and that the right to such protection, which admittedly now exists under the law, shall be taken away.

WHAT GOMPERS PLANNED.

The counsel for the American Federation of Labor in his argument before the House committee on February 5, at which Mr. Gompers himself was present, gave a very frank illustration of what he and Mr. Gompers perceived to be the consequences of that provision of this bill which says that the right to carry on business shall not be entitled to protection as a property right.

His words are: "Suppose that working men by some operation or proceedings in the community (let us say by violence or persuasion or picketing away from the premises) reduce those works to a state of utter helplessness and there was not a wheel moving nor a process in operation and this company had no help at all-that would be an interference with his right to do business, and for that I say he has no right to be protected by injunction."

Is Mr. Bryan in reality pledged to this point of view?

Will he definitely say either in writing or in public address whether he believes with Mr. Gompers that the protection heretofore afforded by the courts of equity to the right to carry on a lawful business in a lawful way is despotic power, and that the judges who exercise that power are irresponsible despots?

So far as the second section of this bill is concerned it is perfectly clear that it would legalize the blacklist and the sympathetic boycott carried to any extent. It would legalize acts which have time and again been declared oppressive, unjust, and immoral; by the best and most eminent labor leaders themselves.

Does Mr. Bryan believe that Mr. Gompers, that he and that part of the labor movement that agrees with him, has the right morally, and should be given the right legally, to paralyze or to destroy with impunity the business of an innocent third person against whom neither he nor they have any direct grievance simply because the third person refuses to join with them aggressively in a labor controversy with the real merits of which he may be utterly unacquainted, because he refuses to class as his enemy any and every other employer whom they point out as their enemy, because he refuses merely upon their peremptory order, to excommunicate some other employer by ceasing all business relations with him? The blacklist and the secondary boycott are two of the most cruel forms of oppression ever devised by the wit of man for the infliction of suffering on his weaker fellows.

DESPOTIC POWER.

No court could possibly exercise any more brutal, unfeeling or despotic power than Mr. Gompers claims for himself and his followers in the legislation which would permit them without let or hindrance of any kind to carry on every form and degree of the secondary boycott.

The anthracite strike commission, as fair-minded and distinguished a body of men as ever passed judgment on an industrial question, thus refers to the secondary form of boycott; that is the boycott of innocent third persons for refusing to take an aggressive part in a controversy with which they have no concern:

"To say this is not to deny the legal right of any man or set of men voluntarily to refrain from social intercourse or business relations with any persons whom he or they, with or without good reason, dislike. This may sometimes be unchristian, but it is not illegal. But when it is a concerted purpose of a number of persons not only to abstain themselves from such intercourse but to render the life of their victim miserable by persuading and intimidating others so to refrain such purpose is a malicious one, and the concerted attempt to accomplish it is a conspiracy at common law, and merits and should receive the punishment due to such a crime.'

The commission further states that this boycott can be carried to an extent "which was condemned by Mr. Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers of America, in his testimony before the commission, and which certainly deserves the reprobation of all thoughtful and law-abiding citizens."

Does Mr. Bryan agree with Mr. Gompers that all existing legal restraint on the enforcement of every degree of the boycott should be withdrawn, that the industrial excommunication of the innocent merchant who refuses to render unquestioned obedience to the orders of Mr. Gompers should be legalized and encouraged, or does he believe with us and with Mr. Mitchell and other labor leaders who differ with Mr. Gompers in this matter that this form of the boycott is morally wrong, that labor at war should fight with its enemies and respect the rights of neutrals, that innocent third parties should not be coerced into taking sides in industrial disputes to which they are in no sense parties, under penalty of having their business attacked and destroyed?

Mr. Taft is perfectly definite on this proposition.

Where does Mr. Bryan stand?

The citizen who votes for or against Mr. Taft on this proposition does so with his eyes open and with a clear understanding from Mr. Taft himself of his position. He has frankly discussed this subject time and again with workingmen themselves, both in this campaign and prior to his nomination. He has been willing to express his position clearly and to assure workingmen that to protect them in their rights he is willing to go to the limits of what he considers justice, but that he will not go further. His definition of justice to labor does not, as we understand it, include either of the principles contained in Mr. Gompers's program, as set forth officially in this bill. Does Mr. Bryan disagree with Mr. Taft on these propositions?

Will he state publicly, definitely, categorically, whether he accepts the program outlined in this bill, as Mr. Gompers in his letters has assured the public that he does?

TRIBUTE FROM BRYAN.

Mr. Bryan's party platform paid a high tribute to our courts of justice. It stated: "We resent the attempt of the Republican Party to raise a false issue respecting the judiciary. It is an unjust reflection upon a great body of our citizens to assume that they lack respect for the courts.

The "great body of our citizens" to whom this platform refers is admittedly Mr. Gompers and his followers.

Mr. Gompers, now Mr. Bryan's open and avowed ally, has in the letter quoted, attacked the Federal courts in unmeasured terms of reproach because by a long line of decisions the equity courts have refused to make an outlaw of the business man, because his right to carry on a lawful business under the peace of the law has been protected by the process of injunction, because, in a word, one of the most vital and most fundamental rights of the business world, the right of a business man to carry on his business, has been sustained and not denied by the processes of the courts of equity. This sweeping attack of Mr. Gompers upon the judiciary has been made in a frank and open effort to secure votes for Mr. Bryan.

Are these attacks made with Mr. Bryan's consent?

Do they meet with his approval?

Does he indorse them or does he repudiate them?

Mr. Bryan has frankly questioned Mr. Taft during the progress of this campaign, and very properly so, and has asked him to make clear his personal stand on public matters upon which the public was entitled to be enlightened.

In turn, with equal frankness and with equal propriety, Mr. Bryan should be asked to break a long-continued silence and make definite and certain his own position in regard to a matter that concerns not only business men and every decent law-abiding citizen, whether a wage worker or not, just as much as it concerns Mr. Gompers and that part of organized labor that stands with him.

There is no need of generalities, of vague expressions of sympathy for labor. Let Mr. Bryan simply confine himself to the anti-injunction plank of his own platform and tell us publicly, definitely, and clearly whether he accepts or rejects the statement of Mr. Gompers that this plank pledges him to the principles of the bill for which Mr. Gompers stands and whether if elected he will endeavor to have this proposal enacted into the law. This is asked honestly in the interest of that large voting public which believes sincerely in the promotion of every legitimate right and interest of labor; but which believes also that from the standpoint of the best interest of labor it neither requires nor is entitled to more than justice, and that the right to destroy business should not be formally recognized in the law of the land.

REALIZES RIGHT TO SPEAK.

I feel that I have the right to speak frankly in this matter, because throughout my term as President it has been my constant object to do everything in my power, both by administrative action and by endeavoring to secure legislative action, to advance the cause of labor, protect it from unjust aggression and secure to it its legitimate rights, I have accomplished something; I hope to accomplish more before I leave office and I have taken special and peculiar interest in Mr. Taft's candidacy because I believe that of all the men in this country he is the man best qualified for continuing the work of securing to the wage workers of the country their full rights. I will do everything in my power for the wage workers of the country except to do what is wrong. I will do wrong for no man; and with all the force in my power I solemnly warn the laboring man of this country that any public man who advocates doing wrong in their interests can not be trusted by them; and this whether his promise to do wrong is given knowing that it is wrong or because of a levity and lack of consideration which make him willing to promise anything without counting the cost if thereby support at the moment is to be purchased.

WILL FIGHT ABUSES.

Just as I have fought hard to bring about in the fullest way the recognition of the right of the employee to be amply compensated for injury received in the course of his duty, so I have fought hard and shall continue to fight hard to do away with all abuses in the use of the power of injunction. I will do everything I can to see that the power of injunction is not used to oppress laboring men. I will endeavor to secure them full and equal justice. Therefore in the interest of all good citizens, be they laboring men, business men, professional men, farmer, or members of any other occupation, so long as they have in their souls the principles of sound American citizenship. I denounce as wicked the proposition to secure a law which according to the explicit statement of Mr. Gompers is to prevent the courts from effectively interfering with riotous violence when the object is to destroy a business, and which will legalize a blacklist and the secondary boycott, both of them the apt instruments of unmanly persecution.

But there is another account against Messrs. Bryan and Gompers in this matter. "Ephraim feedeth on wind." Their proposed remedy is an empty sham. They are seeking to delude their followers by the promise of a law which would damage this country solely because of the shown moral purpose that would be shown by putting it upon the statute books, but which would be utterly worthless to accomplish its avowed purpose. I have not the slighest doubt that such a law as that proposed by Mr. Bryan would, if enacted by Congress, be declared unconstitutional by a unanimous Supreme Court-unless indeed Mr. Bryan were able to pack this court with men appointed for the special purpose of declaring such a law constitutional. I happen to know that certain great trust magnates have announced within the past few weeks, in answer to the question as to why they were openly or secretly favoring the election of Mr. Bryan, that the laws that Mr. Bryan proposed, including especially this law, would be wholly ineffective because the court would undoubtedly throw them out and that the promises to enact them could, therefore, be safely disregarded.

Sincerely, yours,

* *

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.