The differences of opinion expressed in labor disputes are going to arise and always will exist while men live in the employment relation, the most delicate and intimate relation of economic life, because it is that one in which man earns his daily bread, whether as a director of the labor of others or as one who works under supervision. But no man has so great a stake in the preservation of freedom of movement to and from places of employment and business, in the making of contractual relations, as the worker, whether he belong to an organization or not. That is the primary purpose of this measure, and to accomplish it is a supreme public obligation. Unfortunately there are always likely to be collisions of conflicting interests, but in the protection of the uses of streets and public order no greater duty rests upon the legislature, State or National, than to maintain an unmolested freedom of movement for all the parties and to so regulate the course of their conduct that what may be permitted, and what may not, in the public interest shall be clear. Then, in the settlement of these disputes, when they arise, so far as they bring into play the exercise of economic power by the parties themselves, the public peace shall not be imperiled nor public places misused. Quite aside from the rights of the parties, another important issue is involved which its seems to me is worthy of your consideration, and that is that any kind of obstruction to the streets, whether by persons or things, may constitute a public or private nuisance, according to the extent of the obstruction and the number of persons affected. If it affects only an individual in the use of his property, it may be a private nuisance; but as soon as it begins to affect a large number of people it becomes a public nuisance. When a large number of persons gather in front of a place of business or employment and undertake, if you please, to impede or persuade others not to enter that place, they are providing not only an obstruction and interference which may impair the rights of their victim as an individual but they may become a public nuisance to the extent that they affect all of the public who desire to use that street equally with themselves and who are equally entitled to move to and fro upon it without annoyance, but equally with them to free ingress and egress to and from every place of business and employment having entrance and exit to a public place. It is the experience of communities all over the United States which has led to this widespread expression of public opinion in the form of municipal ordinances and State laws. Twenty-eight or twenty-nine States have now passed antipicketing or antiboycotting statutes, and you can not believe that they had any frivolous purpose in mind. They must have been powerfully impressed everywhere by the circumstances brought to their attention and convinced that such things were a menace to public peace and good order. A Senator of the United States, one of the great lawyers of his time, in the course of an argument in the Supreme Court in the Northern Securities case, said that the power of Congress to protect the movement of commerce between the States extends to every form of obstruction, which threatens its free flow, "be it physical, moral, or economic, a mob, a monopoly or a sand bank" for Congress has the same power to remove a combination that undertook to interfere with commerce that it would have to remove an ob struction to a navigable stream. It reached the mob in the Debs case just as in the Northern Securities case it destroyed the device of monopoly. In the daily course of legislation it is wiping out various physical obstructions. It has jurisdiction over navigable streams and does all those things that involve opening of the highways of commerce, because the public interest demands the utmost freedom for the flow of trade. It is the free movement of trade and persons in public places of this District this bill is designed to assure. In collision of interests threatening peace and order it seems to me the issue which is presented to you is whether you should exercise your power to pass a regulatory statute for the purpose of defining the kind of conduct that may be permitted in public places to shield the dominant public interest in the free and equal use of streets as against any individual or any form of combination that undertakes to misuse them for the purpose of compelling any other citizen to adopt the form of conduct which assailants undertake to compel him to accept as the sole condition upon which he may have the free use of his property. If nonunion men were to harass union men at their place of work, how quickly we would hear a cry for protection. If competitors in business should employ "pickets" before the establishments of their trade rivals or undertook to rear transparencies and signs before their plants or stores for the purpose of preventing the succesful conduct of their lines of business, or used the streets for the purpose of enticing, persuading, and influencing their customers at their doors to leave the place of custom and thus made the use of the street difficult or annoying how quickly we would hear complaint. Gentlemen, I think that those who watch these great movements to-day realize that labor unions, like corporations, we will always have. Legitimately they represent the justifiable effort of men to protect their hours, wages, and working conditions. But they have no right to do what is not permitted to others, They must be governed by the same regulations that apply under like circumstances to others. As nobody else is permitted or would be permitted for any length of time to engage in that form of conduct which is represented in the use of public streets for the purpose of "picketing," in order to compel a man to leave employment in which he desires to remain, or to conduct his business upon terms which others believe he ought to conduct it under penalty of having that business injured or destroyed what possible justification exists for further toleration of this practice by one class of citizens or alien in one form of dispute. The rule of conduct ought to be so clear no intelligent law-abiding man will misunderstand it and no malicious person can successfully misrepresent it. When the Congress speaks no man can further doubt what it is he is permitted to do on a public street, and a prolific source of public disorder is permanently removed and the Capital of the Nation has set an example every State may imitate with profit. Mr. BLANTON. Judge Emery, I am sure the whole committee desires to thank you. Mr. SPROUL. I want personally to thank you, and I think I voice the sentiment of my collegaues here; and I wish to say the same as to Judge Wright. Mr. WHEELER. Yes; we have enjoyed your talk very much. Mr. BLANTON. It is so late, gentlemen, that I think we had better stop now. Mr. WALLACE. Mr. Chairman, I will be brief. I have said quite a few things on this subject, and I am only going to add a few more to it. To begin with, I am in agreement with Judge Emery that a law passed by the Congress of the United States should be a model law, should be considered as a model law in the making of similar laws by States and by municipalities in other parts of the country. I want to call your attention to one fact. I am not a lawyer. I have been a miner for some 35 years, as I have said, but I have had a varied experience. Among my experiences I have seen whole communities wiped out, deported. I have seen that happen in Colorado three successive times. I worked in a place in Colorado, and we had a difference with our employers. We went on strike. We were a community of English, Irish, Welsh, and Americans— mostly Americans. They had access to every part of the United States and, at that time, to foreign countries. They brought into our community Italians. They swamped that country, and we were not permitted— by force, by injunction we were prevented from approaching those men and telling them we also had interests there. And so those men were placed in our positions. We had our homes around that mining camp. We were not permitted to tell those men we had our homes there, that we had a grievance, that we had an interest in the community. We were driven out by the very kind of law that you are trying to enact here, inasmuch as we were not permitted to approach those men and tell them that we had a grievance and were working there and were on strike. That is what we want to be able to do in a public place, if you will. There is no other place where we can approach those men. The employers can go to every section of the country, to Ellis Island, to gather up their men. There is no part of the country where we can meet those men, where we can tell them our side of it, except the place where they are being sent to in order to take our places. That is what this law would seek to prevent. Also, if there is a dispute or a disagreement the people can come from every part of the city to that place. We can not approach them at their homes. We do not know whether they are coming to that place or where they are coming. Right there we are able to tell our side of the case. We are able to show by some means why we are on strike and what differences we have. It can only affect those who, in the beginning, are with us or would be with us. Mr. SPROUL. Will you yield to a question there? Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir. Mr. SPROUL. If the employers of labor were to put signs on their backs and march up and down in front of your union hall, what would happen to them? Mr. WALLACE. They should be protected. Mr. SPROUL. Would they be protected? Mr. WALLACE. If they are not protected, then the law fails. Judge Emery was alluding to religious processions. The other Sunday I witnessed a beautiful procession of a certain church, the children and the priest, and they had their emblems and they all marched past other churches. It might have excited some one. As it happened, it did not; but if it had, what would have been the right thing to do? To protect the procession, or to punish them? Mr. SPROUL. They did not carry any banners saying "The Presbyterian Church is unfair," did they? Mr. WALLACE. They carried the insignia of their particular church. Now, Mr. Chairman, I said I would be brief. Mr. Wright quoted a lot of decisions. Most of those decisions, or nearly all of them, that were in the Federal courts antedating the Clayton amendment. Those decisions were considered when the Clayton amendment was before the Congress of the United States. I think it was Judge Wright that read the code of Arizona upon which the Truax case is based. I want to read section 20 of the Clayton Act, and I want to point out to you how closely this law of the United States resembles the civil code of Arizona upon which this is based. Mr. WHEELER. The Clayton Act? Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir; section 20: That no restraining order or injunction shall be granted by any court of the United States, or a judge or the judges thereof, in any case between an employer and employees, or between employers and employees, or between employees or between persons employed and persons seeking employment, involving, or growing out of, a dispute concerning terms or conditions of employment, unless necessary to prevent irreparable injury to property, or to a property right, of the party making the application, for which injury there is no adequate remedy at law, and such property or property right must be described with particularity in the application, which must, be in writing and sworn to by the applicant or by his agent or attorney. And no such restraining order or injunction shall prohibit any person or persons, whether singly or in concert, from terminating any relation of employment, or from ceasing to perform any work or labor, or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful means so to do; or from attending at any place where any such persons or persons may lawfully be, for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or from peacefully persuading any person to work or to abstain from working; or from ceasing to patronize or to employ any party to such dispute, or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful and lawful means so to do. So, Mr. Chairman, this language is almost exactly the same language upon which this Truax case is based. Judge Wright said that all of these conspiracy cases are based upon common law. Well, I am not a lawyer, but I believe I understand this much, that the common law, the old law that was brought from England, is effective unless other laws have been enacted in this country that conflict with the common law. I might say that this Clayton Act, this amendment to the antitrust law, is in conflict with the laws and the decisions quoted by Judge Wright; and I have here in this book, and will read them if you so desire, certain decisions. If you wish to save time, I would like to have the argument in this case entered in the record. The CHAIRMAN. That is the Truax case? Mr. WALLACE. The Truax case. This is the plaintiff's argument. And, by the way Mr. BLANTON. That is simply a brief gotten up by some lawyers in that particular case. If we had them here we might make them admit that so and so is not so. Mr. SPROUL. Let us be fair. We have admitted everything else. Mr. BLANTON. I have no objection to it. Mr. WALLACE. Mr. Blanton, this opinion quotes a lot of decisions justifying picketing, holding that picketing is lawful. Mr. SPROUL. Your objection has been withdrawn, I think; has it? Mr. BLANTON. Do you want to introduce that whole document ? Mr. WALLACE. The entire document into the record, because it all bears upon the case. Mr. BLANTON. I do not think a document of that kind should be filed. Mr. SPROUL. We have admitted more than that into the record. Let us be fair in this matter. Mr. BLANTON. That applies to only one case, based upon an isolated statute Mr. WALLACE. In this document and Judge Wright and Judge Emery will bear me out-there are Federal decisions bearing upon this very matter. Mr. EMERY. If you will permit a suggestion, I think you ought to let that go in Mr. SPROUL. It is going in. Mr. EMERY. Accompanied by the case which the Supreme Court has decided since this has been decided. Mr. WHEELER. The Duplex case. Mr. EMERY. The Duplex case was decided about three weeks ago. Mr. WALLACE. Let me say a word or two, please. While it qualifies, in our opinion, some parts of this law, inasmuch as it defines a secondary boycott as illegal, it in no way changes the wording or the meaning of the law as I have read it. I have the Duplex case here. Mr. BLANTON. Then put them in, together with your brief. Mr. WALLACE. Will you identify this, Mr. Emery? Mr. EMERY (after examining document). Certainly; yes; that is right. The CHAIRMAN. May I ask the labor leader here a question? The CHAIRMAN. Something lodged itself very firmly in my mind in my early youth at school, that as a fundamental principle every man had to adhere to and understand and comprehend, and then he was a real American; and that was that his liberties extended to the point of interference with the rights of other men. Do you believe that? Mr. WALLACE. I believe in that. The CHAIRMAN. Do you think that when you walk up and down past Mr. Gude's store-a man who started as a poor boy in a hopeful America where he would have an opportunity to get somewhere in life-when you send emissaries there, hiring them at $25 a week to call him a scab, that that is interfering with a man's rights or not? A laboring man is talking to you. The first order I ever belonged to was the Knights of Labor. I want justice in matters of this kind. You can not do that and have this country live. Mr. WALLACE. That happened to be a dispute between that man and his employees Mr. WHEELER. He asked you a question, Mr. Wallace. |