Now, it is common knowledge of the law, possessed by all of you, that the supreme court of Pennsylvania and other courts have held that if a person persists in speaking to another in such a way as to make his conduct a nuisance, especially if he persist in speaking in a manner to threaten and intimidate that person, he is violating the rights of this person, and the courts of equity have repeatedly restrained it. I will file these copies of records in this case with the committee with your permission. The CHAIRMAN. Very well. Mr. PARSONS. Mr. Bartlett, of Boston, is next on the programme. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES U. S., Washington, D. C., March 29, 1904. To the Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives. GENTLEMEN: On request of representatives of the organized labor of this country, I submit the following propositions affecting House bill No. 89 for consideration by you-propositions I have sought to make so elementary as to render needless all citation of authorities: I. In America, since the civil war, no man can be obliged to work against his will for any other man. Seamen seem by the Arago decision to be outside the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution; but other persons are within its scope. II. A man who can not be obliged to work against his will for another is at liberty to quit working for that other whenever he pleases. The law of contracts may in certain cases make him liable in damages, but equity can not compel specific performance calling for involuntary servitude. III. An employer finding his workman unwilling to serve on what such employer regards as reasonable terms is at liberty to dismiss him unconditionally, though dismissal may mean to the workman and his family complete ruin; and two employers may act together to the end of obliging their workmen to accept a diminished wage as the condition of continued employment; and all the employers in an industry may by agreement cease employing, as a means of persuading workmen to accept terms agreeable to such employers. The principles of this statement are of common application throughout the United States. They have never been questioned. IV. Employers have no higher rights than their workmen. Therefore, a workman finding his employer unwilling to hire on what such workman regards as reasonable terms is at liberty to quit unconditionally, though consequences to the employer may be ruinous; and two workmen may act together to the end of obliging their employer to refrain from a threatened cut of wage or to grant a desired increase as the condition of continued service; and all the workmen in an industry may by agreement cease working, as a means of persuading employers to accept terms agreeable to such workmen. V. As incidental to the right of free speech, an employer believing it to his interest to have wages of workmen in an industry reduced or not increased, may plead with another employer to take the same view, if that other employer be willing to listen; and all the employers in an industry may, in exercise of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, meet occasionally or regularly, and informally or as a society, in promotion of their will as to wages of workmen-even to the point of becoming a political party seeking to alter the Constitution of the United States. VI. With equality before the law, it follows from the foregoing statement that a workman believing it to his interest to have wages in an industry maintained or increased, may plead with another workman to take the same view, if that other workman be willing to listen; and that all the workmen in an industry may, in exercise of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, meet occasionally or regularly, and informally or as a society, in promotion of their will as to wages-even to the point of becoming a political party ultimately changing the fundamental principles of the Federal Government. VII. No man who has not contracted so to do can be obliged to sell his property to any other man, nor to buy property of any other man, nor to continue selling property to any other man, nor to continue buying property of any other man. VIII. Farmers who have wheat to sell may, in resistance of what they conceive to be unfair methods of a grain buyer, agree not to sell to him; and on the same principle, buyers who are dissatisfied with the goods or the opinions or the practices of a seller may agree to refrain from trading with him. The right of the farmer is not limited by the possible ruin of the grain buyer, nor the right of the buyer in the second case by the possible losses of the seller. IX. That which a man has a right to do he has a right to announce to one or two or all the world that he contemplates doing. X. The lockout, the blacklist, and the announcement of the conditions on which either may come into existence or be avoided being within the primary constitutional rights of employers, and the corresponding strike, boycott, and announcement of the conditions on which either may come into existence or be avoided being within the primary constitutional rights of workmen, it can not be unconstitutional to prohibit such use of the writ of injunction as might limit or destroy the exercise of them. XI. The writ of injunction, within the meaning of that language of the Federal Constitution which gives the judiciary its equity jurisdiction, is the writ as it existed on the adoption of the Constitution, limited by whatever inconsistent therewith is in the organic law as amended. XII. The writ of injunction has never been more than a bulwark of rights. It has never of itself given or taken away rights, but has only protected rights and enforced heedfulness of duties otherwise established. In the language of Pomeroy, "Wherever a right exists or is created by contract, by the ownership of property, or otherwise, cognizable by law, a violation of that right will be prohibited [by injunction], unless there are other considerations of policy or expediency which forbid a resort to this prohibitory remedy." There must be a right independently of the writ; and of course the right must be a civil right, for the writ of injunction is not a peace officer in enforcement of the criminal laws. A bill, therefore, which does not alter the office of the writ, and which leaves it freely applicable wherever there are civil rights to be protected, can not be said to be unconstitutional as abridging the equity jurisdiction of the courts. Respectfully, EDWARD J. LIVERNASH. STATEMENT OF JOHN M. GLENN. GENTLEMEN: During the progress of the recent period of labor strife, covering the past nine months, Chicago has experienced a reign of terror through slugging, rioting, and intimidation of nonunion workers such as was hitherto unknown in modern times. In their efforts to force employers to accept terms dictated by them to govern the employment of help to conduct manufacturing or other business, the lawless unionists have on many occasions created scenes of the wildest disorder. The usually peaceful streets of the city have been turned into veritable battlefields, where the police and other guardians of the peace have fought hand to hand with union ruffians and their sympathizers in an effort to guard an employer in the ordinary transactions of his business, or to protect nonunion employees from violence and possibly death at the hands of mobs infuriated by cries of "scab," "strikebreaker," etc. Bands of hired ruffians have followed unsuspecting nonunionists from their places of employment to their homes to attack them with a view of inflicting such bodily injury as would prevent their continuing at work in the places of men on strike. Swarms of pickets have surrounded places of business against which a strike was being waged and have repeatedly intimidated both employees and customers in an effort to force either a suspension of business or surrender to their terms. Their acts have had the apparently unqualified support of the entire Chicago labor movement as represented by the Chicago Federation of Labor, that body having time and again gone on record as supporting and providing money for the maintenance of the unions engaged in such unlawful tactics. In the past year more than 150 riots have occurred in the streets of the city. Bricks, stones, clubs, and missiles of all descriptions have been used against unprotected workers with such startling frequency as to now cause little comment. In fact, it is unusual to pick up a daily paper without seeing chronicled an affray of some sort in which nonunionists have been attacked. In many instances even revolvers have been used. Shots have been fired and four men killed, either while participating in or as a direct result of such disturbances, and nearly a dozen more or less seriously wounded. More than three hundred assaults in which unfortunate victims have been brutally beaten have been reported to the police during this period. The instances of intimidation where bodily violence has been threatened against nonunion workers unless they gave up their positions have mounted into the thousands, the majority of which cases have never been mentioned except to the employers or have come to light in affidavits presented in the injunction proceedings, to which many firms have been obliged to resort in order to be able to conduct their business at all. Thirteen injunctions have been issued against lawless unions during this time. Of the participants in these disturbances hundreds have been arraigned in police and justice courts, in the criminal courts, before the grand jury, or in civil courts for violations of injunctional writs issued restraining them from interfering with the business of former employers. No less than 150 have been fined or held to higher courts by police or peace justices, about 50 have been indicted by grand juries, many of whom are now awaiting trial or have been once convicted by the criminal courts and have availed themselves of the right of appeal. About 50 more have been fined or committed to jail for violation of injunctions. The majority of the difficulties have arisen from three big strikes, the Kellogg Switchboard and Supply Company, the Franklin Union of Pressfeeders against members of the Chicago Typothetæ, and the Chicago City Railway Company's employees. Many minor strikes, however, have contributed their share, and internal and interunion strife has been responsible for some of the most bitter assaults. Union men have, because of jurisdictional quarrels, repeatedly attacked their fellows, and union officers have been beaten by men supposedly members of their own organizations for acts that did not meet with their approval. The reign of terror seems to date from the entirely unexpected wave of organization that attacked the workers in nearly every industry in the city, and culminated in the strike against the Kellogg Switchboard and Supply Company, when that firm refused to give control of its establishment to union business agents. The strike against this firm began on May 7, 1903, and for about two weeks following its inauguration was more than successful in forcing a suspension of business by the company. Failing absolutely in getting the unions to agree to any reasonable terms of settlement the company decided to resume operations with nonunion help. Prior to the strike it had employed nearly 700 people, about 50 per cent of whom were girls. About May 21 operations were resumed with a comparatively small force of nonunionists, and on the first night several of these employees homeward bound were met by pickets of the striking unions of machinists, brass workers, electrical workers, metal workers, and miscellaneous trades, and severely beaten; others were promised rough treatment if they did not give up working in the strike-bound plant. Guards of police and private detectives were secured by the firm, but the violence continued. On May 25 Attorney A. C. Allen, for the firm, applied to Judge Jesse Holdom for an injunction restraining these practices by the unions. The injunction was issued, and at once attracted widespread attention and condemnation by the unionists, it being the first injunction to receive much attention since the writs issued by the Federal courts during the railway strike in 1894. The assaults and violence continued, however, in spite of the injunction, and up to August, when the fight was practically abandoned by the unions, 53 assaults had been committed upon employees of the firm, both men and girls, and no less than 300 specific acts of intimidation practiced. The union pickets had established a system of espionage, which enabled them to learn the identity of nearly every employee. Slugging committees were detailed to follow the nonunionists to their homes, sometimes miles away from the factory and to sections of the city where only meager police protection is afforded, and administer brutal beatings, the girl strike pickets, led by Emma Duffy and Lizzie Graham, being as much in evidence as the men, singling out the nonunion girls, following them to their homes, and beating or threatening them, as the opportunity offered. On June 25, after the strike had been in progress more than six weeks, the Teamsters' Union, supposedly the strongest labor organization in Chicago, became involved in the contest out of sympathy for the other unions, which, owing to the success of the company in filling the places vacated by their members, saw defeat staring them in the face unless heroic measures were adopted. The drivers refused to haul supplies of any kind for the firm, and until July 12 succeeded in maintaining an almost invulnerable blockade line around the plant. At that time all the available storage place of the company was exhausted and it became imperative that goods be shipped out of the plant. Police protection was sought, and with nonunion drivers the firm began moving goods to adjacent freight stations. The moving of the first load was the signal for an outbreak of rioting such as had never before been seen on the west side of the city. Guarded by from 50 to 250 police officers, the wagons of the company, surrounded by mobs of battling, cursing men, women, and boys, and preceded by dozens of hostile teamsters, who blockaded street crossings, and did everything conceivable to hinder their movements, made several trips daily to various freight depots. The police were obliged to wage a continual battle against the mob, clubs were used with reckless abandon, and hundreds of persons were injured, shots were fired, bricks and every conceivable missile thrown, and it became dangerous to walk, even in the streets adjacent to the caravan. During ten days of rioting nearly 100 arrests were made by the police but few convictions were secured, as those arrested claimed they were minding their own business, but were surrounded by the crowds and could not get away. On July 23 the teamsters called off the sympathetic strike and union men returned to the wagons. This action broke the strike and practically put an end to the violence. Probably the worst demonstration of lawlessness during the strike, prior to the teamsters' riots, was an attack on 3 private detectives, George Quackenbush, George O'Connell, and George Robertson, in Van Buren street, between Aberdeen street and Center avenue, on June 30. The 3 detectives were escorting 12 nonunionists to their homes, when they were followed from the factory by a score of strike pickets. In the half-mile walk from the factory to the scene of the attack these pickets were reenforced by a large number of union sympathizers until a crowd numbering about five hundred was hooting and jeering at the detectives and their convoy. Stones were thrown and the crowd closed in and began striking at the nonunionists. The detectives drew their revolvers and menaced the crowd. For a time this held them at bay, but some one shouted: "Get at them; they won't shoot." A general attack was made, during which several shots were fired by the detectives and Edward Wilson, a union waiter. One of the mob was struck in the leg. The detectives and nonunionists were all badly beaten in the mêlée, but the timely arrival of the police prevented any fatalities. Only one arrest was made by the police. Among other victims of assaults by parties known or unknown during the Jellogg strike were: June 9, Julius Weinstein and Ben Mansfield were attacked by 6 men led by John Kern, a former employee of the company. June 17, Harry Skolink was attacked and beaten by 5 men led by Louis Tiroux. June 18, Donald McLeod, Chas. F. Irish, Peter Hall, and E. J. Campau were attacked by gang led by Joseph Luebke. June 20, Henry Peterson was attacked and beaten by unknown men. men. |