Hellraisers Journal: Gompers, Mitchell, and Morrison Sentenced for Contempt of Court in Bucks Stove & Range Case

There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 28, 1908
Leaders of American Federation of Labor Flayed by Justice Wright

From The Washington Times of December 23, 1908:

FEDERATION’S HEAD IS GIVEN ONE YEAR
BY JUSTICE WRIGHT
—–
Vice President Gets Nine Months
and the Secretary Six Months
in Bucks Stove and Range Case.
Give Appeal Bond.
—–

DEFENDANTS FLAYED FROM THE BENCH
—–
Court Declares Violation of Order as to Boycott
and “We Don’t Patronize List”
Is Flagrant and Deserves Severe Punishment.
—–

President Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor, Secretary Frank Morrison of this organization, and John Mitchell, former president of the United Mine Workers, were today sentenced by Judge Wright of the District Supreme Court to the District jail for contempt of court.

Their offense is the violation of the injunction issued some months ago by Judge Gould prohibiting the American Federation of Labor and its officials from publishing the name of the Bucks Stove and Range Company in the “We Don’t Patronize List” of the federation as it had appeared in the American Federationist, the official organ of the American Federation of Labor.

Judge Wright pronounced sentence with the three noted leaders of the labor forces of this country in the court room and standing before him. In the midst of a silence that was intense and under circumstances of a highly dramatic sort, he condemned Samuel Gompers to serve twelve months in the District jail, John Mitchell to serve nine months, and Frank Morrison to serve six months.

Notice of appeal was at once given by the defendants, and Justice Wright fixed the bonds at $5,000 for Gompers, $4,000 for Mitchell, and $3,000 for Morrison.

BONDS ARE PROMPTLY FURNISHED.

Bond was immediately furnished and for the time being at least the three men will not be obliged ta enter on the serving of their sentences.

Judge Wright, who is from Cincinnati, and who is a life-long friend of William Howard Taft, prefaced his sentence with an elaborate and most carefully prepared opinion, in which he denied that the defense could set up the right of free speech when, as he considered appeared in this case, the exercise of speech and free press worked to do others a wrong.

Before sentence was passed, Samuel Gompers, in words of deep feeling, surcharged with eloquence and force, spoke out in defense of his course and upheld right of organized labor to make the struggle that it is making, as Mr. Gompers believes, for its rights. He reminded the court that already the parliament of England had granted the rights for which labor was struggling in United States.

[Said Mr. Gompers, with his face uplifted and his hands extended:]

If in monarchical England, these rights can be given, surely they ought not to be denied to the theoretically free citizens of this republic.

Mr. Gompers said if men had to suffer to uphold the right of speech and the right of freedom of the press, and to insure labor its rights, he was willing to suffer whatever sentence might be imposed. John Mitchell and Frank Morrison, in brief addressee to court, indorsed the sentiments expressed by Mr Gompers.

Judge Wright began the reading of [the opinion], sentence was not passed until 12:30. A small crowd had gathered at the outset but as the reading of the opinion proceeded, the dingy court room was gradually filled. Judge Wright went over the evidence in the case that led Judge Gould to grant the original temporary injunction, he dwelt upon the fact that since the injunction had been issued it had been violated openly and flagrantly by Gompers, by Mitchell, and by Morrison. Then he proceeded to a discussion of the offense in part.

The Decision in Part.

The decision says in part:

When, with the parties to this cause in attendance, the dispute heard and the status of the subject of the controversy examined into, the inhibitory process of this tribunal issued for them. It was the law’s command to “stand hands off until justice for this matter can be ascertained.”

Is not law wide enough and its shield broad enough to avert for annihilation that which its tribunals have taken in hand, for the very sake of decreeing whether it shall not be saved?

Yet everywhere; all over, within the court and out; utter, rampant, insolent defiance is heralded and proclaimed; unrefined insult, coarse affront, vulgar indignity measures the litigants conception of the tribunal’s due, wherein his cause still pends.

Before the injunction was granted, these men announced that neither they nor the American Federation of Labor would obey it; since it [was] issued they have refused to obey it; and, though the American Federation of Labor’s disobedience was successfully achieved, and the law has been made to fail; not only has the law failed in its effort to arrest a widespread wrong, but the injury has grown more destructive since the injunction than it was before.

Public Enemies.

There is a studied, determine, defiant conflict precipitated in the light of open day, between the decrees of a tribunal ordained by the government of the Federal Union, and of the tribunals of another federation grown up in the land; one or the other must succumb, for those who would unlaw the land are public enemies.

On the sociological aspect of the situation, some faith the ultimate rightness of American men whether in labor unions or out, is to be entertained; for I believe that the habit of the land saturates them with a readiness to yield to authority has undone them before now, though the errors of misguiding leaders swollen by pigmy power; stands in the nature of things that the unlettered often shows itself in their modest affairs, although a higher may exist, to which their attention is not every moment directed by some interference with them, but to which they stand ready to adhere upon the moment that shows then that the lesson authority was in mistake, or leading them awrong.

Meddle in Affairs.

It is written in this record that the labor unions and its officers meddle into man’s daily affairs deeper than does the law; restrict him in matters that the law leaves free; and then so continually crowd their authority upon his attention, that insensibly he comes to regard them as of control in his affairs; this fact that he regards them as authority, leads him to heed them, because of his readiness to yield to authority, his very respect for authority assumes that all authority is respectable; and so upon them he relies, by them he is led. What knows the worker in Texas, Florida, Maine, and Oregon of the merits of the original controversy of thirty-six metal polishers in Missouri?

What knows he of the refined distinctions about “boycott,” “conspiracy,” “injunction,” and the “voidness for want of jurisdiction” of judicial decrees? In respect of each of these, and of the original controversies, he has betrayed, hoodwinked into the stand of an enemy of law, and of social order.

Deny That Right.

Announcing freedom to purchase what and where one will, they deny that right to himself; proclaiming the right of all men to labor, they restrict it to the holders of a union “card;” declaring the right to enjoy full earning capacity, they limit his dally earnings to a stated sum.

Says the authority of law “I lead you by the truth;” says the other, “I lead you by a lie;” says one, “I stand for the obligations of contracts, including yours;” the other, “I throw down contracts, even though yours;” says one, “I am for law;” the other, “I unlaw.”

That the universal recognition the desirability of associations of craftsmen for the ascertainment and advancement of the welfare of their is so retarded as to be much deplored; yet it is in the history of man that some lessons must be unlearned; that systems which proceed in antagonism to rule, shatter themselves at length against the restless barrier of public law.

[To be continued…]