There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 29, 1908
Samuel Gompers on the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press:
Samuel Gompers addressed the Court, December 23rd, before being sentenced to one year in prison, and said, in part:
[T]he freedom of speech and of the press have not been granted in order that men may say the things that please, but to say the things that displease, which may convey the need of change and the unaccepted thought….
If in monarchical England these rights can be given, they ought not to be denied to the theoretically free citizens of this Republic.
From the Washington Evening Star of December 23, 1908:
From The Washington Times of December 23, 1908:
[Continued.]
Defendants Before the Court.
All the while the reading [of Judge Wright’s opinion] proceeded the three defendants sat in the courtroom directly in front of Judge Wright. All were composed, betraying at times slight evidence of restlessness, but listening closely to the words of the court. When he had concluded his opinion, Justice Wright announced he was ready to pass sentence, and after the customary fashion, the defendants were ordered by the bailiff to stand up.
“Have either of you or any of you anything to say as to why sentence should not be pronounced?” asked Judge Wright, in tones that betrayed how deeply he felt the importance of the proceeding over which he was presiding.
All eyes were fixed upon Gompers, who stood in the center, with Morrison at his right and Mitchell at his left. It was with a great effort that, after some hesitation, he controlled himself and amid a silence so deep as to be painful, said:
Your honor, I am not conscious of having violated any law of the country or State in which I have lived at any time during my life. I would not consciously violate a law nor would I have done so at any time during my whole life. It is not possible for me, under the circumstances, either to comment appropriately or express the things I would like to say.
What Freedom Is Worth.
But, sir, I may be permitted to this, that the freedom of speech and of the press have not been granted in order that men may say the things that please, but to say the things that displease, which may convey the need of change and the unaccepted thought.
There is much I would like to say, but I feel I cannot say it now, and I Lave no further remark to make than this, your honor. May I say just a word? Your honor has accepted the testimony of the Bucks Stove and Range Company as evidence and has laid stress on the fact it was not denied; and that failure to deny I can readily understand must be accepted as admission.
But supposing some citizen were put before the court charged with a crime, aye, even murder, and that he was advised the judge would proceed without submitting the case to a jury and be was advised that the Judge denied him the fundamental right of the citizen, that of trial by jury-might he not consider that it was not requisite to enter any defence, in confidence that the higher tribunals would reverse the findings. Therefore is it, that no evidence has been offered in rebuttal.
Suppresses His Emotions.
At this point, Mr Gompers emotions threatened to interrupt his remarks, but he controlled himself, and while every ear was strained to hear him, proceeded.
I may say, your honor, that this is a struggle of the working people of the country. It is a struggle for right.
The labor movement does not profess to be higher than the tribunals of the Government or to be above those tribunals. The language of the convention of the Federation of Labor, which has been quoted by your honor was not meant to apply to anything in which the courts were concerned. It was merely meant to express that in the case of internal disputes among the bodies affiliated with the federation, the decisions of the convention were to be accepted by all concerned as binding.
Yes, sir, it’s a great struggle, a struggle of the ages, a struggle of labor to throw off some of the burdens it has too long borne and to obtain some of the rights that it has too long been denied. If men must suffer because they speak out for the masses of labor, because they fight the forces of greed that would grind their children into the dust, if men must suffer for those things, than I am willing to take the consequences. That which his honor has criticised is now the statute law of Great Britain, passed by parliament in less than two years.
Mr Gompers paused a moment, then continued:
If in monarchical England these rights can be given, they ought not to be denied to the theoretically free citizens of this Republic. In this struggle, better men have suffered than I. It is true. I do not believe that a man alive would chafe more under restraint of liberty than I. But if I cannot make speeches in furtherance of a great right, I shall not only be willing to bear the consequences but I will bear them gladly.
I would not have the court believe me a man defiant in character. But in the pursuit of my honest convictions, conscious of having violated no law, and in furtherance of the common rights of my fellow-man. I shall not only suffer, but I will willfully suffer, any sentence your honer may impose.
Mitchell Indorses Gompers Words.
Mr. Mitchell was then asked whether he had any word to say. He spoke briefly, saying:
I thoroughly and unreservedly indorse all that Mr. Gompers has said.
Secretary Morrison next spoke:
I have simply to say what has been stated by Mr. Gompers. I indorse all that he has said. I am conscious of committing no wrong or in any way of having violated the law, and it is my belief that I have been exercising my rights under the Constitution and the laws of this land, of which I am a citizen.
Judge Wright then said he regretted he had nothing to lead him to refrain from sentence. He then pronounced sentence. Immediately, Mr. Ralston moved an appeal, saying that, while the defendants would not run away, he desired that the matter of bonds might at once be settled. Judge Wright at once fixed the bonds as already indicated.
At the close of the proceedings, Messrs. Gompers Mitchell and Morrison were surrounded by a number of friends among the labor leaders, who grasped them by the hand and assured them of their support.
Scores Boycott Devices.
Judge Wright was severe in his reflection on the course taken by the defendants in continuing in one way and another to find means of expressing the fact that the Bucks company was “unfair” after the injunction had issued. In the course of the opinion, he said:
Is not law wide enough and its shield broad enough to avert from 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 litigant’s conception of the tribunals 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 has issued, they have refused to obey it, and through the American Federation of Labor, disobedience has been 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.
The count continued:
There is a studied, determined, 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.
Review of the Case.
The following is a review of the history of the case of the Buck’s Stove and Range Company vs. the American Federation of Labor, which led to the proceedings in Judge Wright’s court:
The Buck’s Stove and Company, of St. Louis, which conducts an “open shop,” employing both union and non-union men, had an agreement with the Iron Molders’ Union of North America by which the relations of the employers and employes were regulated. This agreement had been in effect for about fourteen years and under it all its grievances were adjusted or referred to a competent committee, whose decision was supposed to be final and binding upon each party for a period of one year.
On August 29, 1906, without previous notice, the members of Metal Polishers’ Union, No. 13, St. Louis, in the employ of the stove company struck in a body. According to stove company, the only grievance alleged by the unions was the question of a nine-hour or ten-hour day.
The stove company gave a refusal to accede to the demands of the employes. The men remained out and picketed the plant. A few non-union men were secured, some of the strikers, it is said, returned to work.
Boycott Is Declared.
The International Union Metal Polishers declared a boycott against the stove company and its products, it is said, inserted the company’s name in its unfair list, and published the company’s name in the union paper, the Journal. The local union, No. 13, it is said, also joined in the boycott and procured its indorsement by the Central Trades and Labor Union of St. Louis, and the Metal Trades Council, also of St. Louis, both subordinate unions of the American Federation of Labor.
In November, 1906, two months after the declaration of the strike, at the annual convention of the American Federation of Labor in Indianapolis, the products of the stove company were placed on the “We Don’t Patronize” list the federation, and also in a list published in the American Federationist in the June and July, 1907, issues. Besides this, various notices to union men were sent out by the union interests to aid the boycott.
Grants Temporary Injunction.
Justice Gould in Equity Court, No. 2, of the District of Columbia, granted a temporary injunction to the Buck’s company, December 17, 1907, retraining the American Federation of Labor, its officers and members, from prosecuting a boycott against the products of the company or from publishing it as “unfair” or placing its name on the “We Don’t Patronize” list in the American Federationist.
Justice Gould’s decision takes up:
The argument under two general heads: First, has the existence of an unlawful combination and conspiracy to destroy the company’s business been shown; and second, does the testimony so connect the defendants with the conspiracy as to make them amenable?
Of the first, Justice Gould said:
There is little room for argument or discussion. * * * There is attempt to deny that plaintiff, customers, even those under contract, have refused to continue business dealings with it, under threat of being boycotted by the local organizations affiliated with the federation.
Boycotts Illegal Everywhere.
On the illegality of the boycott, the justice quotes a number of cases and opinions to show that boycotts, though unaccompanied by violence or intimidation, have been pronounced unlawful in every State in the Union and in England.
Said Justice Gould:
The record leaves no doubt that plaintiff has been, and still is, to the object of a “boycott,” using that term in the most obnoxious sense, viz., an unlawful conspiracy to destroy its business: such a conspiracy as has received the condemnation of every Federal and State court in the country before which it has been brought for criminal action, legal redress, or equitable injunction. This conspiracy originated, as I have stated, in the action by Metal Polishers’ Local, No. 13, in St. Louis, in the fall of 1906, a body federated with the defendant American Federation of Labor through the International Metal Polishers’, etc., union. It was advanced in accordance with the procedure, of the said federation until in March, 1907, it received the active indorsement of the executive council, the controlling body of said federation.
It is true that when this body acted it did not use the word “boycott” buy the more emphatic terms of “Unfair” and “We Don’t Patronize.” But an examination of the record convinces me that whatever the term used, the effect intended was what naturally happened, viz., a boycott. In fact, that the terms mean the same thing in the procedure of the federation does not seem doubtful. Its constitution provides for a committee on boycotts to be appointed by the president at the annual convention; it was to such a committee on boycotts that the resolution was referred and by that committee referred to the executive council.
Those Who Are Conspirators.
It is well settled in law that all who accede to a conspiracy after its formation and while it is in execution and all who, with the knowledge of the facts, concur in the plans originally formed and aid in executing them, are fellow-conspirators. They commit an offense when they become parties to the transaction, or further the original plan.
The decision concludes:
Upon record as presented, and for reasons stated, I am of the opinion that th plaintiff is entitled to be protected by an injunction until the final hearing of case, and I will sign an order restraining the defendants substantially as prayed in the bill.
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Mine Workers to Rally To John Mitchell’s Aid
—–INDIANAPOLIS, Ind., Dec. 23.-The United Mine Workers of America, of which John Mitchell is a retired president, is planning to take quick, radical action in regards to the decision of the Washington judge who today sentenced Mitchell to jail. National Secretary-Treasure Ryan said the action will be taken before nightfall, but what it will be he refused to state.
———-
[Photograph added.]
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SOURCE
The Washington Times
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-Dec 23, 1908
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1908-12-23/ed-1/seq-4/
IMAGES
The Evening Star
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-Dec 23, 1908
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1908-12-23/ed-1/seq-3/
–Dec 24, 1908
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1908-12-24/ed-1/seq-2/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 28, 1908
Leaders of American Federation of Labor Flayed by Justice Wright
Gompers, Mitchell, and Morrison Sentenced for Contempt of Court in Bucks Stove & Range Case-Part I
Buck’s Stove and Range Company vs AFL, 1907-1908
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005858894
Gompers V. Buck’s Stove and Range Co, 1911
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gompers_v._Buck%27s_Stove_%26_Range_Co.
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