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AfliUJS PIANO COMPANY
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428 Fayetteville Tel. 4881
RALEIGH, N. C
LABOR’S BUSINESS APPRECIATED
ALLEN’S SERVICE STATION
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531 Hillsboro Street
Phone 2-2875
RALEIGH, N. C.
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THE Y0UI6 COMPANY
S. M. Young, Owner
!• RALEIGH DEALER FOR:
DEXTER TUBULAR LOCK SETS & LATCHES
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616 No. Person St. Dial 3-5660
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BR06D0N PRODUCE COMPANY
WHOLESALE FRUITS & PRODUCE
40-415 West Martin Telephone 2-0567
RALEIGH, N. C.
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DORSEY IRON WORKS
Successor to Hiner Supply Co.
Invites Your Business
GENERAL FOUNDRY WORK
Costs Estimates Gladly Furnished
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EXCAVATING CONTRACTORS
BI66S BROTHERS, INC.
Excavating, Grading, Filling, Gravey, Top Soil,
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P. O. Box 6035 3-1486
RALEIGH, N. C.
Jack Biggs Bob Biggs
Labor Journal Editors Extend Thanks
w. M. WITTER. AaaodaU E«Ur
At his desk in the editorial office, busily engaged in pre
paring reading material for this issue of The Labor Journal
is W. M. Witter, associate editor. Mr. Witter, together
with Henry A. Stalls, upper left, present editor and pub
lisher, founded The Journal 19 years ago, and he experi
enced many tough battles during his active years as this
newspaper’s editor and publisher before retiring to lighter
duties a few years ago. Although now 75 years of age
Brother Witter’s mind is as alert as it was during the cru
sading years gone by. He likes to see and chat with old
friends and his office is always open to welcome them.
Mr. Witter joins The Journal’s editor and publisher in
thanking this newspaper’s friends for their loyal support
throughout the years and especially for their contributions
toward making this issue of the Journal the largest in the
newspaper’s entire history.
Why Organized Labor
Hales Injunctions
By GEORGE MEANY
Secretary-treasurer of the
American Federation of Labor
The following excerpts from an
article appearing in the current
issue of the American Federation
ist sum up labor's stand against
the iniquitous procedure of gov
ernment by injunction:
There are many features em
bodied in the Taft-Hartley Act
which are obnoxious and which
have caused millions of fair-mind
ed citixens, apart from the mem
bers of organized labor, to decide
that this statute must be eliminat
ed as quickly as possible.
Of all the distasteful provisions
of the Taft-Hartley Act, there is
one which stands forth as partic
ularly vicious. This is the provision
under which government by in
junction, one of the foremost evils
recorded in American history of
the late 19th and early 20th Cen
turies, has been brought back to
life.
Why is it that labor hates the
injunction process ? Is labor’s at
titude toward injunctions the result
of some inexplicable emotion? Or
is there a good reason—or many
good reasons—for labors resent
ment of the injunction? Why does
labor feel the way it does?
In order to understand why
American labor will never accept
the employment of judicial injunc
tions in labor-management contro
versies, it is necessary to dip back
into history.
The most fundamental principle
of our American governmental
process is that the laws are written
solely by the legislative represen
tatives of the people—in other
words, by men and women sitting
in Congress and the state legisla
tures who have been elected by
the people. As a corollary of this
principle, there is the rule that
the law-making prerogative must
never be usurped—not even to an
infinitesimal de gree — by the
courts.
It is also important to recall
that the Constitution under which
we live guarantees to each one of
us certain rights—rights which
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are most precious rfnd which are
not to be set aside or nullified
either by Congress or by a judge
or by any other person or institu
tion. These rights are freedom of
speech, freedom of assemblage,
freedom of the press and freedom
of religion.
Nowhere does the Constitution
speak .of any right to issue in
junctions to throttle the afore
mentioned freedoms and to crush
the lawful aasociations which wage
earners form to protect themselves
against the arbitrary, brutal acts
of greedy and ruthless employers.
There is no such right under the
Constitution—-but in the latter
part of the 19th Century and for
the first 3 decades of the present
century a flood of antilabor in
junctions, compelling workers to
desist from the exercise of freedom
of speech, freedom of assemblage
and freedom of the press, poured
from th courts of the nation.
Equal justice under law is a
concept which may be regarded as
the very cornerstone of our de
mocracy. But in the half century
of the antilabor injunction’s heyday
this principle was constantly flout
ed by the courts themselves. In
stead of equal justice under law,
the judges’ writs of injunction
represented unequal justice under
an absence of law.
It takes little imagination to
appreciate the jubilation of the
mighty antiunion barons when they
discovered that their dirty work i
was gladly performed for them by i
lawless judges. The Fricks and |
the Pullmans, whose aim was to
block any betterment of the work
ers’ conditions but to smash and
destroy the workers* unions, slash
ed wages, fired union members, did
everything imaginable to provoke
their employes to strike action
and then they sent their lawyers
into court.
The corporation’s attorney would
pull out of his pocket a sweeping
injunction against the workers.
The document would be all ready
for the judge. Usually the judge
would affix his signature without
the change of a comma. The in
junction would go into effect. Im
mediately the news would be
spread over the front pages of
the newspapers. The law-abiding
citisen, with his deep respect for
the law, would conclude that the
workers were in the wrong, that
they were to be regarded as crim
inals whom the law had to restrain.
The newspapers, even more
sweepingly biased against labor in
those days when it was easier to
hbodwink the public than it is
now, would never carry a line to
intimate that the true lawbreaker
was the judge himself, since his
action in issuing an injunction
eras without basis either in the
Constitution or in the enactments
of Congress. This was the truth,
of course, but to tell the truth
would be to spoil a colossal swin
dle which was highly profitable to
big business.
Just think how the wage-earner
of the injunction felt. Driven by
low wages, long hours and health
shattering working conditions, he
N. A. STALLS.
Editor and Publisher
would join with his fellow workers
to form a union. Acting with his
fellows and through their newly es
tablished organisation, they would
appeal to their employer for con
sideration of their grievances. The
employer would refuse to talk to
them. He wouldn’t negotiate. He
wouldn't arbitrate. He wouldn’t do
anything of a reasonable nature.
Not infrequently his answer would
be to fire his work force and lock
them out. Sometimes he would
just fire some and slash the wages
of those remaining.
The workers would meet at their
union hall. They would discuss the
situation. Given no alternative,
they would vote to strike.
But the employer, having a pow
erful ally in the court, would quick
ly confront the strikers with an
injunction.
The American Federation of La
bor fought the injunction disease
from the very beginning. The un
fairness of the use of injunctions
against workers was pointed out
time and again. Appeals were made
to public opinion. And eventually
the tide began to turn.
Long before 1932, when the
Norris-LaGuardia Act was put on
the federal statute books by a
Republican Congress ahd a Repub
lican President, voices against the
injunction evil began to be heard.
Even judges spoke out against this
criminal abuse of the power of the
judiciary which was undermining
public confidence in the courts and
the administration of justice.
The National Association of
Manufacturers, the National Metal
Trades Association and other de
fenders of anti-labor corporations
and their nefarious practices fought
stubbornly to preserve the best
strikebreaking tool in the book.
They argued insistently that the
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CORRELL GOAL COMPANY
COAL FOR EVERY PURPOSE
307 North West Street Phone 55S7
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220 West Davie
Phone 3-3520
RALEIGH, N. C.
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