666
THE GREEN BAG
longer everywhere possesses the balance of power. The Chicago delegation in the state of Illinois and the delegations from the manufacturing centers of the state of New York have for some time possessed a controlling influence not merely in the state legislatures, but in the national con ventions, and the members of these dele gations have found it necessary to consider and even to pander to the labor vote within their several districts if, indeed, they cared to retain their seats at all. The immediate result of this change and this recognition of the strength of the labor vote was the passage in every state of the Union and in the National Congress itself of a number of statutes which limited the hours of labor in factories and in mines, forbade the payment of wages in com modities or by means of orders on com panies' stores, which regulated the method of weighing and screening coal, where the wages paid were dependent upon the amount of coal mined, which forbade the refusal of work to men or the discharge of men because of their membership of labor unions and which sought to determine by legislative enactment and in favor of the working man, the main questions in con troversy in the great and ever present conflict between organized capital and organized labor. These statutes were vigorously cham pioned by the labor unions and were the result of their newly aroused belief in the value of the ballot and of their realization of their strength and political power. They were however with but few exceptions set aside by the courts as an unnecessary and unconstitutional interference with individ ual liberty and the individual right to property. The appeal to the ballot, so long looked upon as a laboring man's richest heritage, was found to be an illusion. The laboring man had found it possible to secure the legislation he desired, but only to discover an impassable barrier to the fruition of his desires in the conservatism and individualism of the judiciary. He,
too, has in recent years found the judiciary yielding more and more to the demands of the mercantile interests and of the pro fessional classes, and by the writ of injunc tion and proceedings for contempt of court, taking from him the weapon furnished by the srike and the boycott and even going so far as to declare the peaceable picket a criminal conspiracy and the closed shop unlawful. The consequence has been a distrust on the part of organized labor of the American judiciary and a determination to control it. There is now everywhere apparent a deter mination to use the power of the ballot as a weapon against "the unfair judge" as well as against "the unfair" legislator. A bitter and relentless opposition is now to be found to the idea of a life term judiciary which is now so frequently put forth and to the demand for the abolition of the jury, now so often urged. In its criticisms of the judi ciary, as now constituted, and of the rules and decisions above referred to, organized labor does not perhaps always impute corruption, but it constantly argues preju dice; it constantly asserts that in the courts of law the laboring man and the labor union have no standing; that no matter what the working man may do the courts will decide against him; no matter what statutes may be passed in his favor, the courts will declare them invalid. It frequently declares that the 14th Amendment to the Federal Con stitution, which was adopted for the pur pose of guaranteeing freedom to the negro, has been so construed by the courts as to enslave free labor; that the anti-pooling and anti-trust measures which were passed to control capital have been so construed as to control men. It argues that the judge, even though not so when first elected, soon becomes far removed from the common people; that he takes up his residence in an exclusive district; that his wife and children move in an exclusive society; that he has as a rule been a corporation lawyer before his elevation to the bench, especially if in the first place he has been appointed and not
