Magna Carta, and Other AddressesGuthrie, William D. (William Dameron)
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Magna Carta, and Other Addresses
Guthrie, William D. (William Dameron)
Constitutional law -- United States
I shall now ask attention to the subject of injunctions in connection
with strikes. I shall not argue the proposition that strikers in
industrial controversies, or labor and labor organizations should not
be above the law, or a law unto themselves. I assume that this is
still a self-evident proposition in this state and may still be taken
for granted. History certainly teaches us that in a free country no
class can safely be released from the duty of obeying the laws, and
that if disobedience be permitted in favor of the laboring classes, the
industrious, honest and law-abiding laborer will be the worst sufferer
in the long run. Nor will time be taken to point out that no civilized
community can long permit any class to maim, or murder, or destroy
property, or violently prevent others from earning their living, in
order to coerce compliance with the demands of that class.
There would, of course, never be occasion for the use of injunctions
in labor disputes if there were no threats of violence and no danger
of injury to persons or property. If the labor organizations of this
country will now earnestly, effectively and sincerely cooperate with
the bar in the endeavor to put an end to violence and riots, which
are the unfortunate but apparently inevitable attendants of every
protracted modern strike, there will no longer be any occasion for
condemning the courts on account of the issuance of injunctions, for
there will then be no necessity for injunctions.
One aspect of the injunction problem is emphasized in the
correspondence now submitted, and should be dealt with here. It is the
matter of giving notice to the defendants before an injunction order
is granted. Recently, when the United States Supreme Court adopted its
new rules, including one as to injunctions, Mr. Gompers and other labor
leaders loudly proclaimed that they had secured a great victory. Thus,
Mr. Gompers is reported in the "Literary Digest" of November 16, 1912,
as calling the new rule a reform and "a step in the right direction,
and one of the things labor has long been fighting for." But, as
every one familiar with the subject well knows, there is nothing in
the new rules that materially changes the pre-existing practice in
regard to injunctions. The authoritative treatises on federal equity
procedure by Mr. Foster and Mr. Street conclusively show this. No
case has been cited to us and we have found none where the defendants
enjoined were not granted by the courts as much facility in moving to
dissolve or modify injunction orders as is provided for in the new
rule. The learned and impartial editor of the "New York Law Journal"
well said in the issue of December 11, 1912: "The only portion of the
new procedure which has attracted the attention of the daily press is
the rule regarding preliminary injunctions. This, however, is no more
than an adoption of good New York practice, and, indeed, of good equity
practice everywhere, viz.: that no _ex parte_ injunction shall go out
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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