ture of our growth and prosperity as is the increased estimation of our Order in the business world. And we flatter ourselves that we have helped in the increased estimation in which organization labor is held all over the country, and every indication points to a continual increase of the feeling and recognition that we are proceeding upon proper lines and our mission will continually make for peace and satisfaction in the labor world.

Sincere regret is felt at the withdrawal from active participation in the affairs of the Order of Brother E. E. Clark, but of course an invitation from the President to become one of the Interstate Commerce Commissioners, could not be refused by him. The honor is probably as great a one as is in the gift of the President to bestow, and the responsibilities are correspondingly great. Sincere regret is also felt at the withdrawal of Brother C. H. Wilkins from active participation in the affairs of the Order.

Reports from the Ladies Auxiliary to our Order, we are glad to say, show that it has enjoyed a steady, healthy growth. Mrs. Moore is thoroughly imbued with the work and has the faculty of imparting her enthusiasm to others, so it is small wonder that she is successful in her endeavors. We bespeak for the Auxiliary the earnest considera

tion of the Brothers to the end that their wives may largely help in bringing about a better social feeling and interest among the members.

While we look with pleasure and gratification upon our progress during the past year, it is well to give a thought to those who have died and left us the remembrance of well spent lives to urge and guide us to better things. We hope

the grim reaper will deal gently with the members of our Order during the coming year.

We indulge the hope that the New Year may show a continuation of the peace and progress that the past year has brought us. We trust and believe that wise and conservative council will prevail in the deliberations of the Grand Division to be held next May. If the laws already on the statute books of the Order are inadequate or are not. far-reaching enough, if any have been outgrown in the march of events, if altogether new ones are necessary, then we trust all these things will be attended to with earnestness, deliberation and wisdom.

The CONDUCTOR wishes to congratulate every member of the Order upon the progress and prosperity enjoyed during the year just past, and indulges the hope that the next twelvemonth will show even a larger degree of interest and well doing.

Employers' Liability Bill Within a space of forty-eight hours two federal judges, one at Louisville and the other at Memphis, have rendered important decisions adverse to the constitutionality of the employers' liability act-an act which Congress adopted at the last session after considerable discussion and which the President has declared to be one of the most notable achievements of the legislative year. The rulings of these two District Court judges have created a sensation in the official circles at Washington, and the reason is not far to seek.

Declared Unconstitutional.

Not only is the employer's liability law intrinsically important, but the arguments that have been made to establish its invalidity may and probably will be applied to other vital legislation enacted or proposed by the administration, or advocated by statesmen and political thinkers in sympathy with its policies, under the authority of the commerce clause of the Constitution. It is because of these wider and indirect consequences admittedly possible that the Department of Justice, with manifest propriety, sent special assistants of

ability to intervene on behalf of the government in both cases and uphold the constitutionality of the act.

It

The act revolutionized law and procedure in railroad damage cases. made railroad companies responsible for accidents to employes even when such accidents were due to negligence of fellow employes. It is hardly necessary to add that it fixed liability for damages upon railroads in the case of accidents due to defective equipment or the negligence or inefficiency of officers and agents.

By its terms the act applies only to common carriers engaged in interstate commerce or in commerce within the several territories of the District of Columbia. It does not cover railroads operating entirely within state boundaries..

According to a Louisville dispatch Judge Evans held the act invalid on the ground that in effect it attempted to regulate commerce within state boundaries as well as interstate commerce, and on the further ground that? its operations affect commerce only in a remote and incidental way.

Judge McCall, in the case of the Illinois Central, vigorously attacks the essential object and the principle of the act. He is unable, he says, to see what connection there is between liability for accidents and regulation of interstate commerce. He holds that Congress had no power to enact the law-for the reason that the relation to their employes of common carriers, engaged in interstate trade and their liability to them in damages for injuries sustained in their employment as the result of the negligence of any of its officers, agents or employes, or by reason of any defects or insufficiency in its cars, engines, appliances, machinery, track, roadbed, ways or works, are not commerce within the meaning of the Constitution.

The court adds that, in any event, the act does not regulate the relation between employers and employed in in-terstate commerce with regard to accidents, but simply announces a new law on torts limited to a special class of those engaged in interstate cases."

Congress discussed the various possible legal objections to the act and reached a different conclusion. The profound interest of the Department of Justice in the matter insures a thorough and exhaustive discussion of its constitutional aspects before the Supreme Court.

Preparations already are being made to rush an appeal on one of the cases involving the constitutionality of the employers' liability law, which has been declared invalid by Judge Evans at Louisville and Judge McCall at Memphis. It is planned to have the appeal advanced on account of its great importance, and it is believed a final judgment from the Supreme Court of the United States will be obtained at the present term. It is no secret that the government, from its observations of the trial of the Louisville case, expected an adverse decision from Judge Evans, but the government is disappointed over the ruling of Judge McCall. Both cases were attended by Mr. Harr, special assistant to the Attorney General, who prepared briefs setting forth the government's contention as to the constitutionality of the statute under the direction of Assistant to the Attorney General Milton D. Purdy.

An interesting question that has arisen is whether Justice Moody, who was Attorney General when the cases just passed upon in the lower court were under way, will sit in final judgment on them. It is pointed out as a significant fact that, although he was Attorney General, the government's briefs were not signed by him, but by Mr. Purdy and Mr. Harr, so it is held that it would be entirely proper for Justice Moody to participate with his brothers of the bench in deciding the constitutionality of the act in question.

The administration and the interstate commerce commission are anxious to have as speedy a settlement as possible, and a conference between the President and Attorney General Bonaparte is understood to have been partly for the purpose of discussing plans for getting the appeal rushed. The administration is particularly concerned because the question of state rights as

against federal control, is again involved, and therefore the general policy of centralization which has formed one of the main features aimed at since President Roosevelt began his fight for the carrying out of the legislative program.

At the Department of Justice the feeling is that the Supreme Court will reverse the decision of the lower court. Probably the Memphis case will be the one upon which the appeal will be pressed. The feeling of ultimate success is based largely upon the ruling of the Supreme Court in the car coupler case, which is held to be in line with those arising under the liability act. In other cases involving injuries on railroads, on appeal from state courts, the Supreme Court has held that "in the absence of legislation by Congress on the subject the effect of the commerce clause of the

constitution was not to deprive the state of authority to legislate as to those within its jurisdiction concerning the liability of commerce carriers." The words quoted are held to have meant that if Congress had legislated on the subject at that time the federal laws would have been constitutional, in its opinion. So, it is believed the Supreme Court, now that Congress has legislated on the subject, would adhere to the theory of previously intimated constitutionality.

In view of the criticism aroused by the participation of officials of the Department of Justice in civil suits to which the United States is not a party, the plan is contemplated in administration circles of having Congress pass an act specifically directing the department to take an active interest in all cases where the constitutionality of a law of Congress is involved.

a law prohibiting all corporations from contributing to campaign funds should meet with the hearty support of the Congress-it certainly meets with the approval of the general public. The urgent necessity of a bill giving the Government the right to appeal in criminal cases is also strongly recommended. A bill of this kind might very materially affect wage-workers who are not themselves able effectively to contest a case where the judgment of an inferior court has been against them. An instance is cited of a recent decision by a district judge leaving railway employes without remedy for violation of a so-called labor statute. It seems an absurdity to permit a single district judge, against what may be the judgment of the immense majority of his colleagues on the bench, to declare a law solemnly enacted by the congress

to be "unconstitutional," and then to deny to the Government the right to have the Supreme Court definitely decide the question.

In uttering the above words it is probable the President had in mind the case recently decided by District Judge Evans of the Western District of Kentucky, who declared unconstitutional the law passed by Congress prohibiting employers from discharging or discriminating against employes because of their membership in any labor or other organization. This reminds us of what Tom Reed used to say to members of the House when they said certain pending measures were "unconstitutional," -he would say, "that's because you don't like it." We do not advocate the retention of a law on the statute books if it is unconstitutional neither do we believe in letting the decree of unconstitutionality rest on the judgment of any one man.

In the matter of injunctions the President realizes the fact that attention has been sharply drawn to this writ by

the demand that the right of applying injunctions in labor cases should be wholly abolished. And he aptly remarks that it is doubtful whether a law abolishing altogether the use of injunctions in such cases would stand the test of the courts; and he says, moreover, I believe it would be wrong altogether to prohibit the use of injunctions. It is criminal to permit sympathy for criminals to weaken our hands in upholding the law; and if men seek to destroy life or property by mob violence there should be no impairment of the power of the courts to deal with them in the most summary and effective way possible. But so far as possible the abuse of the power should be provided against by some such law as advocated last year. Very rightly and truly the President goes on to say that in the matter of injunctions there is lodged in the hands. of the judiciary a necessary power which is nevertheless subject to the possibility of grave abuse. It is a power which should be exercised with great care and should be subject to the jealous scrutiny of all men, and condemnation should be meted out as much to the judge who fails to use it boldly when necessary as to the judge who uses it wantonly or oppressively. A judge strong enough to be fit for his office will enjoin any resort to violation or intimidation, especiially by conspiracy, no matter what his opinion may be of the rights of the original quarrel. There must be no such abuse of the injunctive power as is implied in forbidding laboring men to strive for their own betterment in peaceful ways; nor must the injunction be used merely to aid some big corporation in carrying out schemes for its own agrandizement. It must be remembered that a preliminary injunction in a labor case, if granted without adequate proof (even when authority can be found to support the conclusion of law on which it is founded), may often settle the dispute between the parties, and therefore if improperly granted may do irreparable wrong. Yet there are many judges who assume a matter-ofcourse granting of a preliminary injunction to be the ordinary and proper

judicial disposition of such cases; and there have undoubtedly been flagrant wrongs committed by judges in connection with labor disputes even within the last few years. Such judges by their unwise action immensely strengthen the hands of those who are striving entirely to do away with the power of injunction; and therefore such careless use of the injunctive process tends to threaten its very existence, for if the American people ever become convinced that this process is habitually abused, whether in matters affecting labor or in matters affecting corporations, it will be wellnigh impossible to prevent its abolition. It may be the highest duty of a judge at any given moment to disregard, not merely the wishes of individuals of great political or financial power, but the overwhelming tide of public sentiment; and the judge who does thus disregarded public sentiment when it is wrong, who brushes aside the plea of any special interest when the plea is not founded on righteousness, performs the highest service to the country. The judge has a power over which no review can be exercised; he himself sits in review upon the acts of both the executive and legislative branches of the Government; save in the most extraordinary cases he is amenable only at the bar of public opinion. It seems to us that these are sentiments to which no right thinking man can object. To be sure and necessarily they are general and comprehensive, but so also is the writ of injunction itself. There is no attempt to conceal the fact that the writ has been abused nor to deny the possibility and probability that it may be abused again, but with the writ abridged or abolished what will take its place in time of dire necessity? The desires, passions and prejudices of mankind are not yet in such a seraphic state that we may trust implicity to their doing right by their weaker fellows without the restraint of law or the menace of punishment.

In speaking of labor and capital the President hits the nail squarely on the head when he says that in dealing with both labor and capital, with the ques

The

tions affecting both corporations and trades unions, there is one matter more important to remember than aught else, and that is the infinite harm done by preachers of mere discontent. These are the men who seek to excite a violent class hatred against all men of wealth. They seek to turn wise and proper movements for the better control of corporations and for doing away with the abuses connected with wealth, into a campaign of hysterical excitement and falsehood in which the aim is to inflame to madness the brutal passions of mankind. sinister demagogs and foolish visionaries who are always eager to undertake such a campaign of destruction sometimes seek to associate themselves with those working for a genuine reform in governmental and social methods, and sometimes masquerade as such reformers. In reality they are the worst enemies of the cause they profess to advocate, just as the purveyors of sensational slander in newspaper or magazine are the worst enemies of all men who are engaged in an honest effort to better what is bad in our social and governmental conditions. To preach hatred of the rich man as such, to carry on a campaign of slander and invective against him, to seek to mislead and inflame to madness honest men whose lives are hard and who have not the kind of mental training which will permit them to appreciate the danger in the doctrines preached--all this is to commit a crime against the body politic and to be false to every worthy principle and tradition of American national life. Moreover, while such preaching and such agitation may give a livelihood and a certain notoriety to some of those who take part in it, and may result in the temporary political success of others, in the long run every such movement will either fail or else will provoke a violent reaction, which will itself result not merely in undoing the mischief wrought by the demagog and the agitator, but also in undoing the good that the honest reformer, the true upholder of popular rights, has painfully and laboriously achieved. Corruption is never so rife as in communities where the demagog

and the agitator bear full sway, because in such communities all moral bands become loosened, and hysteria and sensationalism replace the spirit of sound judgment and fair dealing as between man and man. In sheer revolt against the squalid anarchy thus produced men are sure in the end to turn toward any leader who can restore order, and then their relief at being free from the intolerable burdens of class hatred, violence, and demagogy is such that they cannot for some time be aroused to indignation against misdeeds by men of wealth; so that they permit a new growth of the very abuses which were in part responsible for the original outbreak. The one hope for success for our people lies in a resolute and fearless, but sane and cool-headed, advance along the path marked out last year by this very Congress. There must be a stern refusal to be misled into following either that base creature who appeals and panders to the lowest instincts and passions in order to arouse one set of Americans against their fellows, or that other creature, equally base, but no baser, who in a spirit of greed, or to accumulate or add to an already huge fortune, seeks to exploit his fellow-Americans with callous disregard to their welfare of soul and body. The man who debauches others in order to obtain a high office stands on an evil equality of corruption with the man who debauches others for financial profit; and when hatred is sown the crop which springs up can only be evil.

The plain people who think-the mechanics, farmers, merchants, workers with head or hand, the men to whom American traditions are dear, who love their country and try to act decently by their neighbors, owe it to themselves to remember that the most damaging blow that can be given popular government is to elect an unworthy and sinister agitator on a platform of violence and hypocrisy.

The President urges Congress to pass the bill limiting the number of hours of employment of railroad employes, and in speaking generally he urges that it should be the aim to steadily reduce the hours of labor with as a goal the gen