want to come into your house and talk with you." He attempted to force admittance, making improper proposals, saying: "You were all right when your husband was in the bull pen at Wardner." I ordered him off and he said: "Oh, I am not afraid. The Government has given me plenty of cartridges." I informed Sergeant McNabb, but he failed to find the man. GEM, IDAHO, July 8, 1899. W. R, Goldsmith, being duly sworn. testifies as follows: I was arrested in Gem, May 7th and was put in the bull pen at Wardner. I saw two prisoners stabbed in the back by colored soldiers for hanging back while being forced out to work, saying they were sick. The case was reported to Captain Leville, but no reprimand was made to them. I saw the soldiers driving a man to work at the point of the bayonet, at the same time calling him vile names. I heard Captain Edwards say that he was sent here to make men work, and that he would see that they did it. I was brought before Hugh France and Captain Leville. Leville said: "We know the Miners' Union blew up the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mill. We know they held a meeting in their hall that morning and we will fix them." he was put in a box car that evening about 9:30 p. m., without being allowed to eat his supper; that he was carried to Wardner, Idaho, along with thirty-five others in a box car; that he was kept in the car until 2 o'clock p. m. the next day without any food or water; that it was 5:30 p. m. that day before water was brought to him; that the going and coming from meals was a most shameful proceeding; that the men were bayoneted without pretense of cause; that Andrew Peterson, an aged man, because of slowness, was struck on the back with a bayonet, causing the blood to flow freely. At the same time another soldier struck him likewise; that Peter McGlunghlen was struck with a gun by a corporal, saying, “You dynamiting march up " there." This corporal shouted to his guard, D. M. GILLEN. LABOR INTERESTS IN THE COURTS.* Trades Unions. In the case of Tallman vs. Gallard et al., 57 N. Y. Supp. 419, 27 LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN'S MAGAZINE 40, the court decided, as upholding its ruling, that the members of trades unions have the right to secure employment for their own members by saying that they will not work with persons not belonging to their organization, either by themselves or through their union, the case of Davis vs. Engineers, 51 N. Y. Supp. 180. This case has again been cited as authority in the case of Reform Club of Masons and Plasterers, L. A. 706, Knights of Labor of City of New York et al. vs. Laborers' Union Protective Soc. et al., 60 N. Y., Supp. 388, just decided, and may now be considered a leading case on the point decided. It *Prepared for the LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN'S MAGAZINE by Andrews & Murdoch. is therefore worthy of extended review in these columns, for the rule adopted by the New York courts is generally respected in many other States. work with persons who do not belong to their organizations; and whether they say it themselves or through their organized societies can make no difference They have the right by that method to secure employment for their own members. Mr. Simpson's testimony clearly establishes that his employment of Davis was only temporary, and until he could get union men. We think, therefore, that the testimony in this case was entirely inadequate to establish that which it was necessary for the plaintiff to prove under the averments of his complaint, namely, that he was the object of a perscution based upon a determination to exclude him from working at his trade for any body or under any circumstances." Justice Patterson, after stating the facts, delivered his opinion as follows: "We assume for the purposes of this case that no individual or association of individuals has any right wantonly so to interfere with a man in the exercise of his craft, business or profession as to prevent him from earning his livelihood in that profession, craft or business, and that if a case is presented in which it is shown that the only motive which impels the interference is to prevent a particular individual from making his living, irrespective of other considerations, a court of equity will interfere where no adequate remedy at law exists. But that is not this case. The only employer the plaintiff ever had who was called as a witness was Simpson, who swore that he employed the plaintiff on several jobs, until I could get a union engineer to send in his place. I would send for a union engineer and couldn't get one, and, sooner than have the work stop, I would send for Mr. Davis, and send him. I discharged him five or six times, I guess.' The whole drift of Mr. Simpson's testimony is that he employed the plaintiff only temporarily, until he could get union engineers, and therefore the plaintiff failed in establishing that his discharge was the result of a design on the part of the defendants, under any and all circumstances, to exclude him from making his livelihood. It is true that Simpson says that he understood that Gibbons would stop his engineers in case he did not stop Mr. Davis. But there can be no doubt that members of trades unions, as well as other individuals, have a right to say that they will not Justice Rumsey, in a dissenting opinion, said: "I do not purpose to recapitulate those facts. They establish clearly, as it seems to me, that Simpson was practically coerced into discharging the plaintiff from his employment, and that the object with which that coercion was applied was to prevent the employment of the plaintiff because he had been rejected in his application for membership in the union. As the result of that coercion, practiced not only upon Simpson, but upon others, it appeared that the plaintiff was practically prevented from obtaining any work at his trade for a long period of time. These facts, as it seems to me, warranted the justice below in awarding an injunction, and so much of the judgment should be affirmed." subject, it must be premised that the organization or the co-operation of workingmen is not against any public policy. Indeed, it must be regarded as having the sanction of law, when it is for such legitimate purposes as that of obtaining an advance in the rate of wages or compensation, or of maintaining such rate. It is proper and praiseworthy, and, perhaps, falls within that general view of human society which perceives an underlying law that men should unite to achieve that which each by himself cannot achieve, or can achieve less readily.' Thus, the organization of an association or corporation for the purpose of obtaining employment for its members, and the acts of the corporation or its agents in accomplishing that result, as long as such acts are confined to legal methods of solicitation, or the promise of the support of the organization or corporation and its members to those who employ them, are certainly legal. It must also be held to be a fundamental principle of our law that employers of labor have the absolute right not to employ those whose services are not agreeable or advantageous; and so it is the right of each employe to work for whom he pleases, and to refuse to work for any one where either the employer or the employment is distasteful to him. It is not illegal either for an employer to refuse to employ individuals who belong to a particular society, or members of a particular corporation, or for members of a particular association or organization to refuse to work with others who are not fellow members of the organization or corporation. It is not, therefore, illegal for an employer to insist upon employing members of one organization only, nor for the employes of one employer to refuse to work for him unless all his employes are members of one organization or corporation. So long as an employer of labor violated no contract in discharging a person employed by him, or in declining to employ a particular individual with whom he was under no contract-obligation, he was doing nothing wrongful or illegal; and for another to merely induce him to take this course would constitute no illegal wrong, especially when the inducement was for the purpose of procuring employment for others. "This subject has received a most thorough discussion in England in the case of Allen vs. Flood, decided by the House of Lords, reported in (1898) App. Cas. 1. It seems to me that the opinion of Lord Herschell conclusively establishes that such an act on the part of a person or persons seeking employment, or their representatives, violates no legal rule, and cannot be a foundation of an action for damages. In the course of that opinion, it is said: "I understood it to be admitted at the bar, and it was indeed stated by one of the learned judges in the court of appeal, that it would have been perfectly lawful for all the iron workers to leave their employment, and not to accept a subsequent engagement to work in the company of the plaintiffs. At all events, I cannot doubt that this would have been so. I cannot doubt either that the appellant or the authorities of the union would equally have acted within his or their rights if he or they had "called the men out." They were members of the union It was right for them to determine whether they would become so or not, and whether they would follow or not follow the instructions of its authorities, though no doubt, if they had refused to obey any instructions, which, under the rules of the union, it was competent for the authorities to give, they might have lost the benefits they derived from membership. them. The company had employed * The members of these unions. of workman to do the work which he was doing; and that was an injury which necessarily resulted from the success of one competitor in obtaining a contract or employment that others wished to obtain. Simpson had conducted his business by employing members of this union only. He always endeavored to obtain union men, and only employed nonunion men when such men were not available; and the efforts of the defendants to induce Simpson to employ a member of this union in place of Davis was not unlawful. Nor did the fact that Simpson was induced by the defendants to substitute a member of the defendant corporation in the plaintiff's place cause an injury to him which could be the foundation of any action against either the employer or those who had induced the employer to substitute one of their own members for the plaintiff." The Paper Trust and You. Have you noticed, dear reader, that the December and January numbers of the LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN'S MAGAZINE each contain thirty-two pages less than the November issue? If you have it it will now be explained to you that the loss of these sixty-four pages during only two months is your contribution to the expense fund of prosperity. The expense of publishing the LoCOMOTIVE FIREMEN'S MAGAZINE is limited within certain bounds, the price of a year's subscription is fixed at one dollar per year, but the price of paper has shot skyward within the past sixty days, hence the reduction in amount of paper used. Nor is the LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN'S MAGAZINE the only publication which complains at the boom prices. There are others, the Peoria Star, for instance, which editorially says: The duty on wood pulp has enabled the manufacturers of printing and book paper to inaugurate a squeeze the like of which was never known. Under the specious plea that the drouth in the East last summer had prevented them from getting the logs out of the swamps, the wood pulp trust has advanced the price of printing paper from 1.60 a pound until now it is 2.55 per pound, and the price is still going up. H. M. Pindell, of the Herald, was in Chicago last week and he found the wholesale paper houses besieged by newspaper men vainly trying to make a contract for print paper. No one would accept their offers, for no paper house dare say what the rate will be for the next six months. It may go to three cents a pound. In the meantime the trust is buying up the small mills and closing them remorsely and crying out that they cannot get the wood pulp. President McKinley said in his recent message to Congress that "combinations of capital organized into trusts to control the conditions of trade among our citizens, to stifle competition, to limit production, and determine the prices of products used and consumed by the people, are justly provoking public discussion, and should early claim the attention of the Congress." Further on the President said: It is universally conceded that combinations which engross or control the market of any particular kind of merchandise or commodity necessary to the general community, by suppressing natural and ordinary competition, whereby prices are unduly enhanced to the general consumer, are obnoxious, not only to the common law, but also to the public welfare. There must be a remedy for the evils involved in such organizations. If the present law can be extended more certainly to control or check these monopolies or trusts, it should be done without delay. Whatever power the Congress possesses over this most important subject should be promptly ascertained and asserted." |