As might be easily surmised, the decision of Justice Wright, in the Federal Court in the District of Columbia, finding Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell and Frank Morrison guilty of contempt of court for boycotting Bucks stoves and ranges while under a restraining order and sentencing the union officials to serve terms of imprisonment of six months to a year, has stirred up organized labor throughout the North American continent as nothing has done in the present generation. Stacks of resolutions condemning the decision and columns upon columns of editorials and communications in the labor press denouncing Judge Wright and his edict in all languages indicate that the union people have been worked up to a high pitch of excitement and that they are beginning to realize that capitalism has forced a crisis upon them that can no longer be dodged and must be met.

But just what to do under the prevailing circumstances-there's the rub. Unfortunately, judging the sentiment as reflected in the labor press, the great bulk of the organized workers are still of the opinion that to hurl invective at the head of Wright and to denounce government by injunction until they are red in the face will somehow relieve the situation or cause capitalism and its henchmen to relent in waging war upon union labor. Some few officials and newspapers, but only a few, thank goodness, displayed the yellow streak by begging for mercy, supplicating Roosevelt to pardon Gompers, Mitchell and Morrison. who contend that they have done no wrong, and, therefore, executive clem

ency could be interpreted in no other way than that the defendants recanted and acknowledged committing a crime in boycotting an unfair product and standing upon their rights of free speech and maintaining a free press. It is a pleasure to announce that the defendants are not in sympathy with the undignified, cowardly and blubbering proposition of prostrating themselves before the Big Stick and humbly craving the pardon of the chief executive and the master class that he represents.

The three penalized officials, backed by the Federation executive council, have given notice that they will fight the Wright decision to the highest court in the land, and an appeal for voluntary contributions from unions and individ uals, friends and sympathizers, has been issued, and the attorneys for the defendants are mapping out an elaborate plan of campaign that will result in this case becoming historic and epoch-making. But the mass of organized workers seem to be in a quandary as to what to do besides resoluting and spending an enormous sum of money in an effort to secure justice at the hands of a prejudiced and hostile judiciary. The union membership seems to have a child-like faith or hope that the United States. Supreme Court may reverse the lower court decision and its own famous (or infamous) verdict in the celebrated Debs case. While some of the distinguished legal luminaries who sit upon the Supreme Court bench may be approaching their dotage, it is hardly reasonable or natural to expect that they will decide in favor of Gompers, Mitchell and Mor-.

rison at this juncture and acknowledge that they were wrong in sending Debs to Woodstock. Of course, if the defendants happened to be meat trust robbers, railway magnates or oil trust kings there might be some reason to anticipate a favorable verdict, but being workingmen those in the prisoners' dock can hardly hope to escape the enforcement of "lor'n order" as interpreted by the class in control of the various branches of the government.

So we are going in for spending a big pile of money in battling against the inevitable. But it will be money well spent. While the workers may have vague and indefinite or no notions of what to do at present, besides adopting resolutions, getting warm under the collar and contributing their cash to the defense fund, it is a hundred to one shot that they will learn a whole lot as the case drags along. No matter how timid or unresponsive some conservative and reactionary leaders or officials may be, it can be accepted as a settled fact that there will be more general and widespread agitation of a political character than was ever before known on this continent. And it will be class-conscious

politics at that. While a fairly good blaze started in last year's campaign, Judge Wright has ignited a prairie fire which, while it was hoped would drive out organized labor, will prove of grave consequences to American capitalism and at no remote period.

The workers have been given another object lesson, and they will learn very rapidly that certain rights they believed inviolate no longer exist. When Debs was sentenced to prison fourteen years ago the progressive element in the labor movement declared that, so far as the workers were concerned, their rights of trial by jury, free speech and free press, had received a death-blow. True, capitalism and its tools did not push their advantage with unseemly haste. Gradually, only here and there, union men were thrown into prison for alleged

contempt of court in order that the public might become accustomed to the new era of oppression. Now, by making another test case, capitalism intends to clinch its advantage and establish its claim to govern through its courts once and for all time. Legislative and administrative bodies are to be regarded as subordinate to the judiciary. Indeed, Justice Wright says so in plain terms. He declares bluntly what most judges has held secretly, viz.: that the courts, having established the right to pass upon the constitutionality of laws enacted by Congress and other legislative bodies, are, therefore, superior to the legislative and administrative branches. He declares further that the people do not enjoy the fundamental rights of free speech and free press; that there are no laws guaranteeing such rights; that Congress is merely forbidden to enact laws prohibiting free speech and free press, and, consequently, the various states can take whatever action they choose relating to these alleged rights. This distinguished jurist having taken this advanced position, it naturally follows that he becomes the spokesman of the capitalist class, and that the claim that legislative bodies are subordinate to the judiciary and that our vaunted rights of free speech and free press do not exist in fact become fixed principles that will be upheld so long as capitalism is in control of the political power of state and nation.

The progressive element in the labor movement foresaw these various moves on the chess-board of capitalistic rulethey were bound to follow in logical sequence after the Debs case was decided. The Socialists in the labor movement appealed to their fellow-workers to take political action and strike at their persecutors at the ballot-box, but their pleadings fell upon deaf ears. "We will compel the capitalist class to concede us our rights by resorting to the industrial strike and boycott," the conservatives declared, and the rank and

file nodded assent. "You Socialists are too radical," was the cry. Well, the rains from heaven descend upon the just and unjust alike. Just so the injunction bludgeon is wielded against the radical and conservative alike, and it seems to be the irony of fate that Messrs. Gompers, Mitchell and Morrison, three of the ultra-conservatives, who have been among the most uncompromising opponents of radicalism, should be made to feel the iron heel at this juncture.

But the Socialsts in the labor movement will go along with the procession. They will do their share in making every sacrifice required, and one thing more, they will doggedly persist in voting against capitalism and its entire brood of parties, judges and politicians. All that the Socialists will ask in return is, not for privileges for themselves, but that the rank and file discard their timidity and fossilized conservatism and read and think and act along the lines marked out by their fellow workers of every civilized country in the world. The crisis is here; it's do or die now. Socialism or slavery! Which?

As if the United Hatters of North America did not have troubles enough in meeting the enormous financial burden as a result of the damage suit verdict obtained against them by Loewe, the manufacturer at Danbury, Conn., now the Associated Hat Manufacturers have begun what appears to be a war of extermination against that ill-fated union. While the attack of the employers' association is ostensibly directed against the use of the union label only, the fight is really being waged to establish the open shop and cripple the organization by placing a premium upon scab labor. The hatters deserve a lot of sympathy and help. Martin Lawlor, their general secretary, informed me a short time ago that the Loewe case would cost them at least $200,000. That means more than $20 per capita must be paid by these

workers who have been the target for a raking fire from the batteries of capitalism for several years. Now, when the manufacturers believe the organization is crippled by the heavy financial load, another attack is made. The bosses imagine that the union is on the ragged edge of bankruptcy and will be unable to support the men who are virtually locked out in withstanding a long siege. It remains to be seen whether their

judgment is sound. The hatters are an old organization and good fighters. Their label is universally popular and the firms that will continue to use it will have a tremendous advantage in the market.

The threatened contest between the marine trades and the employers' associations and corporations on the Great Lakes will not be postponed until navigation opens. The struggle has commenced and preliminary skirmishing between the engineers and seamen on the one side and the Vessel Owners' Association and the United States Steel Corporation on the other side is being engaged in. The steel trust, through its subsidiary corporation, the Pittsburg Steamship Company, precipitated the fight by declaring for the open shop and forcing its engineers to sign individual agreements, which many of them did. Then the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association took action by fining those who had signed and expelling several of the ringleaders. The latter thereupon announced the formation of a dual union, one that will probably be acceptable to the trust. The Lake Seamen's Union has also announced that the open shop schemes of the masters will not be acceptable, and it is likely that the guer rilla warfare practiced last season will be abandoned and an open fight made this year. The longshoremen and affiliated branches have not yet announced their policy, but it is pretty certain that they will make common cause with

the engineers and seamen, so that for perhaps the first time in the history of marine organizations there is likely to be combined action in resisting the encroachments of organized capitalism.

The American seamen are moving in the matter of securing a world's conference and united and harmonious action in approaching the various governments to secure beneficial legislation. The seamen of Europe are federated and during the past year the North Americans were represented at their annual congress. The plan is now to spread out and bring in the Australians, South Americans and probably the orientals. It is not generally known by the public, but it is nevertheless a fact, that the seamen are no better than chattel slaves in many respects, involuntary servitude being rigidly adhered to and supported by many governments.

The attempt to form a federation of clothing workers is meeting with success. During the past month representatives of the United Garment Workers, International Ladies' Garment Workers and International Association of Fur Workers conferred and outlined plans to If bring about the proposed merger. the membership approve of the action taken, then it is probable that the Journeymen Tailors' Union will join the federation and later on the hatters, shirt waist and laundry workers, boot and shoe workers, suspender and tie makers, cloth hat and capmakers and other crafts. Thus organized labor is moving steadily and naturally into the broad field of industrialism and gradually the jurisdictional controversies will become a thing of the past.

It was mentioned in last month's Review that ex-Gov. Peabody, the notorious tool of the Mine Operators' Association of the West, had been dis

carded like a squeezed lemon by those whose dirty work he had performed so faithfully, that he was reported to be financially bankrupt, and that he could not even obtain a poor political job paying a hundred dollars a month. One more chapter should be added to the biography of this repudiated prostitute of plutocracy. In a suit brought by the Portland Mining Company in Colorado, to recover $336,000 for ore alleged to have been stolen by twenty-four distinguished gents operating companies adjoining the Portland mine, the Hon. Mr. Peabody is named as one of the alleged thieves. The Portland Company charges that the ore was extracted from its premises by means of underground drifts, cross cuts, levels and workings extended from the defendants' mines, into the property of plaintiff. Since Peabody has been dumped by the mine operators and is unable to obtain a political job he might engage in the profession of burglary with more success. It is by no means certain that Mr. Peabody will not where spend his declining years in jail, he should have been long ago.

During the past month the United Typothetæ of America, the open shop employers' association in the printing trade, introduced the eight-hour day generally. Thus, after a three years' struggle, the employers have bowed to the inevitable. They might have saved a lot of money and prevented many of their number from going bankrupt if they had taken a reasonable view of the matter in 1905. But they wanted fight and got it. It is only fair to say that the United Typothetæ is almost a total wreck, its activities being confined to a few establishments in the larger cities.

As predicted in the Review, the annual session of the United Mine Workers just closed at Indianapolis, was one of the most exciting in the history of the trade.

SPARGO

BY

JOHN

Readers of the International Socialist Review who have read Mary E. Marcy's interesting story of proletarian life, Out of the Dump, which was published serially in these pages, will be glad to get it in the attractive little volume in which it has been issued by Charles H. Kerr & Company. In the convenient size of the popular and useful "Standard Socialist Series," the volume is, by all odds, the most attractive which Kerr & Company have yet issued. The volume shows so many improvements, in binding, quality of paper used, and press work, that one hopes it may be taken as an encouraging New Year promise of a like improvement in the general publications of the firm.

Mrs. Marcy, who is one of the clearest thinking Socialists in the American movement (which I can say the more readily since I do not always agree with her!), unites to an agreeable literary style, a thorough knowledge of the proletarian life which she depicts. Possessing a saving sense of humor, she takes herself seriously, but not too much so, and the good-natured satire which pervades the story adds greatly to its charm. The story professes to be the autobiography of a poor girl, the daughter of a laborer in a packing establishment, who becomes an investigator for a Charity Organization Society, and its special purpose is to satirize professional philanthropy. The little book shows that Mrs. Marcy knows Charity Organization work from the inside.

It is a

book which deserves to be widely read, and should prove to be a popular gift book. A peculiar feature of the illustrations by R. H. Chaplin is that his women are much better done than his

men.

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Alfred Noyes, the well known English poet, has written for "The English Men of Letters Series," published by the Macmillan Company, an admirable little biographical study of William Morris, the Socialist artist, craftsman and poet. Morris's genius was as gorgeous and complete as one of his magnificent tapestries, and through it all he expressed his Socialist convictions and hopes. Mr. Noyes adds very little to the known facts of Morris's life; that was scarcely to be expected. But he has added to our knowledge of the man through a careful and sympathetic interpretation of his thought and work. He is much more sympathetic with the Socialism of Morris than the "official" biographer, Mr. Mackall, and takes occasion to express his scorn for some of that gentleman's cold scholasticism. Those who desire a small, compact account of the life and work of Morris and something like a critical estimate of the place he holds in the history of English literature, will welcome this very satisfying little study.

Speaking of Morris reminds me of Henry James's essay upon the same subject, which is included in his Views and