notice of their intention to appeal this cause, and the court do allow said appeal upon the filing of an appeal bond in the sum of $1,000. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 88: I, Irvin Belford, clerk of the circuit court of the United States within and for the northern district for the State of Ohio, do hereby certify that I have compared the within and foregoing transcript with the original order of the court, entered upon the journal of the proceedings of said court in the therein-entitled cause, at the term and on the day therein named, and do further certify that the same is a true, full, and complete transcript and copy thereof. Witness my official signature and the seal of said court at Cleveland, in said district, this 18th day of October, A. D. 1898, and in the one hundred and twenty-third year of the independence of the United States of America. [SEAL.] IRVIN BELFORD, Clerk. Speaking of the injunction issued by Judge Palmer, of the Arapahoe district court, against the Montana Union of northern Colorado, the Industrial Advocate says: This is the preliminary step to importing cheap labor into Colorado. Much as it may be denied by the trust, that is the intention. That the attempt would be backed by the courts of the State very few believed. But the legal fight is now on, and will be pushed to the bitter end. On the one side is organized capital. On the other is the force of organized labor throughout the West. All Colorado, all the Western Continent, will support the miners in their determination. It is safe to say that one judge of the district court has decided to retire to private life. People may talk of the uprightness of courts and say judges are incorruptible. Judge Palmer is not accused of being bought; but he has plainly set aside the rights of thousands of working people at the request of a rich corporation without so much as giving the people a chance to be heard. For some time in city affairs nothing has received more severe censure than this issuance of ex parte injunctions. When it comes to applying the same sort of thing to other affairs it becomes more distasteful than ever. Judge Palmer and his injunction will be remembered by the working people. The complaint of the corporation was voluminous. It said: "That the defendants, Joseph Smith, E. E. Beckett, George Ransom, George Clark, herein named, and many others whose names are unknown to this complainant, are engaged in a coal strike in the towns of Lafayette, Louisville, Superior, and Marshall, in the county of Boulder, and in the town of Erie, in the county of Weld, all in the State of Colorado, and that the miners' union herein named as defendant is an organization comprised of coal miners in the northern part of the State of Colorado; but as to whether it is a corporation, copartnership, or an association this complainant is not advised and therefore can not allege. "That on the 6th day of June, A. D. 1898, the employees and workmen in said mines, without previous notice to the complainant or to any of its officers, agents, or superintendents, or to the officers, agents, superintendents, or managers of any of the aforesaid mines, quit work in a body and caused great damage to this complainant, and assigned no cause therefor; that the quitting of work was the result of a mass meeting of said defendants, at which the following resolution was passed: 66 * * * * * * Resolved, That all coal mines operated by the Northern Coal Company and all mines selling coal to said company be suspended, said suspension to go into effect on Monday, June 6, A. D. 1898. "That thereupon and in obedience to said resolution all the men at said mines in a body quit work on the following day, and have since refused to work in said mines or permit the operation thereof by others. The complainant shows to the honorable court that it is informed and believes, and upon such information and belief charges the fact to be, that the defendants and each of them are members of * * * the miners' union; that said defendants and said miners' union have conspired and combined together to injure this complainant by preventing the operation of said coal mines, and by quitting work therein, and by threats, force, intimidation, and violence have prevented the men who are not members of or in sympathy with their union also to quit work at said mines; that there are and have been many men in and about the vicinity of said mines who are ready, anxious, and willing to work in said mines for said complainant, but are prevented from doing so by menace and force and being threatened by said defendants, or some * * * * * of them, that in event any of said men should attempt to work for this complainant, they will be summarily dealt with, and that said miners who are ready and willing to work are advised that they had better refuse the said employment, and are warned that unless they do so they will have cause to regret it to their sorrow; that the said miners are in constant fear that should they attempt to work * they will * * * be either driven from the community or in danger of great bodily harm and possibly death, and that their families are in constant fear that their houses will be burned and their lives endangered; therefore * * * this complainant is unable to hire men; its business is damaged in every it has various contracts to supply coal to consumers that can not be kept; * * * the loss and damage to this complainant will be enormous, no part of which can be collected from these defendants or any of them, for the reason that they and all of them are insolvent. way; * * * * * * "That said miners' union now has committees in the southern part of the State attempting to have the men quit work on all of the mines operated by selling coal to this complainant; said defendants are attempting to boycott the business of this complainant, all of which is contrary to the law of this State. "This complainant alleges the fact to be that the reason the members of said miners' organization refused to work or to permit others to work in said mines is that the operators have closed some of the mines in the Lafayette district, for the reason that they could not be operated at a profit, and that unless and until the said operators of said Lafayette mines resume work and employ members of the miners' union at the price, upon the terms, and in the manner indicated by the said defendants and the said miners' union, none of the coal mines in the northern Colorado district operated by or shipping coal to this complainant shall be operated in any manner. * * * "That the mines and mining properties owned and operated by this complainant are worth $3,000,000, and that a very large part of said property is of such a nature that it can be easily destroyed by malicious persons, and this complainant is powerless to properly protect said property from strikers or any attempt on their part to destroy the same; that the complainant believes that said property is in great danger of being by said strikers burned or destroyed by dynamite or other explosives; that * * * the agents, employees, and workmen of this complainant are in constant fear of being driven from their duty and the property and mines totally destroyed. "Wherefore this complainant prays that the defendants and all persons combined and conspiring with them, and all persons whomsoever, be restrained and enjoined and absolutely desist and refrain from in any way or manner interfering with, influencing, or hindering, or stopping the operation of any of the mines. "That said writ of injunction be enforced and binding upon such of the defendants as are named in this bill, and from and after the service upon them severally of said writ, by delivering to them severally a copy of said writ, and by reading the same to them and the service upon them, respectively, of the writ of subpoena herein, and shall be binding upon the defendants whose names are alleged to be unknown from and after service of said writ upon them, respectively, by the reading of the same to them or by publication thereof, or by posting or printing, and after service of subpoena upon any of the defendants herein named shall be binding upon said defendants, and upon all other persons whatsoever who are not named herein, from and after the time when they shall severally have notice of the issuance of such order and the existence of said injunction, this complainant shall have judgment against the defendants, or each of them, for all damages it may sustain, and for costs in its behalf herein expended, and for such other and further relief as to the court may seem proper.' James Cannon, jr., president of the Northern Coal Company, deposed and said that he believed the contents of the above complaint were true. Judge Palmer issued thereupon an injunction and order, of which the following are extracts: "It is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the defendants, Joseph Smith, George Ransom, George Clark, the miners' union, and E. E. Beckett, as secretary thereof, and all other persons combining and conspiring with them, and all other persons whomsoever, desist from interfering, obstructing, or stopping any of the business of any of the mines. "That said defendants be, and they are hereby, restrained and enjoined from trespassing upon, damaging, attempting to damage, or in any way destroying or attempting to destroy any of the mines or mining property of this complainant, or any of the mines or mining property mentioned in the order, or from compelling or inducing or attempting to compel or induce by threats, intimidation, force, or vio S. Doc. 58- -5 lence any of the employees of this complainant, or at or in any of the aforesaid mines from doing their duty. * * * "That said defendants be, and they are hereby, restrained and enjoined from preventing any person or persons whomsoever by threats, intimidation, force, or violence from entering the service of this complainant and working in or about any of the said mines. * * * "It is further ordered that the defendants and each of them are restrained and enjoined from going near or interfering with any of the above-mentioned mines or mining property or the employees therein." STATEMENT OF MR. JACKSON H. RALSTON. Mr. RALSTON. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, if I may ask your indulgence for perhaps ten minutes, I think I can say all that there is oecasion for me to add to the remarks of Mr. Gompers. When Mr. Gompers and the other gentlemen of the Federation of Labor came to me about preparing a bill of this character, they handed me certain bills which had been submitted to the House of Representatives, defining contempts as being direct and indirect, and providing for a jury trial as to the latter class. It seemed to me, and those gentlemen agreed with me-and I was very glad to be fortified by very distinguished legal authority in the conclusion that it was not advisable to restrict the general right and efficacy of the writ of injunction; that for the benefit of the wealthy as well as the poor, one equally with the other at least, the power of the court over the writ in proper cases ought to be amply preserved, and the question, as I submitted to them, was whether injunctions had been rightfully issued in the various cases. If it were wrongly issued, then that wrongful issue ought to be stopped; but if rightfully issued, I was inclined to believe that the present method of carrying out injunctions that is, by the summary process of contempt was a good thing. With that idea in mind I examined, at least casually, the cases in which injunctions had been issued, and, as I believe, wrongfully issued, and, assuming such wrongful issuance, I endeavored to get at the respects in which it was wrongful, and having found these respects, to meet the difficulty, if I could, having relation, perhaps, to the laws already established in other jurisdictions and having relation to what seemed to me the true interpretation of the common law. Now, I found, and I think the tlemen of this committee will find upon examination, that the writ of injunction had been issued (and in this all the difficulty comes) against acts which in themselves, if committed by an individual, were absolutely right, or, if committed by an individual, could not be subject to the writ of injunction, because if they were punishable at all they were properly punishable in a criminal court. gen I want to say that upon examination of the statute law of other jurisdictions I found that the Parliament of England had met the very condition that seemed to be confronting the labor organization here, and in the act known as the "trades-union act of 1875" Parliament had provided that where an act could be committed by an individual and not be criminal, the same act, if committed by a number of individuals in combination, could not be made the subject of the criminal conspiracy law or could not be deemed a criminal act. The CHAIRMAN. What was the date of that act? Mr. PARKER. Does it apply to all acts, no matter what they are? Mr. PARKER. It would not, therefore, apply to a boycott? The CHAIRMAN. Even if they starved the man to death? Mr. RALSTON. Yes, sir; it would apply to an act of that kind, and for this reason, that any man has a legal right to purchase from any other man that he chooses, and there is a correlative right in every man to refuse to sell him his goods. That is a right. Mr. OVERSTREET. Do you mean to say that I would not have the right to buy a railroad ticket, for instance, from anybody I wished? Mr. RALSTON. Oh, no; the committee will recognize the absolute distinction. Mr. PARKER. There have been cases where a man has refused to sell another bread. Mr. OVERSTREET. I understand you to say that no man has a right to purchase from another? Mr. RALSTON. My statement may have appeared to be that broad, but the committee will correct or limit the statement. It is another thing where a corporation is performing certain public functions The CHAIRMAN. Do you mean to say that if a man is engaged in the bakery business, selling bread, and a man comes in peaceably, with the money, and tenders it, and demands a loaf of bread, that the salesman has a perfect right to say, "No, you can not have bread?" Mr. RALSTON. Yes, sir. Mr. PARKER. And so with the meat man? Mr. RALSTON. Yes, sir. Mr. PARKER. And they might all conspire together? Mr. RALSTON. Yes, sir. The principle about conspiracies to raise the prices of things by agreeing not to sell them except for a certain price has been ruled upon both ways by the courts. Mr. PARKER. Would this apply to that sort of thing? Mr. RALSTON. No, sir. It has no relation to cases of that kind. Continuing the argument I had in mind, I have stated, I think correctly, the law under this act of 1875. Now, the trades-union act was followed in Maryland in the act of 1884. I have here the Maryland act as it was incorporated in the Code of 1888. The language is as follows: An agreement or combination by two or more persons to do or procure to be done any act in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute between employers and workmen shall not be indictable as a conspiracy, if such act committed by one person would not be punishable as an offense; nothing in this section shall affect the law relating to riot, unlawful assembly, breach of the peace, or any offense against any person or against property. That is, as I say, the language of the Maryland act of 1884. Mr. PARKER. And that was the language of the English act of 1875. Mr. RALSTON. Almost identically the language of the English act and the language which has been followed in the bill now before the committee. Mr. PARKER. Is that the act you want put before us? Mr. RALSTON. Yes, sir; but there is one exception in the bill before us, namely, that it shall not apply to a combination of persons. It of necessity is longer. There is one reason for the exception that I would suggest to the committee, and that is that Congress has nothing to do with unlawful assembly, breach of the peace, or any offense against person or property. The CHAIRMAN. Why not? Mr. RALSTON. Those are purely matters for the State to deal with. The CHAIRMAN. Under the interstate-commerce act, for the purpose of carrying on interstate commerce and the mail, can not Congress deal with those matters? Mr. RALSTON. It is sufficient to say that Congress has not dealt with them. Mr. KERR. There are no Federal statutes dealing with them in that spirit and language. Mr. FLEMING. There are statutes in regard to the property of foreigners and nonresidents. The CHAIRMAN. The proposition is that the Congress of the United States can not pass a law restraining unlawful assemblages and acts of riot having for their purpose the destruction and stoppage of interstate commerce or having for their purpose the destruction or stoppage of the carrying of the United States mails? Mr. RALSTON. I do not think there is any difference of opinion between us. At least I am not contending that Congress has not the right to pass certain acts; but these acts are relating to local police matters, and Congress, as I understand it, never has passed an act coming within the provisions of the Maryland statute. Mr. KERR. The purpose of that statute is not to interfere with the existing statutes of Maryland, and there would be no occasion for United States to interfere with the Maryland statute. Mr. RALSTON. Yes, sir. Mr. FLEMING. Suppose, in the State of Maryland, a lockout should occur in a factory, and violence was threatened against the property, and some of the stockholders in that factory were nonresidents of the State; could not one of those nonresidents go into the United States courts and seek protection for his property, he being a nonresident? Mr. RALSTON. He might go into the Maryland courts. Mr. FLEMING. But suppose he chose to go to the United States courts? Mr. RALSTON. Undoubtedly; and I do not understand that this Maryland act would be in control, so far as the question under discussion was concerned, so far as relates to the United States courts in the State of Maryland. Mr. PARKER. Then, if it was a crime indictable in the State of Maryland, would the United States courts have jurisdiction? Mr. RALSTON. This Maryland act in itself, it will be understood, does not relate to the matter of injunctions. It relates merely to the matter of criminal law. A resident of the State of Virginia would not go into the United States court in the State of Maryland for the purpose of enforcing a Maryland criminal statute, so that I do not see that the Maryland statute, considering it barely upon the face and from the present point of view, would cut any figure in such litigation as Colonel Fleming speaks of. This bill reads, "No agreement, combination, or contract by or between two or more persons to do, or procure to be done, or not to do, or procure not to be done, any act in contemplation or furtherance of any trade dispute between employers and employees in the District of Columbia or in any Territory of the United States"-following identically the language of the antitrust |