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CONSPIRACY TO INJURE NOT INDICTABLE.

A decision of great importance to labor has just been made by the supreme court of North Carolina. The case at bar was known as State vs. Van Pelt, No. 345. It had its origin in Salisbury, where the labor unions made a demand upon a lumber merchant that he refrain from employing other than union labor, under pain of being considered out of sympathy with organized labor. Van Pelt and others put the merchant on the unfair list. For this they were indicted for conspiracy to break up and destroy the business of the lumber merchant upon whom the demand above mentioned had been made.

The indictment was quashed by the lower court, but an appeal was taken. The supreme court unanimously affirmed the ruling of the lower body. It held that "a conspiracy to injure one's business is not per se indictable; it is only when the means used to accomplish that end are unlawful that it becomes so." The ruling is extremely lengthy, and recites the decisions in similar cases, as well as the law authorities on the points at issue. THE JOURNAL reproduces a portion of Justice Connors' closing words, which mark the clearness of his reasoning:

Without undertaking to mark the limitations of exceptions to the general principle we are of the opinion that the defendant's conduct was not unlawful. That the motive prompting them does not change or affect its legal quality. It is not to be doubted that many acts which subject a party to a civil action without regard to the motive with which they are committed, are indicta-. ble either by the common law or by statute by reason of the motive which prompt them. To kill a man's horse is actionable to do so maliciously is indictable. The act itself is a legal injury. The statute makes it a crime when malice is the moving cause. Many other instances readily occur to the mind. We think that it will be found that in every case where the act is criminal, there is a trespass on some legal right, or a legal wrong done to the complaining person. We concur with his honor that no criminal act is charged in the indictment. We have not overlooked the cases cited in the briefs. The courts are very far from agreement in regard to the law of conspiracy. This fact tends to show the danger of giving to the word "unlawful" a broad and all-embracing meaning in the definition of a criminal conspiracy. We are told this is a case of great importance. It is said: "We are now at the parting of the ways. It is safe to predict that there will be no more criminal conspiracies, no more demands for union shops and no strikes,

sympathetic or otherwise, in this state if the court sustains the bill in this case." We are also told, by counsel, that it rests upon the members of this court to decide whether labor and capital shall dwell together in peace and unity, controlled by the law, etc. It is desirable that this condition, which has always so happily prevailed in this state, shall be preserved. We are duly sensible of our duty as judges, to so declare the law as to secure, as far as the law may, this condition. As we have endeavored to show, concerted action and association to protect common interests and promote common advantage is not peculiar to those whose capital consists in their labor. The security of the state demands that the same principles of law must apply to all sorts and condi tions of men. It is well to consider how far liberty of thought and action may be restricted by a resort to the "loose expressions" and danger. ously uncertain definitions of this crime affecting the liberty of the citizen.

It is very doubtful whether industrial condi tions, or relations between employer and em. ployes, have been improved by prosecutions for criminal conspiracy. As we have seen, in England the subject has received the most careful attention of enlightened statesmen, resulting in the passage of wise statutes. It is asked: May not a man conduct his business in his own way? Undoubtedly he may. For any unlawful interference with this right he has a remedy, either civil or criminal, as such interference may justify. The question is asked: May not men organize to promote their common interests, and when such interests conflict with other interests, resort to lawful and peaceful means to secure the best results? It is clear that they may. Where, then, is the line which separates conduct which is lawful from that which is unlawful? The answer comes from Chief Justice Shaw, one of the wisest and most learned of American jurists. "If it is to be carried into effect by fair, or honorable, or lawful means, it is, to say the least, innocent. If by falsehood or force, it may be stamped with the character of a criminal conspiracy." We would not be misunderstood. Capital, either in the form of money or other property, or in the form of skill, experience, intelligence and strength, may combine, for lawful purpose. When in either form, or under whatever guise, it seeks or conspires to effectuate its purpose, however lawful, by means of violence to person or property or by fraud or other criminal means-or when, by such means, it conspires to prevent any person from conducting his own business in his own way, or from employing such persons as he may prefer, or by preventing any person from being employed at such wages or upon such terms as he may prefer, the courts will be prompt to declare and firm to administer the law to punish the guilty and protect the injured. What acts will constitute such unlawful means, it is impossible to define. As all other questions arising out of the struggle of political, social or industrial forces, they must be decided as they are presented.

We have refrained from using terms having a popular but as yet indefinite legal meaning. The

word "boycott," by reason of the circumstances under which it originated and the extent to which the means used to accomplish the purpose of the parties engaged in it were carried, is commonly supposed to involve unlawful means. The word is defined in Black's Law Dictionary, page 150, as follows: "In criminal law. A conspiracy formed and intended directly or indirectly to prevent the carrying on of any lawful business, or to injure the business of any one by wrongfully preventing those who would be customers from buying anything from or employing the representatives of said business by threats, intimidation, or other forcible means." In Brace vs. Evans, 3d R. Y. Corp. Law J. 561, it is said: "The word in itself implies a threat; in popular acceptation it is an organized effort to exclude a person from business relations with others by persuasion, intimidation and other acts which tend to violence and have coerced him through fear of his own injury to submit to dictation in the management of his affairs." In Matthews vs. Shanland, 56 N. Y. Sup., the term is held to come within the statutory definition of an "unlawful conspiracy." For history of the word and definition as adopted by many courts, see "Words and Phrases," Vol. I, page 855. We find nothing in the charge in this case which brings the purpose or conduct of the defendant within such definition. Much obscurity and uncertainty has originated in the careless use of the terms of this character.

Mutual confidence, forbearance, patience and concession, accompanied by a free, frank interchange of thought and feeling, will do more to perpetuate the kindly relations existing among us, with our homogeneous population, than prosecutions for criminal conspiracies-when no criminal or unlawful elements exist. In view of the wide divergence of judicial opinion, by reason whereof the law is oppressed with a distressing uncertainty, it would seem that the legislature should abrogate the common law on the subject and enact a plain, clearly expressed and carefully guarded statute in lieu thereof. We have considered the appeal in its legal aspects as represented by the record. His honor's judgment quashing the indictment must be affirmed.

A BOSTON daily paper says that New York had an employer in court recently charged with working children sixty-eight hours in a six-day week, paying them $3 therefor, and docking them 10 cents for talking and 2 cents for being five minutes late. Is there any shame left in New York? our contemporary asks. And yet the Empire State is conceded to have a model child labor law. This employer evidently "runs his own business."

MANY of the employes on the Pennsylvania lines west of Pittsburg had their wages increased voluntarily by the railroad company, it is reported.

WHICH PRECEDENT GOVERNS ?

A recent decision of the state court of appeals of New York declared the day labor law of that state unconstitutional. The law prohibited a contractor from working his help more than eight hours a day on city, county or state work. The decision was rendered in an action brought by a contractor to compel the city of New York to pay for six scows made by the former for the New York street cleaning department. The city refused to pay the contractor, as he had violated his contract by working his employes over eight hours per day. The five judges who agreed upon the decision were not unanimous in their reasons for rendering it, three members of the bench maintaining that the law deprived a person of property without due process of law, and the two others asserting that it interfered with the rights of the municipality. The chief judge of the court, who was one of the last mentioned pair, in the course of his conclusion, referred to organized labor in this wise: "I fear that the many outrages of labor organizations, or of some of their members, have not only excited just indignation, but at times have frightened courts into plain legal inconsistencies and into the enunciation of doctrines which, if asserted in litigations arising under any other subject than labor legislation, would meet scant courtesy or consideration." He then demonstrated his fitness for the high office which he holds by saying that, re.gardless of his own opinion, he felt it his duty to follow the decision in a state case he quoted as being the precedent upon which he based his conclusion. The sixth judge, in his dissenting opinion, said:

The power of the legislature to enact laws based upon consideration of public policy, or for the protection and preservation of the health of the people, is beyond question. The state in enacting laws must act in accordance with the common experience of mankind, and when it determines that the general welfare of employes, mechanics and workmen, upon whom rest a portion of the burdens of government, will be subserved by limiting the hours of labor to be performed to eight continuous hours per day, and that such limitation will promote their morality, physical and intellectual condition, I think the courts can not properly say that the limitation is unreasonable or that it violates the provisions of the constitution.

The decision in this case, and the many other freakish rulings by the judiciary in

labor cases in recent years, seem to justify this caustic commentary on lawyers (and our judges are supposed to be the cream of that profession), made by Justice Horace E. Deemer, of the supreme court of Iowa, in an address delivered in Des Moines some months ago: "Few lawyers have creative genius. Their habits of thought tend to curb the imagination and are toward conservatism. They do not as a rule create anything but disturbance-and blindly and unquestionably follow precedent. They become strong logicians and adepts in the art of refinement, have great vigor of intellectual grasp and penetrating judgment, but are rarely, indeed, creative. The creative genius is so rare everywhere that when he comes he attracts the whole world."

In this connection, however, it is difficult to understand why the New York court overlooked the recent decision of the United States supreme court sustaining the constitutionality of the Kansas state eighthour law, in which Justice Harlan, speaking for the court, touched upon the identical points given by the judges of the New York court as their reasons for declaring the New York state eight-hour law unconstitutional. Justice Harlan's language regarding the assertions that the eight-hour law deprived a person of property without due process of law and was also an interference with the rights of a municipality, was quoted in full in THE JOURNAL at the time the decision in the Kansas case was rendered, and the portions referring to these two points are here reproduced:

If it be contended to be the right of every one to dispose of his labor on such terms as he deems best-as undoubtedly it is-and that to make it a criminal offense for a contractor for public work to permit or require his employe to perform labor on that work in excess of eight hours each day is in derogation of the liberty of both employe and employer, it is sufficient to say that no employe is entitled, of absolute right and as a part of his liberty, to perform labor for the state; and no contractor for public work can excuse a violation of his agreement with the state by doing that which the statute under which he proceeds distinctly and lawfully forbids him to do.

We (the court) rest our decision upon the broad ground that the work being of a public character, absolutely under the control of the state and the municipal agents acting by its authority, it is for the state to prescribe the conditions under which it will permit work of that kind to be done. Its action touching such a matter is final so long

as it does not, by its regulations, infringe the personal rights of others; and that has not been done in this case.

As already stated, the New York chief judge asserted that he was governed by an established precedent in reaching his conclusion. The question naturally follows: Which precedent does the learned jurist consider supreme-one established by the highest tribunal of the land or that set by some state court?

THE appellate branch of the state supreme court, in Brooklyn, has rendered a decision which in substance upholds the boycott; declares that unions can not be restrained from ordering a strike, and adjudges that picketing, if for purposes of observation only, is lawful. The decision was rendered in the case of three non-union men, who sought for an injunction to restrain their employers from discharging them, and also that the stereotypers' and electrotypers' unions of New York be restrained from interfering with them in their efforts to obtain employment, and from picketing and boycotting the business of their employers. The court was also asked by the employers to restrain the unions named from declaring a strike. Concerning the subject of the boycott, and the right to maintain one, Justice Jenks, who wrote the decision in the case, said:

A may refuse to trade with B unless B changes a certain policy, and A may think that his attitude is necessary for his own welfare and protection. It can not be contended that A thereby offends the law. If A may take this step, it does not seem logical to hold that A and C together may not, and may not by argument, persuasion and entreaty, bring D and E to their side. If A, C, D and E can not do what A alone may lawfully do, the vice must be in the combination. But there is no dissent in our highest court over the proposition in National Protective Association vs. Cumming that "Whatever one may do alone he may do in combination with others, provided they have no unlawful object in view. Mere numbers do not ordinarily affect the quality of an act." A's attitude may be trivial as to B, when that of the combination might enforce B's concessions, but this affords no legal reason against such combination.

Other quotations from and information in connection with this important legal decision will be found in the "President's Page" and the "International Stereotypers' and Electrotypers' Union" department.

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nial signing of the scale of prices has taken place, and every shop in the city has affixed its signature thereto. We sign here for two years, to cover the life of the state contracts. We got a material increase all around. Here it is: Everything is eight hours, with an option of six on morning papers and seven on afternoon. Jobmen, $18 per week, with a 50-cent raise every six months until a minimum of $20 is reached; head proofreaders, day, $24; proofreaders, $20; night proofreaders, $27; admen, stonemen, makeups, headmen, etc., night, $27; foremen, $30; machine operators, minion and smaller, 122 cents per 1,000; brevier, 16 cents, day and night, with much single price raised to price and one-half, and price and one-half raised to double price. Time scale -Day operators, $24; night, $27; machinists, day, $24; night, $27. There are many minor changes, which all redound to the welfare of the printerman."

THE justices of the appellate division of the state supreme court, in Brooklyn, N. Y., recently rendered a decision declaring the closed shop illegal. A contract entered into between a Brooklyn firm and the local union of the United Garment Workers of America, whereby the firm was prohibited from employing labor not belonging to the local, and also from employing even a member of the union unless such member held a card signed by the business agent of the local, was declared by the court to be contrary to public policy. One of the justices dissented. In other words, the court decides that an employer's signature to a labor contract is worthless from a legal standpoint.

THE Anti-Women Stenographers' Society of Columbus, Ohio, which was organized some years ago to create and foster sentiment against employing young girls as stenographers in business offices, claims to have gathered facts showing that during the last ten years 6,263 divorce suits have been filed by wives in this country, with their husbands' stenographers named as co-respondents, out of which 5,962 were granted. In the same period 796 employers in this country were made defendants in breach of

promise suits instituted by their stenographers. The society asserts that these figures are sufficient to create a strong sentiment against girls becoming stenographers, and it appeals to women's clubs and church societies to assist in warning parents against allowing their daughters to follow this calling.

PREVIOUS to the strike, the wages per day of union men in the Minneapolis (Minn.) flour mills were as follows: Packers, $2.75; sewers and nailers, $2.25; bran packers, $2.08-all working eight hours a day. Since the Washburn-Crosby Company employed “independent” workers, under the open shop policy, it has been paying girl packers from $1 to $1.25 per day; men packers, $2 to $2.50; sewers and nailers, $1.50 to $2-all working ten hours. Bran packers are working twelve hours per day for $2.20. If you purchase the Washburn-Crosby products do you get them for less money than you pay for the brands of other firms which treat their employes decently?

COMMENTING upon the address of President Van Cleave, of the St. Louis (Mo.) Citizens' Industrial Association, in which he said the larger part of the $17,000,000 paid into the treasuries of labor unions every year was used to spread socialistic doctrines, the Progressive Printer says: "Mr. Van Cleave is a strong man in business, is a respected citizen of St. Louis and very successful. But the action of the American Federation of Labor, in its convention at San Francisco, in which the leaders of that body and a heavy majority vote defeated every important movement of the socialist element in the convention, hardly bears out Mr. Van Cleave's statement that the 'greater part of $17,000,000 is used annually to spread socialistic doctrines throughout the country." Mr. Van Cleave, if he values the high estimation in which he is held in St. Louis, judging from the above quotation, had better sever his connection with the infamous Parry organization, whose chief business is to misrepresent the aims and purposes of organized labor. The misstatement above mentioned demonstrates that he has already become contaminated.

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