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9
'
The name of the now club will be the 'Demo
cratic Hub and its evontual membership will
consist of two representatives at largo from
each ward and a representative from each vot
ing precinct. The two members at largo will
bo choson at a mass meeting of democrats to
bo held April 14, following tho city conven
tion. At that time the permanent organiza
tion will be put under way. The objects of
tho club, as Btatcd in tho constitution, are
tho formation of ward clubs and tho fostering
of steps which will bring about the unifica
tion and co-operation of theso clubs. Tho
contral body will enable the democrats from
all parts of tho city to become acquainted and
to profit by tho Interchange of Ideas. By a
section of its constitution tho club must con
fino its efforts to tho formation and unifica
tion of theso clubs and tho good of democracy
gonerally. A letter, received from William J.
Bryan, stated that ho hoped tho movement
would bo a success and that, it would spread
over tho pnttro country. Ho enclosed blanks
and membership rolls of other similar clubs
and wished tho now organization every suc
cess.'
JJJ
A Shameful Situation.
Ono of tho most shameful .spectacles upon,
which tho people- of i great stato were ever re-.
Quired to gazo has recontly been presented at tho
capital city of. Nebraska..
In 1902 at a conference of corporation law
yers, tho man who was subsequently chosen by
tho republican stato convention as its nominee
for governor was. picked for that honor.
Representatives of the corporations selected,
very generally, tho republican nominees for the.
legislature.
Tho republicans carried tho legislature by an
overwhelming majority, .electing more,. than one.
hundred out of tho 133 members. , ,
In spite of the fact that.it was known that
tho republican candidate for, governor was chosen
by-tho corporation .lawyers,,, ho, was elected, al
though by a, reduced majority.
Tho corporations promptly accepted the re-'
publican victory as a triumph for corporation rule
nnd it seems, also, that a majority of tho repub
lican mombors.of the legislature agreed with the
corporation agents on this point
Threo corporation lobbyists were on duty in
Nebraska's capital city, openly directing this re
publican legislature.
Tlioro has been a general domand on tho part
of tho people for a revision of tho revenue law
and a very general complaint because tho rail
roads of tho stato wero not paying thoir proper
proportion of 'tho taxes.
In responso to this sentiment, a revenue bill
was framed by tho republican legislature in which'
bill new and larger burdens wero placed upon
taxpayers gonerally, while tho corporations wore
given overything they demanded with respect to
tho method of corporation assessment
Tho situation is so humiliating to republicans
who do not indorso such mothods that oven re
publican newspapers have found it necessary to
enter bitter 'protest The Omaha 'Boo, a repub
lican paper, has entered frequent protests against
those proceedings, a .fair sample of these protests
being an- editorial in a recent iBsue in which the
Boo said: "
If any man or set of men should deliber
ately concoct a scheme to set tho town on fire .
or blow up Its public buildings with dyna
raito tho community would rise up as ono man '
to have them thrown into prison or lynched
but when men sot about deliberately to un
dermine and destroy self-government, tho peo
ple tamely allow them to proceed with their
devilish work. And yet this is precisely what
has been going on at Lincoln for tho last six
ty days under the leadership of John N. Bald
win, tho head pusher of tho most rotten lob
by that has tfyer infested tho stato capltol.
Corporation lobbies have infested various
state capitals at various times; -'and yet, as a
rule, they have done their work in a covert way
But In Nebraska tho mask has been entirely
The Commoner.
thrown aside and upon the theory that the peo
ple will indorse- whatever may bo done by tho
republican party the corporation agents have de
manded of tho official representatives of that party
tho fruits of tho victory which the corporations
won at tho last election.
Tho republican editorial to which reference
has been made was entitled "Shameless Betrayal
of the People." Tho situation is, indeed, a shame
ful one, and yet when men had good reason to be
lievo that the republican candidates were chosen
by the corporations, what reason did they have
for placing confidence in those candidates? What
reason did they have for believing that those can
didates, if elected, would do anything to provide
the people with relief from corporation imposi
tion? If the people of Nebraska shall become
aroused because of the manner in which the cor
poration lobby dominated republican representa
tives at Nebraska's capital city, then even out of
this shameful condition great good to the people
may result
Figs may not be gathered from thistles; and
measures designed for the greatest good to tho
greatest number may not bo expected at-the hands
of public officials who owe their office to corpora
tion influence.
JJJ
Victory For Working Hen.
Organized labor won a decided victory in the
United States circuit court at St Louis when Judge
Adams refused to make permanent tho temporary
restraining order which ho had issued in which
order tho railroad men were forbidden to quit
work.
Judge Adams holds that laboring men have
the right to organize, that they have a right to
demand higher wages and to. quit work if their
demands be not complied with. He holds that the
effect of a strike in delaying the mqyement of
freight or passenger trains would be too remote
and incidental to make the authors of it even
constructively guilty of conspiracy to interfere
with interstate commerce or defy the authority of
the United States by obstructing the transit of the
mails, which were some of the allegations set up in
tho petition on which Judge Adams Issued his tem
porary restraining order.
Whllo the decision 'is a victory for tho work
ingmen, Judge Adams undertakes to justify the
temporary restraining order. That order should
not have been Issued even if the facts alleged were
true; and we need go no further than tho state
ment of the conclusions reached by Judge Adams
himself to justify this claim. If workingmen
have an unquestioned right to organize, if they
have .a right to demand higher wages and to quit
-work if their demand be not complied with and
Judge Adams says they have theso privileges
then the court waB not justified in Issuing the re
straining order forbidding these men to quit work
even accepting the statements made in the rail
road company's petition as being entirely correct
This Is true because it may bo said, with re
spect to the temporary restraining order as Judge
Adams says in his refusal to grant the injunc
tion, that while the results of a strike might be
delay in tho movement of trains, interferance
with interstate commerce, and obstruction of the
transit of tho mails, these are too remote and In
cidental to make the authors of it even con
structively guilty of a conspiracy; and it is also
true because It was never Intended to confer
upon a court tho privilege of interfering, by the
issue of a writ, with the unquestioned rights of
men.
The objection to government by injunction Is
not merely against the evidence on. which the
writ is based; it is against tho writ itself, as It
is applied in enabling powerful men to in erfere
with the plain rights of other men and as S
resents that extraordinary power' assumed by a
.VOLUME 3, NUMBER 12.
j
judge which power has, properly,' ho place in our
system of government k"
The very men who have been quick to resort
to the writ of injunction against workingmen
would become very indignant if the workingmen
could summon sufficient influence to persuade a
judge to issue an Injunction in their behalf deny
ing to tho employer the exercise of his unques
tioned rights. "
One of the most striking utterances with re
spect to the temporary restraining order, issued by
Judge Adams was made by Edward MShepard
recently in a speech delivered in Chicago. Mr.
Shepard asked: "Is it anything less than calam
itous that in the armory of law weapons should
be found to restrain that kind of freedom; when
thus far the armory' of lawhas been ransacked
in vain for weapons equal to the prevention of
combinations expressly forbidden, by statute?"
Men who have been ready to resort to the
injunction in order to deprive laboring men of
their plain rights would not only be indignant
if they -were made.the victims .of similar injunc
tions'but they have neVer been slow to give ex
pression to their indignation when, it has been
suggested that.the armory, tit law he rapsacked for
weapons in' order to protect-the people arid in .the
effort to require powerful and influential men to
abandon their impositions upon the. 'weak' .and tho
helpless. . ., .
JJJ
Addlcks Ethics.
Senator Conner, one pf the Addicks members
of the Delaware legislature, in defending' the
voters' assistant law said:
"The voters' assistant system again comes
in and commends itself Jpr fairness. It in
sures delivery of the goods. "When' I buy a
horse I wa'nt my horse. "When a republican
buys a"votG'-h6 wants his vote." I '-contend
that there is no politics in the jnatter, for
when a republican or democrat wants ,to buy
a vote he has an opportunity of thus securing
it instead of being cheated out of it, as has
been tho case so many times in this state."
This is the most candid statement "yet se
cured of the ethics of Addicksism and yet Mr.
Addicks represents the republican organization in
Delaware.
JJJ
Thsn and Now. ;
Recently The Commoue.r- congratulated the
"Des Moines Register and Leader, a -republican
paper, bepause 4t had summoned sufficient cour
age to print a. quotation frojn- Abraham Lincoln.
Commenting upon this compliment, fthe Reg
ister and Leader insists that no republican. paper
has reason in .view of, the party's policy to feel
embarrassed by quotations from Lincoln's speeches
and that the government that has been established
in ,tho Philippine islands is not In .violation of. the
principles oftho Declaration of Independence.
The .editor, of this republican paper is, in
deed, a genius if be. can present -Intelligent argu
ment in line with. his contention. The principles
of the Declaration of Independence should bo well
understood;, but, i this day .when so- many re
publican leaders, are4 sneering aj those principles
and when republican editor . has the hardihopd
to insist that our Philippine, policy is in line with
those principles it will not bo out of place to re
fer, in passing,, to, the, great state paper which
Moses Coit Tyler called ."a passionate chant -of
human freedom' " ,
-That all men. are created equal and endowed
ay their creator with certain inalienable rights.,
among theso being life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness, ia the . statement of the ,preapiile;
ana it is further declared that to secure these
r ghts governments are instituted among mm de
riving their just powers from the consent pf thr
governed. ' r
It is hardly necessary to dwell upon tnis point
Nt,'
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