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About Will Maupin's weekly. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1911-1912 | View Entire Issue (May 19, 1911)
Trade Union Notes. Bosfon Photo-engravers' Union has discontinued all out of work assess ments, there being no further need of them. The Sheet Metal workers' union of Boston has increased Its death benefit to $G00 and also extended its sick and accident benefit system. The new price list for lasters of the southeastern Massachusetts district has been agreed upon. It grants bet ter prices than the old schedule. Speaking before an audience of the metal workers of Toledo, Samuel Gom pers declared himself unalterably op posed to l ho amalgamation of the thirty-eight divisions of their trade. The Quiucy (Mass.) granite cutters" unions have entered Into a new five year agreement, effective March 1, by which an increase of about 7V- per cent on the average is secured by the men. The San Francisco Typographical union is making arrangements for the entertainment of 5,000 delegates dur ing the month of August, when the annual convention of the International Typographical union will be held. To force John B. Lennon, national treasurer of the American Federation of Labor, out of the National Civic federation a motion was adopted by the Seattle Tailors union to exclude all members of that organization from the National Civic federation. The Gary (Ind.) Illinois steel plant recently notified 1,000 men who have been laid off for a considerable time to report for duty. Another 2.000 men will be taken back In the same plant on April 5, when the full quota of 7,000 men will be at work. The Cleveland city council unani mously indorsed Representative Ev ans bill to limit the working day of all females employed in manufactur ing, mercantile or other commercial es tablishnmnts to eight hours and their working week to forty-eight hours. Named for Lincoln Made in Lincoln I BERT 1 fB ES w H.O.BARBER 8c SONS LIBERTY Test of the Oven Test of the Taste Test of Digestion Test of Quality Test of Quantity Test of Time. Measured by Every lest it Froves Best Demand Liberty Flour and take no other. If your grocer does not handle it, phone us about it. H. O. BARBER & SON Green Gables The Dr. Benj. F. Baily Sanatorium LINCOLN, NEBRASKA or non contagious chronic diseases. Largest, beat equipped, moat beautifully furnished. Once Tried Always Used Little Hatchet Flour Made from Select Nebraska Hard Wheat WILBER AND DeWITT MILLS RYE FLOUR A SPECIALTY TF.LF. PHONE US t at c i r t . ,t . , Bell Phone 200: Au,. 1-459 145 So. 9th St., LINCOLN, NEB. CASE OFHATTERS federal Court of Appeals Re verses Trial Judge. A NEW TRIAL IS GRANTED. Judge Lacombe Holds That Member ship In Union Does Not Entail Re sponsibility For Its Acts Brief His tory of the Case. By the reversal the other day of the case against the United Hatters" union of Daubury by the United States cir cuit court of appeals, in which a judg ment aggregating, with costs, $232,240 had been obtained in a lower court on a charge of boycotting as defined by the Sherman anti-trust law, it appears that the American Anti-boycott associa tion has received a black eye. While the issue will be tried again, the deci sion is regarded as a victory for the union. It is seven and a half years since the "Daubury hatters' case" was started. A strike was called in the factory of D. E. Loewe & Co. of Dan bury on July 25," 1002, and 240 union men walked, out. A boycott, which eventually extended throughout the country to the Pacific coast, was de clared against Loewe hats, and on Aug. 31. 1903. suit was entered against Martin Lawlor, secretary of the United Hatters, and the 240 strikers as indi viduals for $S0,0C0 damages. Various postponements carried the case along until 1907, when Judge James I. Piatt of the circuit court at Hartford and the court of appeals aked for, a ruling on the damages clause of the Sherman law from the supreme court of the United States. Feb.. 3, 1908, this clause was upheld, and Oct. 13. 1909. the case was finally brought to trial. In the meantime twenty -six of the original defendants had died. Attach ments were issued against property belonging to 100 others, and bank ac counts aggregating $50,000 were tied up In the same way. The American Federation of Labor, with which the United Hatters are affiliated, stood be hind the men, while D. E. Loewe & Co. were supported by the American Anti boycott association. The trial at Hartford lasted four months. It took the jury only three hours and twenty minutes to return its verdict for $74,000, for in the charge to it Judge Piatt said: "If the essential elements of such a (boycott) plan and the " means em ployed to make the plan a success have been clearly established by the evidence, that ought to be all that is required to entitle the plaintiffs to prevail. Having given you my posi tive convictions about a large part of the case. I must impress upon you that it is your positive duty to accept them as a law in this case; that the defend ants now remaining on the records of this court are parties to a combina tion which has been found by the su preme court to form a valid basis for this suit. "The only question, therefore, with which you can properly concern your selves is the matter of damages." It was upon this charge that the or der for a new trial was based by the United States circuit court of appeals. Two days after the verdict in Hart ford was returned the hatters deter mined to appeal from the judgment. On April 29. 1910, they gave bond for $250,000 and filed their exceptions. The opinion of the higher court, writ ten by Judge Lacombe and concurred in by JudVes 'oxeand Noyes. com- , rrienfs on the exceptions as Follows: "The first assignment of error which challenges attention in this appeal is i he action of the trial judge in taking the case from the jury and himself deciding every question except the amount of damages. The defendants contend that in so doing the trial court assumed the function of the jury in passing upon the credibility of wit nesses and weighing the conflicting testimony. We think this assignment of error is well taken." In conclusion Judge Lacombe says: "Since there is to be a new trial it is desirable that the opinion of this court should be expressed on two questions as to the admissibility of. evidence which shall probably arise again. The court admitted evidence of the pay ment of their dues to the union by de fendants after complaint was served. This was not competent as showing ratification, and. as we understand their brief, plaintiffs do not so con tend. It was offered as tending to show that the acts (of the mission aries) were authorized at the time they were performed previous to their suit, upon the theory that otherwise the disclosures made to an individual de fendant by his reading of the com plaint would have brought forth pro test and disapproval on his part. We think it should have been excluded." The court also holds that much of the evidence as to the "missionary work" admitted at the first trial was hearsay and at the next it should be got at first hand. President Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor takes an optimistic view of the reversal and the effect it will have throughout the American labor movement. He says: "The decision will have a farreaching and steady influence in the cause of justice and right. It has always seem ed to me almost unbelievable that our unions, which perform so important a service in the interests of civilization and moral and material progress, could be accorded the treatment of male factors under the Sherman law. The decision Is of tremendous importance." Trade Union Briefs. One-third of Britain's telegraph op erators are women. St. Paul painters have inaugurated the Saturday half holiday. The American Federation of Labor is to issue a union label directory. A shoe shining stand has been open ed in St. Louis by a woman. Two feminine shiners are busy there daily. The addition to the Louisville and Nashville railroad shops at Howell will mean the employment of GOO additional men. It is said that the garment workers' strike fund will exceed $2,000,000 by next July. More than 150,000 persons belong to the union. San Francisco's Building Trades council decided that for an indefinite period it would not sanction any de mand for an increase in wages. Indianapolis sheet metal workers ob tained an increase from 42 cents to 47 cents an hour. Hoisting engineers ob tained an increase from 50 cents to 5G14 cents an hour. Michael Ilalapy, the new editor of the United Mine Workers' Journal, was born in Austria in 1882 and immi grated to tills country with his parents when he was ten years of age. A number of bakery wagon drivers in Chicago are members of the bakers' union. Officials of the Teamsters' union want these drivers transferred to their organization on the theory that they are "teamsters." The drivers in ques-; tion insist ijie.v are "salesmen" -more than mure wagon drivers.