, c IT QW7: VOL. 5 LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, JFEBlt U A RY- 1"?5, 1909 NO. .45 WW A 7 A GRADES lgl CgUNQLg) q cTj v r LINCOLN Following is a full text of the protest filed by Lincoln's Central Labor lTnion at the open "protest meeting" held at Bruse's hall Tuesday evening of this week: In times of stress and storm the hand of the Almighty is reached out to succor and to save. In the history of every nation there comes a time when one man must be called upon to lead and to guide the destinies of that nation, and if the destiny of that nation means the welfare of humanity God never fails to provide the man. After centuries of bitter bondage to the Egyptians, Moses stood forth as the leader, raised up of God to lead -and guide the Israelites to the Promised Land. In another dark hour of Israel's history a (tfedon stood forth to conquer the oppressor. When the sun of Christianity seemed about to be obscured by the clouds of op pression, Paul appeared upon the scene, and this greatest of teachers since the Carpenter of Nazareth saved to the world the religious system that guarantees to every man the right to decide for him self the way to salvation. It was an Kentish farmer who stood forth and spoke the words that resulted in the wrestling of the Magna C'harta from King John at Runnyniede. It took a Cromwell to de- .3 if PROTEST unit of American" -society and therefore the basis of free govern ment. ' . We extend to ourchosen leaders and representatives, and our fellow workers, Sampel Gompers, Joh nMitchell and Prank Morri son, our heartfelt thanks, for their splendid sacrifices' in behalf of the toilers, and we assure them that our moral and financial assistance is their to command. We Commend them most heartily for their refusal to consider, the suggestion of executive clemency, and their determination to make tVi I-est. c-jvifio rlnman Kir -...wJV . In V. I . V V. UVIIIUUUIAI . UUV Wl" horts of the oppressors. ; We esDeciallv commend th spntimpnt expressed by Samuel Gompers when, he said: "Better men than either of us have gone to jail for principle. They may secure, their pound of flesh from lis, but they will find no yellow streaks in it." This is a battle for principle, not for pelf, and as workers we are determined to risk all, offer all, suffer all to secure the ultimate . ti-iumph of principle. The liberty bequeathed to us by forefathers who fought and bled and died to secure it for us, is Veil worth our strongest efforts to maintain. ' . "For freedom's battle, once begun, - Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, v Though baffled oft is ever won." Gompers, Mitchell and Morrison are our chosen and duly ac credited representatives. An injustice perpetrated upon them is an injustice perpetrated upon each and all of us. ' In view of all these facts, and in view of all of these principles, we, the workers of Lincoln, organized into our various trades crafts, demand a return to the first principles of liberty and equality. We insist iipon a speedy hearing and final determination of the issues at stake in the present case wherein our leaders are under sentence of imprisonment, and we insist iipon a correction of judicial abuses. We demand at the hands of state and national law-makers statutes that will provide fori trial by jury in all cases of indirect contempt, and a speedy hearing and determination of . all injunctions applied for in industrial disputes. , ; r . ' To President Samuel Gompers, Vice-President John Mitchell and Secretary Morrison of the American Federation' of Labor we send fraternal greetings and best wishes. 'May justice be done to them.,, and thereby to the vast army of toil, and may their hearts and hands be strengthened ' to continue the fight against industrial systems that in the last analysis mean industrial slavery. ; , '. ' - ' ' ' f : Cv,:;.;;'::feM; as most good things are produced by labor, it follows that all such things of right belong to those ' who produced them. To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible, is a worthy object of all good government." At Hartford, Conn., on March 5, 1860, Lincoln said: "I thank Gcd that we have a system of labor where there can be a strike. Whatever the pressure, there is a point where the workman may stop." , i (At St. Louis, in 1863, the printers on the Globe struck, and the union. general in command there: immediately ordered some sol diers who were printers, to 'take the place of the strikers. By reason of military" necessity the soldiers obeyed, but the strikers laid their just complaint before President Lincoln, and he immediately count ermanded the order and sent the feoldiers back to their military duties. "The government will not furnish men to take the place of men who cease work in order to compel a redress of grievances," said President Lincoln.,.-: i . Nowhere in all themultiplied volumes of Lincoln's speeches and writings will it be found, that he ever prejudged the case of free We want no pardon. We want no shuffling or evasion. We want no slippery compromise, which would give labor the shadow of victory and leave its substance to the bosses. We want a clear and unequivocal decision, in favor of labor, and we are determined to get it. Let that be . ! , -: the watchword from now on till our triumph is won. N. Y. Call. fine the' limitations of monarchy. . It was an humble Virginia law yer whose words "Give me liberty or give me death," fired the Revolutionary heart, and it was a Washington who stood forth, chosen of the Almighty, to lead into being a government that should become the refuge for the oppressed of the nations of the earth. In every world crisis the man arrives. In every land there is today some man who is standing forth as the champion of all that means the best for humanity. A Tolstoy in Russia shakes the autocrat upon his throne, and grand dukes and secret police dare not commit an overt act to silence him. A John Burns in England has compel led rightful recognition of those who eat their bread in the sweat of tuelr laces, and in "our dwri America, where e ''boast -of freedom and civil and religious liberty a Samuel Gompers is standing forth as the great leader who is guiding the toilers of America to a higher and the better plane. For this he is today standing within the shadows of the prison gates, a victim to corporate greed, and with him as fellow-victims stand his splendid comrades and co-laborers, lohn Mitchell and Frank Morrison. Here and now, in the week which contains the anniversary of the birth of the greatest American and one of the greatest men of all time and all nations, we, the comrades of Gompers, Mitchell and Morrison, look to Abraham Lincoln's words for a vindication of the stand we take in opposition to judicial usurpation and the fight we are making against industrial oppression. In his first message to congress Abraham Lincoln said: "Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists with that relation. A few men own capi tal, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class neither work for others nor have others working for them. The prudent penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system, which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of conditions to alL No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them be ware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them, till all of liberty be lost. (From Lincoln's First Message to the Congress.) At Chicaeo. on December 1. 1847, Lincoln said: "And inasmuch born America ncitizens on trial for itheir lives by denouncing them as " undesirable citizens. " He never ordered troops to proceed to a city and act as the tools of designing men who sought to personally profit at the expense ofHhe blood and souls of toilers With a brain that enabled him" to rasp all the details of a stae, with a soul that was in tune with the infinite, and with a heart thai throbbed for all oppressed humanity, Abraham Lincoln was the embodiment of all those qualities that go to make up the ideal man the ideal American. ; Proud of the heritage of our forefathers, which Lincoln pre served to us, arid determined to maintain those blessings at any cost.'we denounce the system of judicial usurpation that has "grown up in our midst whereby a federal judge, appointed for life arid Annual Ball Brotherhood Locomotive Engineers Division No. 98 Auditorium Monday, February 22 UNION ORCHESTRA! UNION ORCHESTRA! TICKETS, $1.00 SAYS TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION IS A TRUST. In the Circuit Court of Kings County, Mon., Oliver T. Crane, ; master, in chancery,, holds" that', the Ariatfonda Typographical 'tTniori and the Federation of Labor are trusts in restraint of trade. ' Crane " If we must go to jail we shall. Better men than we have gone to jail. If they must have their pound of flesh they may have it, but they won't find any yellow streaks in it." Samuel Gompers. amendable no other authority than his own interpretation of his rights and duties, becomes at once legislator, judge; and executive. We denounce as un-American and as a grave danger to our free institutions this usurpation of authority greater than any mon arch in any civilized country dare exert. We denounce as sub versive of the fundamental principles of free government the idea that a petty federal judge may be a stroke of tHe pen overturn laws duly enacted by the congress and approved ' by the chief executive, or by the same peri suspend the functions of a state and deprive the state's officials of power to perform their specific' duties. We denounce as worse than Russian tryanny a judicial system that gives the lives and property of woi-king meu into the power of any one man, who may at his own sweet will incarcerate for an indeterminate time the victim of his enmity, or deprive of his hard earned property a man who may consciously or unconsciously vio late a court order given in direct contravention of the constitvition of the United States, the' constitution of any state or the bill of rights. We denounce as a disgrace to American citizenship a menace to the perpetuity or the republic arid a slander on the memory of the men who fought and died for freedom, the system of judicial tyranny that gives one man a vested property right in the labor of another, and we demand a return to first principles wherein a man's labor is his own, to be sold where, when and how he pleases. We denounce as a slavish concession to, wealth secured through purchased legislation and special privilege a judicial de cree that our organized refusal to patronize any firm or individual whom we deem prejudicial to our welfare as workers is a violation of the inter state commerce law thus classing organizations made up of men and women with human souls with organizations based upon soulless and conscienceless dollars. We denounce as tyranny worthy of a Russian czar or an African chief in the darkest jungles, a judicial decision that deprives workers, either individually or as organizations, of the right to speak and write freely, subject only to duly enacted law, and we protest to the limit of our strength against this method of over-riding the law and the constitution in order to further strengthen and establish a system of industrial slavery that spell ruin for the American , home, which is the recommends that the injunction asked for by the Butterick Publish ing jpmpany, an eastern concern, be made permanent against the union and federation. " V ' . THE SUPREME COURT SAYS "AMEN!" Gives Judicial Sanction to General Sherman Bell's "To Hell With the Constitution'.' Slogan. , The United States Supreme Court, in deciding the appeal in, the case of Charles H. Moyer, president, of the Western Federation of Miners, against James H. Peabody, former governor of Colorado, and, Sherman Bell, Peabody 's adjutant general,1 has calmly and in cold blood upheld the ruling formerly made by the state courts of Colorado and by the United States district court in that state: That ruling affirms the right of a governor and his military un . . (Continued on Page Five.) ' Twenty-Sixth Ball The Lincoln Typographical Union ' Number 209 Fraternity Hall Wednesday, February 17 QUICK'S UNION ORCHESTRA 6 PIECES TicKets, $1.00 Extra Lady, 50c