Part 10 (1/2)

Mr. Erwin said that Attorney Walker had drawn the bill up hastily, and it was signed only by himself and the district attorney, who verified it merely by belief. He urged that the court should not add the information by continuing the consideration of the imperfectly drawn and inadequate bill. The court should not be a detective to ferret out the alleged truths of certain charges the evidence of which should have been collected by the government officers before a rule against the defendants was issued.

Mr. Bancroft for the Santa Fe followed Mr. Erwin. He vigorously defended the information filed, and proceeded to color the telegrams admitted by the defendants, to suit the purposes of the government.

After a legal tilt between the counsel on both sides, Judge Wood overruled the motion of defendant's counsel to quash the information, and postponed the case until September 5.

In conclusion he said that from what he had heard, he thought it necessary for the court to have its hand on the matter. It was evident, he said, that the defense intended to attempt to put forward a quant.i.ty of irrelevant matter as to the allegations regarding a combination on the part of the railroads. He said that while it was irrelevant he would hear it as a matter of curiosity and for public disclosure.

The above synopsis of the proceedings of the trial, will give a fair idea of the course the government--on behalf of the railroads--pursued in conducting the prosecution of the officers of the American Railway Union.

After a conference with their counsel--although opposed to it on principle--the officers of the American Railway Union decided to give bail.

This decision was due to the fact that matters of an important nature demanded their immediate attention. They were placed under $7,000 bonds each, signed by Wm. Skakel and Wm. Fitzgerald, these gentlemen qualifying to the extent of $50,000 and $250,000 respectively.

For the time being the officers of the American Railway Union were free men.

CHAPTER XVII.

A CONVENTION OF THE AMERICAN RAILWAY UNION CALLED TO TAKE ACTION ON THE STRIKE.

In an editorial on the trial, headed: The Press against Justice, the Chicago Times had this to say: ”When it became evident that the rights and actions of E. V. Debs and his a.s.sociates in the American Railway Union strike were to be reviewed in court this paper said editorially: ”The Times appeals to its contemporaries and to the people to join with it in avoiding all clamor which may in the least degree influence the findings of the court or bring its proceedings into contempt.” It appears that the appeal fell upon deaf ears.

”Such papers as the Tribune and the Evening Journal seized upon the very first utterance of Mr. Debs' counsel as an opportunity for insidious effort to prejudice the court and the people against the cause of the labor leaders.

”Two of the editorials and two of what it calls editorialettes were necessary to the Tribune yesterday in order to give its advice to the prosecuting lawyers and the court proper expression. The other organs of plutocracy though less lavish of editorial s.p.a.ce, employed their news columns to the same end. The first strike of the allied newspapers is to p.r.o.nounce the opening plea of the counsel for the defense, Mr. Erwin, in effect an a.s.sertion of the gospel of anarchy.

”Overworked as it is by the bigoted press the word anarchy still serves as a more or less effective bogyman to frighten timid and ill-informed people, but no one who will read the reports of Mr. Erwin's address will find any anarchistic doctrines lurking therein.

”He charged that Pullman and the railroad managers had conspired together against the interest of workingmen, that the manner of the conspiracy made resort to the law hopeless, that lawmakers could not or would not act, and under these conditions the men were justified in combining, resisting and refusing to work longer for Mr. Pullman or the roads allied with him.

”The Times is unable to discern the savour of anarchy in that. It is in effect only a declaration that when employes combine to resist them, neither by direct statement or by innuendoes did the attorney suggest or excuse violence or the destruction of property. He erred, the Times thinks, in describing Pullman's course of procedure as illegal, for unhappily, law as it stands, protects Pullman in his most despotic and oppressive acts. If Pullman's course had been illegal, action at law instead of a strike and boycott would have been the remedy for it, but with the exception of this over-statement which may have been due to inadvertence, Mr. Erwin said nothing that men of fair and judicial minds can denounce as false, and nothing at all incendiary. The clamor of the conspiracy is raised to defeat justice.”

After the release of the officers a meeting was called at the Revere House, of the directors of the American Railway Union. They concluded to call a convention of the delegates from the different local unions, to meet in Chicago, August 2d, and take some action on the strike. Each local union was notified of this action and instructed to send a delegate with full power to act.

After this meeting of the officers, they at once repaired to Ulrich Hall, where an enormous crowd greeted Mr. Debs with the greatest enthusiasm.

Mr. Debs,--after being introduced by the chairman of the meeting, Mr.

Adams,--was given three cheers with such a vim that the building fairly shook. He then advanced to the platform and said: ”I see you have changed your quarters since I saw you before, and I am glad to say we have changed ours also.

”When Judge Wood delivered his ruling yesterday he declared it to be illegal for men to combine and strike.

”If that is the law, labor organizations had better disband at once. If we have no right to strike, no right to combine, no right to exercise the functions which are delegated to us, then we might as well give up and acknowledge that we are slaves.

”If that is the law we have no right to resist or defend ourselves against the injustice of employers.

”No matter how much has been said about the stars and stripes and the freedom of the workingman, if that is the final tribunal, corporate capital has the right to suck the life blood from the toiler who must make no sign. But I am not prepared to believe that this is in harmony with the const.i.tution. If this is the const.i.tution, then our liberty is gone. Mr. Erwin sounded the slogan yesterday when he declared that there is a higher power than the courts, a power greater than the aggregated combinations of capital and railroads. That is the inherent rights of workingmen to strike at the polls.