_Social Democratic Herald, May 6, 1905_
In the month of December, 1893, something over eleven years ago, a
federal injunction was issued that broke all the records up to that time
and stirred up the whole country. This injunction was issued by James G.
Jenkins, judge of the United States Circuit Court, and restrained the
employes of the Northern Pacific railway from quitting the service of
that company under penalty of being found guilty of contempt and sent to
jail.
The facts in the case, which are recalled by a recently published
interview with Judge Jenkins, who has retired from the bench, were as
follows:
The Northern Pacific, robbed and wrecked by the knaves who had control
of its affairs, applied to the federal court in the person of Judge
Jenkins for a receivership, which was promptly granted. Following this
order of the court and the appointment of the receivers, the latter
petitioned the court for an order making sweeping reductions in the
wages of employes, and fearing that a strike might follow, the receivers
asked the court at the same time to issue an order restraining the
employes from leaving the service of the company, and this was also
promptly granted. It was this latter order that aroused the storm and it
raged fiercely for some months. Indignation meetings were held by labor
unions, notably in Chicago, where a mass meeting was called for the
special purpose of denouncing Judge Jenkins and demanding his
impeachment. Obedient to the indignation and clamor of organized labor,
Congressman McGann, of Illinois, introduced a resolution in Congress
looking to the investigation of the affair by the judiciary committee,
but, of course, nothing came from it, and it was not long before the
judicial crime, for such it was, was forgotten.
The strange thing about it was that the employes did not strike under
such extreme provocation, and this was due to the fact that their
leaders, the national officers of the unions, urged them not to do so,
and united in a letter to the general manager accepting the order of the
court and acquiescing in the situation. The writer, who was then
organizing the American Railway Union, tried to have the employes resent
the despotic decree of the court and quit in a body from end to end of
the line, but other counsels prevailed and they remained at work. It
would have been interesting to see the ten or twelve thousand employes
quit as one and defy the outrageous order of the court, and then see
Jenkins make good his order and send them to jail. The judicial bluff
would have been called and not only would they not have gone to jail,
but the court would have stood exposed and rebuked and the reduction in
the wages would have been restored. I am still waiting for organized
workingmen to take advantage of just such an opening when ten thousand
or more workers shall all be simultaneously in contempt for the defiance
of some outrageous federal injunction. It will have a most wholesome
effect—infinitely better than the servile pleas of labor leaders and
legislative committees in the humiliating role of mendicants, crawling
in the dust at the feet of their supposed servants.
Had the army of Northern Pacific employes resented the outrage of Judge
Jenkins in 1893 by quitting in defiance of his injunction—and they would
have done it but for the national officers of their unions—an object
lesson of inestimable value would have been taught the courts and their
capitalist masters, and the rapid evolution of the labor injunction
which had then fairly set in would have been checked for a time at
least, and it is doubtful if it had ever developed its present
unrestrained restraining power.
Judge Henry Clay Caldwell, who was also on the federal bench at the time
the Jenkins injunction was issued, declared strongly in opposition to
it, saying:
“If receivers should apply for leave to reduce the existing scale of
wages, before acting on their petition I would require them to give
notice of the application to the officers or representatives of the
several labor organizations to be affected by the proposed change, of
the time and place of hearing, and would also require them to grant such
officers or representatives leave of absence and furnish them
transportation to the place of hearing and subsistence while in
attendance, and I would hear both sides in person, or by attorneys, if
they wanted attorneys to appear for them. * * * If, after a full hearing
and consideration, I found that it was necessary, equitable and just to
reduce the scale of wages, I would give the employes ample time to
determine whether they would accept the new scale. If they rejected it
they would not be enjoined from quitting the service of the court either
singly or in a body.”
Judge Jenkins gave the employes no hearing, no notice, no consideration.
He simply ordered their wages reduced and told them that if they quit
work he would send them to jail. This is the order—and a beautiful order
it is in a land of boasted freedom—that Judge Jenkins now says has been
vindicated and that the precedent then established by him is now
followed by all courts. He is right. The evolution of the injunction has
indeed been swift and what was regarded as exceedingly novel and
venturesome a decade ago is now securely incorporated in our established
system of capitalistic jurisprudence.
The late Judge Dundy, of Omaha, notoriously the creature of the Union
Pacific, issued the order reducing wages on that system when it was in
the hands of receivers appointed by him, but Judge Caldwell, who was on
the Circuit bench and had prior jurisdiction, took the case away from
Dundy, had the employes come into court and be heard, and, after hearing
all the evidence, revoked the order of Dundy, restored the wage
reductions and administered a scathing rebuke to the receivers.
Judge Caldwell was appointed to the Federal bench by President Lincoln.
They don’t appoint that kind of judges any more.
Such eminent lights as Dundy, Jenkins, Ricks, Taft, Ross, Woods,
Grosscup and Kohlsaat now illumine the Federal bar and all their names
are immortally associated with the evolution of the injunction and the
subjugation of labor by judicial prowess.
One of the first and most illustrious in this line is Judge Taft, who
won his spurs in the Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan case. He has
been a prime favorite with the corporations ever since, is now in the
cabinet, and is being groomed for the presidency. As a candidate for the
white house he has the two essential qualifications—unswerving loyalty
to capital and unmitigated contempt for labor—and this should and
doubtless will secure his nomination and election by an overwhelming
majority.
In his published interview, Judge Jenkins, discussing his Northern
Pacific injunction, says:
“Within the last twelve years, by reason of popular discontent at legal
restraint, the issuance of this writ has been designated opprobriously
as ‘government by injunction.’ Well, it is in a true and proper sense
‘government by injunction,’ for it is a government by law. The remedy
has long existed and will exist so long as government by law continues,
so long as we have liberty regulated by law, and not irresponsible,
uncontrolled license to exercise one’s sweet will without regard to
others’ rights, which is anarchy, and no howling of the mob can ever
abolish it until government by law is wrecked and ‘chaos is come
again.’”
Let me ask Judge Jenkins if he would be of the same opinion if at the
time he cut the wages of the Northern Pacific employes and restrained
them from quitting some other judge had issued an order reducing his
salary as judge and restraining him from resigning under penalty of
being sent to jail. That is the position precisely in which he placed
the employes of the Northern Pacific, and it is this that he now calls
“liberty regulated by law.” If that is liberty it would be interesting
to know what slavery is.
It has been about fifteen years since the court injunction began to
figure in labor affairs. It was threatened in the C., B. & Q. railroad
strike of 1888, but not resorted to. After the Homestead strike, in
1892, during which Pinkertonism reached its culmination and this brutal
form of warfare upon labor by Carnegie and Frick excited the most
intense indignation, the injunction came into general use. It proved a
great thing for the corporations, just what they had been looking for.
No longer was there any need for a private Pinkerton army. That was a
clumsy contrivance compared to the noiseless, automatic, self-acting
injunction. The Pinkertons were expensive, cumbersome, aroused hatred
and sometimes missed fire. The injunction was free from all these
objections. One shock from the judicial battery and labor was paralyzed
and counted out.
Since first introduced in the struggle between labor and capital the
injunction has developed from the flintlock to the rapidfire. Judge
Jenkins enjoys in his retirement the distinction of having contributed
one of its chief improvements. His fame is secure and so is his infamy.
He need not worry about vindication. He was as loyal a judge as ever
bowed to Mammon, as faithful a tool as ever served his master, and as
consummate a hypocrite as ever stabbed liberty in the name of law.
The injunction is playing its usual role in the teamsters’ strike in
Chicago. The Team Owners’ Association of Chicago are incorporated in
West Virginia and by this trick become an interstate association and
nestled under the wing of the United States court. The Federal
injunction to destroy the strike and rout the strikers has already been
applied for and granted. This goes without saying. What are Judges
Grosscup and Kohlsaat on the bench for? Certainly not for the health of
the teamsters. They are there to do what they were appointed to do by
the president of the exploiting capitalists elected by the exploited
workers.
At this writing carloads of negroes are being shipped into Chicago to
take the places of the striking teamsters, while injunctions, like
swords suspended by threads, hang above their heads and ten thousand
regular soldiers with shotted guns are on the edge of the city awaiting
the command to sprinkle the streets with the blood of labor.
Oh, that all the workers of Chicago would back up the teamsters and
garment workers by throwing down their tools and quitting work!
Twenty-four hours of such a strike would bring the masters to their
knees. But they have too many unions and too many leaders for this, and
so they must fight it out to the bitter end.
In the meantime the evolution of the injunction is making for Socialism.
Nothing more clearly shows that the labor question is also a political
question and that to conquer their exploiters the working class must
build up the Socialist party and capture the powers of government.
What’s the Matter with Chicago?
_Chicago Socialist, October 25, 1902_
For some days William E. Curtis, the far-famed correspondent of the
Chicago _Record-Herald_, has been pressing the above inquiry upon
representative people of all classes with a view to throwing all
possible light upon that vexed subject.
The inquiry is in such general terms and takes such wide scope that
anything like a comprehensive answer would fill a book without
exhausting the subject, while a review of the “interviews” would embrace
the whole gamut of absurdity and folly and produce a library of comedy
and tragedy.
Not one of the replies I have seen has sufficient merit to be printed in
a paper read by grown folks, and those that purport to come from leaders
of labor and representatives of the working class take the prize in what
would appear to be a competitive contest for progressive asininity.
The leader, so-called, who puts it upon record in a capitalist paper and
gives the libel the widest circulation, that Chicago is alright, so far
as the workers are concerned, that they have plenty and are prosperous
and happy, is as fit to lead the working class as is a wolf to guide a
flock of spring lambs.
It is from the wage worker’s point of view that I shall attempt an
answer to the question propounded by Mr. Curtis, and in dealing with the
subject I shall be as candid as may be expected from a Socialist
agitator.
The question is opportune at this season, when the “frost is on the
pumpkin,” and the ballot is soon to decide to what extent the people
really know “What is the matter with Chicago.”
First of all, Chicago is the product of modern capitalism, and, like all
other great commercial centers, is unfit for human habitation. The
Illinois Central Railroad Company selected the site upon which the city
is built and this consisted of a vast miasmatic swamp far better suited
to mosquito culture than for human beings. From the day the site was
chosen by (and of course in the interest of all) said railway company,
everything that entered into the building of the town and the
development of the city was determined purely from profit considerations
and without the remotest concern for the health and comfort of the human
beings who were to live there, especially those who had to do all the
labor and produce all the wealth.
As a rule hogs are only raised where they have good health and grow fat.
Any old place will do to raise human beings.
At this very hour typhoid fever and diphtheria are epidemic in Chicago
and the doctors agree that these ravages are due to the microbes and
germs generated in the catchbasins and sewers which fester and exhale
their foul and fetid breath upon the vast swarms of human beings caught
and fettered there.
Thousands upon thousands of Chicago’s population have been poisoned to
death by the impure water and foul atmosphere of this undrainable swamp
(notwithstanding the doctored mortuary tables by which it is proven to
prospective investors that it is the healthiest city on earth) and
thousands more will commit suicide in the same way, but to compensate
for it all Chicago has the prize location for money-making, immense
advantage for profitmongering—and what are human beings compared to
money?
During recent years Chicago has expended millions to lift herself out of
her native swamp, but the sewage floats back to report the dismal
failure of the attempt, and every germ-laden breeze confirms the report.
That is one thing that is the matter with Chicago. It never was intended
that human beings should live there. A thousand sites infinitely
preferable for a city could have been found in close proximity, but they
lacked the “Commercial” advantages which are of such commanding
importance in the capitalist system.
And now they wonder “What is the Matter with Chicago!” Look at some of
her filthy streets in the heart of the city, chronically torn up, the
sunlight obscured, the air polluted, the water contaminated, every
fountain and stream designed to bless the race poisoned at its
source—and you need not wonder what ails Chicago, nor will you escape
the conclusion that the case is chronic and that the present city will
never recover from the fatal malady.
What is true of Chicago physically is emphasized in her social, moral
and spiritual aspects, and this applies to every commercial metropolis
in the civilized world.
From any rational point of view they are all dismal failures.
There is no reason under the sun, aside from the profit considerations
of the capitalist system, why two million humans should be stacked up in
layers and heaps until they jar the clouds, while millions of acres of
virgin soil are totally uninhabited.
The very contemplation of the spectacle gives rise to serious doubt as
to the sanity of the race.
Such a vast population in such a limited area cannot feed itself, has
not room to move and cannot keep clean.
The deadly virus of capitalism is surging through all the veins of this
young mistress of trade and the eruptions are found all over the body
social and politic, and that’s “What’s the matter with Chicago.”
Hundreds of the _Record-Herald’s_ quacks are prescribing their nostrums
for the blotches and pustules which have broken out upon the surface,
but few have sense enough to know and candor enough to admit that the
virus must be expelled from the system—and these few are Socialists who
are so notoriously visionary and impracticable that their opinions are
not worthy of space in a great paper printed to conserve the truth and
promote the welfare of society.
This model metropolis of the West has broken all the records for
political corruption. Her old rival on the Mississippi, catching the
inspiration doubtless, has been making some effort to crown herself with
similar laurels, but for smooth political jobbery and fancy manipulation
of the wires, Chicago is still far in the lead. In the “Windy City” ward
politics has long been recognized as a fine art and the collection is
unrivalled anywhere.
From the millions of dollars filched from the millions of humans by
the corporate owners of the common utilities, the reeking corruption
funds flow like lava tides, and to attempt to purify the turbid stream
by the “reform measures” proposed from time to time by the
Republican-Democratic party in its internal conflict for the spoils of
office, is as utter a piece of folly as to try with beeswax to seal up
Mount Pelee.
Chicago has plutocrats and paupers in the ratio of more than sixteen to
one—boulevards for the exhibition of the rich and alleys for the
convenience of the poor.
Chicago has also a grand army of the most skilled pickpockets, artistic
confidence operators, accomplished foot-pads and adept cracksmen on
earth. So well is this understood that on every breeze we hear the
refrain:
“When Reuben comes to town,
He’s sure to be done brown—”
And this lugubrious truth is treated as the richest of jokes, with utter
unconsciousness of the moral degeneracy it reflects, the crime it
glorifies and the indictment of capitalist society it returns in answer
to the _Record-Herald’s_ query: “What’s the matter with Chicago”?
Besides the array of “talent” above mentioned, fostered by competitive
society everywhere, the marshy metropolis by the lake may boast of a
vast and flourishing gambling industry, an illimitable and progressive
“levee” district, sweatshops, slums, dives, bloated men, bedraggled
women, ghastly caricatures of their former selves, babies cradled in
rags and filth, aged children, than which nothing could be more
melancholy—all these and a thousand more, the fruit of our present
social anarchy, afflict Chicago; and worst of all, our wise social
philosophers, schooled in the economics of capitalist universities,
preach the comforting doctrine that all these are necessary evils and at
best can but be restricted within certain bounds; and this hideous libel
is made a cloak that theft may continue to masquerade as philanthropy.
It is at this point that Chicago particularly prides herself upon her
“charities,” hospitals and eleemosynary endowments, all breathing the
sweet spirit of Christian philanthropy—utterly ignorant of the fact,
designedly or otherwise, that these very institutions are manifestations
of social disease and are monumental of the iniquity of the system that
must rear such whited sepulchres to conceal its crimes.
I do not oppose the insane asylum—but I abhor and condemn the cut-throat
system that robs man of his reason, drives him to insanity and makes the
lunatic asylum an indispensable adjunct to every civilized community.
With the ten thousand “charities” that are proposed to poultice the
sores and bruises of society, I have little patience.
Worst of all is the charity ball. Chicago indulges in these festering
festivals on a grand scale.
Think of cavorting around in a dress suit because some poor wretch is
hungry; and of indulging in a royal carousal to comfort some despairing
woman on the brink of suicide; and finally, that in “fashionable
society” the definition of this mixture of inanity and moral perversion
is “charity.”
Fleece your fellows! That is “business,” and you are a captain of
industry. Having “relieved” your victims of their pelts, dance and make
merry to “relieve” their agony. This is “charity” and you are a
philanthropist.
In summing up the moral assets of a great (?) city, the churches should
not be overlooked. Chicago is a city of fine churches. All the
denominations are copiously represented, and sermons in all languages
and of all varieties are turned out in job lots and at retail to suit
the market.
The churches are always numerous where vice is rampant. They seem to
spring from the same soil and thrive in the same climate.
And yet the churches are supposed to wage relentless warfare upon evil.
To just what extent they have checked its spread in the “Windy City” may
be inferred from the probing of the press into the body social to
ascertain “What is the Matter with Chicago.”
The preachers are not wholly to blame, after all, for their moral and
spiritual impotency. They are wage-workers, the same as coal miners, and
are just as dependent upon the capitalist class. How can they be
expected to antagonize the interests of their employers and hold their
jobs? The unskilled preachers, the common laborers in the arid spots of
the vineyard, are often wretchedly paid, and yet they remain unorganized
and have never struck for better wages.
“What’s the matter with Chicago”? Capitalism!
What’s the cure? Socialism!
Regeneration will only come with depopulation—when Socialism has
relieved the congestion and released the people and they spread out over
the country and live close to the grass.
The _Record-Herald_ has furnished the people of Chicago and Illinois
with a campaign issue.
If you want to know more about “What is the matter with Chicago,” read
the Socialist papers and magazines; read the platform of the Socialist
party; and if you do, you will cut loose from the Republican-Democratic
party, the double-headed political monstrosity of the capitalist class,
and you will cast your vote for the Socialist party and your lot with
the International Socialist Movement, whose mission it is to uproot and
overthrow the whole system of capitalist exploitation, and put an end to
the poverty and misery it entails—and that’s “What’s the matter with
Chicago.”