The advocate and Topeka tribune. [volume], October 26, 1892, Page 2, Image 2

About The advocate and Topeka tribune. [volume] (Topeka, Kan.) 1892-1894

Image provided by: Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, KS

                
3
THic jMyvoonnnni
TEEASOJT TO EE3I3T PHSTEBT0S8
A Esrlaw of tha Oh&rge to the Grand Jury
in the Homestead Case.
To the Editor of The Advocate.
Hovestbid, Pa., October 10, 1892. The un
ustul spwic&cl of ttie chief ustiue of toe supreme
court oi trie si: ting a a juage in me court
or oyer and terminer or a county 10 ine siate,
was witness.! bv a larire crowd in the criminal
courtroom thU morning when Chief Justice
Paxson chawed the grana jury to wnai con
stituted treason against the state In the cases
Implicating the manners or the Homestead
8tr1kr' advisory committee.
Upouri ben;h sac the chief justice, Judgs
Stowe. McCIutig, Porter and Keunedy, whUein
the place usually occupied by tbe clerk sat
Judire Sligle. The room was crowded almost
to suffocation. Wnen the court opened Judge
Kennedy turned to the grand, jury ana said tnai
charges of treason having been preferred agalnt
certain pron, It iwmt i ram ror rue county
court to rrn'iest the hlhest Jndlclal officer of the
state to deliver the charge. New York, Herald.
lie that stands upon a sllopery place,
Makes nlee of no vile bold to stay him up.
Shakespeare.
In the declaration of independence the
American people complained:
The history of the prejent king of Great
Britain Is a history of repeated Injuries and
usurpations, a i iiavwa in currcc ooie-ci me es
tablishment of an absolute tyranny over these
states.
And bo 116 years later, the wage-work
ers of this land may as truthfully com
plain that the recent history of the
Guild of Greed "is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, all having In
direct object the establishment of an ab
solute tyranny over the workpeople of
this land." To prove this, " let facts be
submitted to a candid world:"
Within three months, the states and
the federal government together have
had In the field against wage workers,
an aggregate army of nearly 30,000 men!
In what capacity? Not as a posse to aid
civil authorities la executing their func
tions, but to actually supercede the civil
authorities as in time of war! In Tennes
see, miners attacked the guardians of
the convict slaves; and, without having
made the slightest attempt to deal with
the assailants by due process of law, the
state instead sent troops to reinforce the
stockades, as in time of war It would
have reinforced Its forts In anticipation
of an attack by the public enemy. Yet
all through Tennessee the courts were
open and unobstructed not an officer
with a warrant had been resisted in at
tempting to make an arrest. The troops
were not sent to aid In making arrests,
but to give battle as in time of actual
war.
In Pennsylvania, the Homestead strik
ers were In control of the Carnegie plant;
but no writ of any characteter had been
Issued to dispossess them, no warrant
had been issued against a single one of
them, no resistance had been offered or
threatened to any civil officer in the dis
charge of any official duty. The battle
between the men and the Invading
Flnkertons had been over for days, and
even yet no warrants were In the sheriff's
hands when the governor mobilized at
Homestead an army of 8,000 men. What
to do? Not to aid the civil officers in
making arrests or to execute processes
for possession of the Carnegie plant, but
to overawe the wsge-workers by con
fronting them with an army in battle
array as In time of warl Civil process
being utterly set aside and Ignored by
the state, the sole object was to restore
by military force the possession of the
mills to the Carnegie company. The
project was a writ of replevin, of forcible
detainer, or of ejectment, executed by
an army under military orders instead of
by a civil officer under a judicial writ
Yet all the time every court In Pennsyl
vania was open and unobstructed; every
magistrate was in the free exeroise of his
functions; not a process had been re
sisted, as to this day none has been.
In New York, some switchmen at
Buffalo struck ;some old cars were burned ;
there waa some Interference with the
movement of trains. The courts were
ail open the magistrates were acting-
no process had been resisted no such
resistance had been threatened; yet the
governor massed there an army of 7,000
or 8,000 men ; thousands more were under
arms in reserve; and even the naval re
serve waa held waiting orders for the
squadron to proceed to the lake and
make a naval demonstration at Buffalo.
When the troops arrived what did they
do? Did they aid the civil authorities
in making arrests or in executing process
of any character? No, they were there
as an army. AH' civil processes were
utterly set aside and ignored; and that
which any private citizen must have re
sorted to legal proceedings to accomplish,
the state sent an army to perform for the
railroad companies.
In Idaho, too, the state and the federal
troops took the place of the laws Instead
of coming to their assistance. And so it
has been everywhere. Troops have not
in a single strike been called out to help
execute legal process, but always as the
armed servants of employers, to overawe
the workingmen by threatened battle or
by actual f usllades, until It has become
perfectly understood that a strike by the
employes of any great, rich corporation
will be frustrated by the military vio
lence of the state, or, If the employer
needs it, by the standing army of the na
tion. Who that knows aught of constitu
tional law needs to be told that in every
one of these Instances the use of military
forces as substitutes for the civil laws
and civil processes was a flagrant, trea
sonable usurpation? Turn again to the
declaration of Independence and read the
complaint of one of the king's -usurpations:
lie has affected to render the military Inde
pendent of, and superior to, the civil power!
Quartering large bodies of armed troops among
us; protecting them, by a mock trial, from
punishment lor any murder wblcn they shjuld
commit on the Inhabitants of thse states.
The national guard at Buffalo wantonly
shot and killed a boy. Warrants were
issued by a civil magistrate for the arrest
of the murderers; and it was openly de
clared that national guardsmen are not
answerable to the civil courts for mur
ders committed as soldiers I Has any
one yet heard that these military assas
sinsthe members of this superior order
of privileged murderers have been
made to answer for their crime? Were
they even tried, convicted and sentenced
to death like mere ordinary willful mur
derers, who doubts for a moment that
they would be Immediately pardoned at
the Instance of those who had the murder
done?
Has it not been proposed to keep up a
regular army in Pennsylvania for the ex
press purpose of putting down strikers
without resorting to mere "due process
of law?" Has not General Snowdon, of
Pennsylvania declared, that discontented
poverty must be pacified, not by appeas
ing its hunger, but by bringing armies
against It? Has not the press teemed
with echoes of this suggestion? And is
not this now clearly demonstrated to be
the policy henceforth to be pursued?
Might not the wage-worker of America
repeat the complaint of their forefathers
when they declared of their king:
lie has abdicated government here bv declar
ing us out ef his protection, and waging war
against ns?
But "still there's more to follow."
Aroused by the events of the past three
months, the labor organizations have re
quired their members to keep out of the
national guard, and have urged all un
organized working men to do likewise,
and to leave wealth to do its own murder
ing of the poor, taking the chances of
being killed itself in the attempt. Greed
has grown suspicious of the citizen "sol
dier," too, and fears he may hesitate to
shoot when ordered. Hence, the Pinker
ton's, or mercenary troops, have become
the last hope of the arrogant aristocracy
of dollars and bad breeding. After the
Homestead affair, one almost universal
cry went up, "The Plnkerton'a muclo!"
It was shouted .from party convention
halls; the press made it ring out from
ocean to ocean; congress caught up the
cry, and it was echoed by even the con
servative senate. Nobody in the whole
land dared 'stand up for the continued
existence of this army of hireling assas
sins. But greed must have mercenary
soldiers. It can rely upon no other kind.
Hence, the popular demand that the
Plnkerton'a shall go, must be answered
by legalizing the mercenary murderer,
by surrounding his sacred person with
some of that "divinity which doth hedge
a king." now could this be done? To
ask legislatures in these times to do it
would be madness. Congress when next
It meets will be more likely to do the re
verse. Few sheriffs hereafter will care
to be caught "swearing In" non resident
professional assassins as "deputies.". The
only hope for plutocracy Is the loyalty
of Its judges. To them it has resorted;
and, through the infamous Instrumental
ity of the chief justioj of Pennsylvania,
has succeeded In having it judicially
proclaimed as part of the law of the land
that resisting Plnkertons la treason
against the state! Under this decision, if
It shall become a precedent, the merce
nary armies of the plutocracy become
the sacred representatives of the sover
elgn people become the lawful soldiers
of the state! And who doubts the in
iamous decision wiu oe ionowed as a
precedent elsewhere if corrupt judicial
tools of wealth "Be not hurled from the
bench by the people they seek to enslave?
But, Is It true the chief justice of Penn
sylvania has declared it treason in work
ingmen to resist the Pinkertons? You
shall judge for yourself, my reader. He
la not so stupid as to put it in plain words;
he covers It up under a mass of verbiage.
Bat that ia the only possible meaning of
his decision; that la precisely the legal
effect of what he declared, and that Is
precisely what he meant to decide.
The Homestead men were at first
charged with murder, and with aggra
vated rioting; the charge of treason was
an afterthought. The charge having
been preferred, the chief justice comes
to sit in the court of the county and
charges the grand jury to indict the
Homestead men for treason. With what
object? Why seek to stretch the law of
treason? Its punishment Is but a fine
and not more than twelve years imprison
ment, while murder may be punished
with death. Men may be imprisoned for
rioting. Why, then, seek to make these
men guilty of treason rather than of riot
ing or of murder? Shall we suppose the
chief justice was eager to subject the ac
cused to the "separate and solitary" im
prisonment provided for in the statute as
to treason, to revive that species of mind
and soul murder the description of the
horrors of which given by Dickens In his
"American Notes" maie Pennsylvania's
penal laws odious to all Americans? If
the chief justice was not moved by this
diabolical desire, what was his motive In
seeking to make treason of the charges
against the Homestead men? He, him-
self, shall answer It. In the charge to
the grand jury and as Its excuse, he said
this:
If we were to concede the doctrine that the
employe may dictate to his employers the terms
of his employment, and upon the refusal of the
tauer to accede to tnem may take possession of
bi property and drive others away who were
willing to w.irk, we would have an anarchy. No
business coula be conduced unon such aDali:
that doctitne when once countenanced would be
extended to every Industry.
We have reached the point In the history
of the state where there are but two roads for us
to pursue The one leads to order and rood
government; the other leads to anarchy. Tbe
one great question which concerns the people of
tuts country Is the enforcement of the law and
the preservation of order.
- "We have reached the point In the his
tory of the state when" we must uphold
the employment of mercenary troops by
great corporations, or "the employe may
dictate to his employers the terms of his
employment," etc. The "citizen soldier"
Is becoming an uncertain reliance In such
cases. Congress, as It will be constituted,
cannot be relied upon to Increase the
regular army so that any force of conse
quence can be spared from the duty of
protecting cattle thieves and rascally
Indian agents. Of late, even policemen
have been lukewarm Injthe sport of club
bing hungry people during a strike.
There Is but one course open the plu
tocracy must be allowed to raise and
control its own armies, and these armies
must be protected by the courts! That
can be done only by declaring it to be
treason to resist the employer's troops,
the same as If they were the state's own
military forces! I hope no one Is too
stupldtosee the chief justice's motive.
He waa brought there to make the pre
determined proclamation to workpeople
more imposing and awe-inspiring. Said
one of the little judges: "Charges of
treason having been made against cer
tain persons, it seemed meet for the
county court to request the highest judl-
dlal offlser of the state to deliver the
charge." And with this awe-inspiring
introduction of "the highest judicial
officer of the state," the little judge and
his four associate little jurists subsided
into natural Insignificance voluntarily
extinguished by the dazzling effulgence
of the aforesaid "highest judicial" lumi
nary. It was a show expressly designed
to paralyze the workingmen of the land.
But will they paralyze? We shall see.
What la treason under the laws of
Pennsylvania? As there were no public
enemies to whom to give "aid and com
fort," treason could be committed only
by levying war against the state. Here
Is the Pennsylvania statute, omitting
only the giving aid to public, enemies,
which has here no application:
If any person owing allegiance to the common
wealth of Pennsylvania, 8hll levy war against
the same, sueh person shall, on con
vlotlon.be adjudged guilty e f treasou agalnat
the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and be
sentenced to pay a floe not exceeding 32.000 and
undergo Imprisonment, bv seoa'ata and solitary
conflnemant; at lubor, not exceeding twelve years.
(i vngnuyt rwrwm'a mgeu page 400.)
Not only must the accused "levy war,"
but that war must be levied against the
state. Now, compare the chief justice's
definition with that given in this statute.
The Justice defined as treason tha orennlza.
don ota large numoer of men In a common
purpose to defy the law, resist Its officers, and
to deprive any portion of their fellow citizens of
their rights under tbe constitution and laws.
(New York Herald't Bepurt )
Every lawyer acquainted with the sub
ject knows that no such definition of
treason as this finds justification in any
precedent to be found in England or In
America, not even in the Infamous,
odious decisions which have loaded with
obloquy the memory of the corrupt tool
Is that pronounced them. No previous
judge has ever daredto hold that "the or
ganization of a large number of men in a
common purpose," though that purpose
should be to actually subvert the govern
ment, constitutes levying war agalnat the
state. "To constitute this crime," ssys
the supreme court of the United States,
construing a precisely similar statute," war
must oe actually levied against the
United States. However flagitious may
be the crime of conspiring to subvert by '
force the government of our country,
such conspiracy Is not treason. To con
spire to levy war, and to actually levy
war, are distinct offenses. The first must
be brought Into operation by the assem
blage of men for a purpose treasonable
in itself, or the facta of levying war can
not have been committed. There
must be an actual assemblage of men,
for the purpose of executing a treason
able design."
In a case in Pennsylvania, with which