to try criminal cases on pretense of trying cases of contempt of court.

If we had continued this separation of chancery and law courts, it is prob able that no Chancellor in our country would ever have ventured to grant injunctions, either creating crimes or forbidding those the law created. The judges of the other courts would have seen to that; for judges are pretty jealous of their powers, and this would have encroached upon the powers of the law judges.

But in course of time the distinction between chancery courts and law courts was abolished with us; not in form everywhere, but in fact, for the same men came to sit as judges in both courts. It was as if the King's conscience had been turned over to the law judges, so that if ready-made law wouldn't fit a particular case they could peer into their chancery powers and construct judge-made law for that case.

After this there were no law judges to be jealous of chancellors, for they were themselves both chancellors and law judges; and in due course the chancellor in them usurped a good deal of their authority as law judges, without any protest. So judge-made law for particular cases encroached upon the regular law for all cases.

Many people approve this, because they think that justice is only a question of doing the right thing in each case. It might be if judges were infallible. But judges are mere men, like all the rest of us, they have their hearts chock full of all kinds of devils, as Mr. Chesterton says. The only way then to do justice in particular cases is to apply the general rules. This may make misfits sometimes, but never with the dangerous consequences of judge-made law. For isn't it plain that business association, personal friendship and class prejudice are powerful influences in courts where judgemade law flourishes?

It certainly has been so in this country since the distinction between chancellors and law judges was abolished. None of the judges are interested now in holding any other set of

judges in check, and we have "government by injunction." Its beneficiaries are business men when labor strikes are on, and its victim is organized labor.

Through injunctions forbidding lawless acts by labor strikers, judges usurp the power to try strikers for crime, without witnesses or juries, and to punish them at will-not for the crime, indeed, but for contempt of court in having committed the crime. And through injunctions forbidding lawful acts that are repugnant to the King's conscience, which is the Big Business now, these judges get not only the power to act as juries in the trial of criminal cases, but also the power to act as legislatures in making criminal laws.

Please observe that there is no objection to punishing crimes by organized labor, nor to preventing them if you can. The objection is that judges forbid acts that are crimes and also acts that are not crimes, and then "try out" the question of guilt or innocence in their own way, without those safeguards which the experience of centuries has proved to be necessary for the protection of innocence.

This makes our judges dictators. Now a dictator on a judge's bench is just as bad as one on a monarch's throne, and that is the moral of this story about organized labor and judgemade law.

WHO WOULDN'T?

The family at the supper-table had been discussing a horse frightened by an automobile into running away. After silently listening for a while, little Mary finally looked up from her plate.

"I don't blame horses," she said, "for being afraid of automobiles. You would be, too, if you were a horse."

"Why, Mary?" asked her father. "Well," said Mary, "wouldn't you be scared if you saw a pair of pants coming along without a man in them?"

Washington, D. C.-The President's message has brought quick answer from the American labor movement, voiced by Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, who, on reading Woodrow Wilson's address to Congress, which contained what is practically a dictum in favor of compulsory arbitration, had this to say:

"Yes, I have read it, and I can only repeat to you what I said yesterday to Professor John R. Commons, when we met at the call of the National Civic Federation to discuss this very question-compulsory arbitration.

"Professor Commons made this statement to the representatives of the railroad brotherhoods, the representatives of the employers and myself. Said Commons: 'There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States prohibiting the passing of a law making strikes illegal.'

Involuntary Service Forbidden.

"I took instant issue with him, holding that there is a constitutional provision prohibiting involuntary servitude, compulsory service, except as a punishment for crime after trial and conviction, and, therefore, this provi sion was a prohibition against any attempt on the part of Congress to enforce compulsory labor, no matter for how brief a time.

"I questioned him first as to whether I understood him correctly. He said I did.

"To tell the truth, I was surprised, for, if I mistake not, this has not always been the viewpoint of John R. Commons.

"Finally, he expressed the opinion that the Supreme Court would, without doubt, regard such a law as perfectly constitutional.

"Then I called his attention to the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States held slavery to be constitutional in the Dred Scott case, and that it took four years of sanguinary war, costing hundreds of thousands of lives and untold treasure, to reverse this decision of the Supreme Court.

Would Prevent Revolution. "And now I repeat to you what I said to Commons-this: 'It is my purpose to prevent such another revolution. It is my purpose to prevent any such legislation and possible decision of the court.'"

Sitting in his office on the seventh floor of the new American Federation of Labor building, the elected spokesman of nearly 3,000,000 American organized workers spoke quietly, but with an emphasis that left no doubt of the determination in his mind, a determination which voiced itself at the recent Baltimore Convention, when he said:

"It is not we who make the attack. We are going to act on the defensive where we can, whenever it may be politic on the defensive; but, if the fight is to be made to take from the men, women and children of our time the advantages which we have secured, then these employers and corporations had better look out. We are not going to be forced back. The men and women of labor are not going to be forced back. We will resist and resist to the utmost."

Nor is it Samuel Gompers and the three million members of the American Federation of Labor alone to whom we are now listening-there is a mighty host behind them echoing every syllable that is recorded here as coming from the chief executive of labor; this host is made up not only of the four

hundred thousand men in the railroad brotherhoods, but that great flood of workers yet unorganized, which benefits by every advance of trade unionism, and today is on toe tips ready to race for the gateway opening on a universal eight-hour day. It is a mighty army that will not stand for the gravelin-the-shoe of compulsory arbitration law.

CONVICT LEASE SYSTEM

IN ALABAMA OPPOSED. Birmingham, Ala.-The grand jury in its report filed with Judge Heflin, scores the Alabama convict lease system as follows:

"We have had occasion to investigate the conditions of prisoners who are working in the mines of this county. We desire to protest against the system tolerated by this State of hiring out its convicts to work for of hiring out its convicts to work for companies whose sole interest in their welfare is to exact the maximum amount of money. We believe that this system is fundamentally wrong. We believe that the end sought to be obtained by the State in the treatment of unfortunate prisoners should be improvement of the prisoner rather than profits to the State. We recommend that the people do everything in their power to create sentiment which will abolish this practice of the State, which we consider to be destructive of human character and a prolific producer of criminals, and seek to bring about such change as early as possible as will give to the man or woman who has violated the laws of society some kind of chance and opportunity for moral and physical development. A system such as ours turns out men and women who are embittered against the laws and usages of our country, and sends its poison into all avenues of good government and makes worse the social disease it is intended to cure. Individual reformation of a prisoner is necessary in order for him to aid society when he is released and returned to it, and this object cannot be accom

plished by a system which treats a prisoner as a machine for profit, rather than as a human being."

PRESIDENT GOMPERS'

GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY.

New York, N. Y.-The anniversary of President Gompers' golden wedding, his sixty-seventh birthday and 50 years of active service in the trade union movement will be observed in this city on January 28 next.

This combination of exceptional events will be celebrated by a dinner, at which fitting tribute will be paid to the president of the American Federation of Labor by well-known trade unionists as well as citizens in other walks of life.

This movement was inaugurated by the New York State Federation of Labor, at its convention last August, when organized labor was called upon to take official cognizance of the persistent efforts of President Gompers in their behalf during the past half century. At the Baltimore convention of the American Federation of Labor this proposal was approved and the executive council was instructed to assist in making the event a notable

one.

Committees representing the American Federation of Labor, the New York State Federation of Labor and the Central Federated Union of New York and vicinity are now arranging a program. Robert P. Brindell is chairman of the joint committee and Ernest Bohm, secretary of the New York Centary Federated Union, is secretary.

The committee requests that each union appoint one or more representatives to attend this dinner. Tickets for the dinner must be obtained from Ernest Bohm, care 710 Bartholdi building, 2 East Twenty-third street, New York.

"Do you stutter all the time?" one man asked another.

"No," said he, "only when I-I-I-I t-t-t-talk!"