Galveston Labor Journal (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 1, No. 10, Ed. 1 Friday, January 1, 1909 Page: 4 of 8
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GALVESTON LABOR JOURNAL,SATURDAY, JANUARY, 1, 1909.
GALVESTON LABOR JOURNAL
The Sunday Law
A Lobby or Farmers’ Bureau
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Entered at the Post office at Galveston, Texas, as Second-Class Mail Matter
¥
MAX ANDREW, PUBLISHER
HENRY RABE,
Local Representative
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION
One Year
One Dollar
Six Months
Fifty Cents
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23
""LABOR ?
and hymns, they see the fagots of Cotton Mather and the cruel
- the unsuspecting andn untrained may appear as effective, when
common apprehension, perhaps
Galveston, Texas, Friday, January 1, 1908
Ordered to Jail
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Poll Tax
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(Unity) is its
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Off
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Subscibers who change their address, or fail to get their paper, should
immediately notify this office, giving both old and new addresses, and the
name of the organization with which they are connected.
HE District Court of the District of Columbia presided
over by Justice Wright, has rendered a decision in the
proceeding of the Buck Stove and Range Co. vs. The
American Federation of Labor, committing Messrs.
Gompers, Mitchell and Morrison to jail for contempt,
for refusing to obey an injunction requiring them to
refrain from publishing the Buck Stove and Range Co.
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Last Meeting of the Year Had Lar-
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CARPENTERS
LOCAL No. 793
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The echoes of the decision of that most obsequious servitor of
the trusts and organized greed are coming back in thunder tones
to Washington.
--o---------
It is New Year, and now swear off and be good, and above all
get out and hustle and pay your poll tax.
--------o--------
It was Jefferson who said the danger of the republic was in
the encroachments upon freedom through the Federal Courts.
--------o--------
Justice Wright will soon find himself wrong.
---------o---------
The monument erected by liberty-loving people some day at
Washington to Gompers, Mitchell and Morrison will serve to
perpetuate Judge Wright also as McKinley’s fame commemorates
the assassin Czolgosch.
■ I
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PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY MORNING
Office: No. 309 Tremont, Adjoining- Cooks and Waiters’ Hall
—3-
favoritism, and
corporations and
Communications of interest to trades unionists are solicited. They should
be briefly written, on but one side of the paper, and must reach this office no
later than Thursday noon of each week. The right of revision or rejection
is reserved by the publisher.
discrimination and
against unworthy (
monopolies.
The Golden Rule
*7 was intended not as a tax collecting measure, but as a
—----- means to put the control of government in the posses-
sion of intelligent white citizens. To remove corrupting interests
influencing the election by purchasing votes, or by importing
from one precinct to another, the irresponsible and dissolute-
minded white and negro men of the state. It was felt that mon-
eyed inducements would have less weight in the result of elec-
tions, if the ballot was placed solely in the hands of those who
took enough interest in good government to pay thier taxes before
February 1st of each year. Now those who neglect to pay must
accept a situation resulting from elections that other more active
suffragists bring about. Because you have managed to get along
without voting in the past,” is no criterion that you will continue
to fare so well under laws made and executed by persons other
people elect. A great crisis is soon to come in this country, be-
tween the organized few who control all the capital and who
have been shapping the laws of the Nation and the States, aided by
the million sycophants and servile sub classes ,that only see good
in adopting the program mapped out by the financiers and their
shrewd lawyers, who are designing a republican sort of aristoc-
racy, where there shall be lords and ladies, ands servants and
peasants, and the other classes who are triving for the preerva-
tion of a democracy, and everybody should get in the habit of
voting.
HERE are only twenty-three days left within which
the citizen may pay his poll tax, and by so doing save
his suffrage. It is a sad commentary on manhood that
will permit the slight tax burden imposed to disfran-
chise so many intelligent persons. The poll tax law
ties of the inquisition. It is a
on the “unfair or we don’t patronize list.” In a speech from the
bench whihc appears in the press dispatches this judge has in-
dulged in a most heated abuse and misrepresentation of labor un-
ions and their purposes, and in a severe and unfair criticism of the
defendants at the bar, while at the same time announcing a doc-
trine of law that if it be well taken and be sustained, shows that the
framers of the Federal Constitution after all were shrewd aristo-
crats deceiving in cunning phrases the humble citizens who by
their blood had wrenched a government from King George and
his legions of half slaves, thinking to establish a government of
the people with freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and
press and the equality of man wtih man before the law.
If it be that judicial construction can nullify for a day or year
the guarantee of a free press, indeed, the end of the Republic
can come none too soon.
Let it be remembered the labor unions represented humanity;
the Buck Stove and Range Co. the greed that curses humanity
with slavery work hours. The unions represent the uplifting of
the toilers to healthier minds and bodies, the Buck Stove and
Range Co. to the debasement of mind and body. The Buck Stove
and Range Co. forced its workers to the toil of ten hours as a day’s
work; the Federation of Labor, acting in the cause of humanity,
urged the hours were too long. The Federation advised against
anyone who had the interest of humanity at heart patronizing so
greedy a concern. They used no false words, no false representa-
tions. The defendants published the Buck Stove and Range Co.
only on the list of those firms which the organization had decided
not to patronize.
The constitution of the United States contains the following:
“Article 1. Congress shall make no law respecting an establish-
ment of religion or prohibiting the free evercise thereof; or
ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OR OF THE
PRESS, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to
petition theh government for a redress of grievances.”
Justice Wright says this article has no application to an injunc-
tion issued restraining a publication of the kind Mr. Gompers pub-
lished ; and that even if it did apply, that it must be obeyed, pend-
ing final decision. If such was or is the law, the constitutional
guarantee above as to free speech and press is a nare and a delus-
ion. If courts by any decree can suspend for a time a constitu-
tional guarantee, the citizen could be deprived of the guarantee by
delayed hearings and by numerous writs, until the poorer classes
were worn and depressed of all patriotic resentment. Thus
the constitutional guarantee would be a hollow mockery, and
liberty only a named for a perpetration of any wrong that
servile henchmen of the Jeffries breed appointed in the interest
of and by organized greed could suggest and ask. It is well that
this decision comes at this time when congress is in session, and
a new administration about to take hold of the government. The
issue is before the country, and if the courts are to establish a
despotism and deprive the humble toilers of their only power to
protect themselves against the cruelties of heartless task masters
and inhuman capitalists, the end should be proclaimed at once and
theh world made aware of the infamy of a false Republic and the
masquerade of hypocrisy and false pretense before the other na-
tions of the earth.
--------o--------
Whenever a people or a part of a people shall allow the Courts
of the country to muzzle free speech and a free press, it is time
for the sham thing called a republic to be abandoned and for
the constitution to be committed to the flames.
---
The decision of Judge Wright is a confinnation of Mr. Debs
and of his followers, who claim democracy and equal rights can
only exist in a socialistic state.
they are really abortive because of ambiguity or contradictory
sequences. Talleyrand, the word magician, has said that lan-
guage was made to conceal our thoughts rather than to explain
them—and a student of congressional enactments will find that
the statesmen of our country have sought the devious in phrase
and paraphrase through which the concealed special interests
have found barriers of protection, and behind which the grafter
with his shrewd lawyer and the conservative judge may hold at
bay the progress of justice and equality.
Hedged with constitutional restrictions, the honest law-maker
not an erudite lawyer, may be made sponsor for amendments in
a vernacular framed by a master of dialectics, that sound in fair
purpose, but which are diabolical in meaning. With the plunder-
bund interests in control of the telegraphic news and the daily
press, it is easy to keep the people in utter ignorance of congres-
sional fealty. The past is a warning for the present, and it be-
hooves the farmer organizations to join with labor confederations
and establish a bureau at Washington backed with ample funds
to employ secret service agents and keep in touch with every
move made by the antagonistic trust agents to continue their
robberies by statute.
T is apparent that much of the recent determined effort to
secure statewide prohibition is due to the saloons failing
to observe in the past years reasonable regulations and
restrictions. That had the saloonkeepers banished the
thug, founder and the thimble rig fellows and gamblers
and strictly observed the Sunday law, there would have
•--------------o---------------
Let the case be taken to the Supreme Court, and let that august
tribunal cast the die, and tell the world if the constitution is “a
league with hell” or not.
Carpenters’ Local Union No. 793 met
Wednesday, December 23, at Carpen-
ters* hall, with an unusually fair at-
tendance. It was the meeting for the
election of officers, and, as Bro.
Schultze had hoped, a good member-
ship was present. He was accordingly
jglad to greet and welcome the breth-
ren, many of whom he thought were
strangers to their union. Bro. Schultze
announces the meeting to have been
the banner meeting of No. 793 in 1908.
Quite a number of communications and
bills were read and necessary action
taken, but the main issue was the elec-
tion of officers, and great interest was
displayed in the choice of the following,
elected to serve the next ensuing term:
President, Dave Currie; vice presi-
dent, Louis Trost; recording secretary,
Neils Thompson; financial secretary,
standard. It teaches men to be as
brothers, and to do unto others, as they
would that men should do unto them.
Brother, what a deep significance has
this word! What has brotherhood
done for the world?
As the human race is for good and
holy purposes divided into families,
so the human race is fast becoming,
for good and protective purposes, di-
vided into brotherly organizations.
These organizations are corporations
of brotherly love and charity. They
bring men together, under obligations,
who might otherwise go through life
and suffer alone.
They make friends of enemies; they
bring a wayward stranger into good
company; they life from his shoulders
the burden of loneliness, selfishness and
deceit, and make better men of all who
become their members. The fraternal
love that we all have for one another,
for the benefit of mankind, that was
given us by an all-wise and far-seeing
Almighty, is based upon the principle
of equality, which we recognize in all
human beings, for all men were cre-
ated equal, with the right to enjoy all
the beauties and utilities of this world
as given man by an all-wise Creator.
Brothers, have you resolved that as
brothers and sovereigns of this great
brotherhood, you will strive to use
every available means within your
power to draw into eur organizations
every worthy man, no matter of what
craft or trade? Have you resolved to
explain to him the mutual and benevo-
lent features of this great brother-
hood? Have you resolved to show him
that there is a brotherly and neigh-
borly side, which results in the protec-
tion of his trade, attention and nurs-
ing of the sick, burial of the dead, em-
ployment for the needy, and good cheer
and fellowship among the members at
all times?
Will you resolve to tell him he may
look7where he pleases in this great na-
tion of ours, from the rockbound shores
of Maine, where lashes the waves of
the stormy Atlantic, to the Golden Gate
of California, where murmurs the
waves of the peaceful Pacific: from the
Northland, where grow the tall pines
that mourn and groan in the winds of
the winter, to the Gulf of the South,
where grows. the beautiful magnolia
that sends its fragrance out upon the
summer air, and where the mocking-
bird whistles and sings in the noonday,
yet will he see the banner of this great
United Brotherhood waving proudly on
the breezes, signifying that under its
colors more than 3,000,000 members are
singing the national axiom, "United, we
stand; divided, we fall!”
Now, be it Resolved, That every mem-
ber of this great Brotherhood enjoys a
happy and prosperous New Year
A UNION WORKER—S.
I may or may not be good policy to finance the execu-
tive branch of the government to conduct a spy sys-
tem on the officers of the legislative department. It
can be argued that a set of officers who fear the de-
tectives and espionage is one that has some guilty be-
tiayal of their official trust to conceal; and on the other
hand at the same time it can be urged that an exec-
tivities of the preachers in crusades for prohibition and for
prohibition statutes, making penal all Sunday amusements, as an
advance movement that in the end will destroy freedom of wor-
ship and conscience. These with the liquor interests and the lib-
eral minded laymen will make prohibition difficult of enactment.
Thus the great economic principles involved are made a side issue
and a vote on the question will not but bring about great acri-
mony in feeling and may perhaps prove abortive even if pro-
hibition be voted, of good results in the southern sections of the
state. Could the religious features be kept out and the great
economics and benefits to society and civilization of total ab-
stinence urged, and advocated, whatever the result of the vote in
the encl, the election would make for good and for temperance.
The education of the people to the evils of the liquor habit would
in such case build up a sentiment against the use of spirituous
stimulants that would finally put an end to the indiscriminate
sale thereof.
ill founded, that the dominating idea which inspires the clergy-
man to abominate and anathematize the saloon, is the difficulty of
strict enforcement of Sunday laws, which if enforced or obeyed,
would result in enlarging the male audiences at the church meet-
ings. That this would mean for the ministry larger contribu-
tions, larger salaries.
Persons holding these views univerally disapprove of that ac-
tivity and policy which drags out to the polls on election days the
mothers and daughters to rustle with all sorts of suffragens.
They claim such religious activities in things political wholly
out of keeping with the spirit that should actuate an intelligent
democracy in a conscience free republic. That preachers and
priests may declaim as they wish in their pulpits against all evils
or things productive of bad morals, but here their professional
duties should end in political warfare. Nor is it denied them
the privilege of the press or of the ballot, nor is it claimed they
may not express their views as other citizens as lecturers. It is
the invasion of the hustings with appeals to religious frenzies
that is objected to. The claim is the cross and crucifix, no more
than the Moslem crescent nor the Chinese dragon should not wave
over conflicting and contending factions at the ballot box.
The open saloon and drink habit present a great political ques-
tion of political economy to be fought out not only in Christian
America, but in every place where alcoholic stimulants are used
as a beverage by mankind. The crimes that indulgence breeds
impose burdens for all taxpayers’ consideration. The poverty
that befalls the drunkard and his family; the nervous diseases
and insanity that may result not only to the drinker but to his be-
gotten; the vast waste of physical energy to those who must toil
with hands and feet; the indifference, the recklessness that re-
sults sometimes by reason of drink in catastrophes and human
calamities; the vicious appetite that takes day by day from the
wage-earner his pennies, that would help buy him a home for his
little ones. All of these are equally eloquent for the exercise of
heathen or Christian statesmanship, and it would seem grave
enough to command serious philosophical attention of our wisest
men and statesmen without Peter the Hermit’s calling passion to
arms in the making of laws.
Now, in Texas there are many thousand citizens who in emi-
grating from Europe fondly imagined they were finding homes I
in a state where the liberty of conscience would never be circum-
scribed, and where government and religion were and would re-
main distinctly separate. That individual liberty was above the
tyranny of meddling priest or preachers, these were and their
children are so deeply imbued with that idea that they look with
morbid dread upon sumptuary and prohibitory laws. Never hav-
ing been educated to the Sabbatarians dortrine of a Sunday for
absolute devotional functions, but by example and usage having
been taught to regard each Sunday, at least the latter half, as a
holiday and for amusing recreation; they rebel against the Sun-
day laws which would deprive them of amusements and liquid
refreshments. Naturally, these people, seeing the political ac-
utive could thus find secret means to coerce the legislators into
measures either good or bad as the executive might choose, and
that this power in the hands of a corrupt and scheming president
would be subversive if not of free government, at least of independ-
ent legislative will as to the policy to be followed in law making.
The agitation of the matter and the recent exposures of Mr.
Hearst and Standard Oil activities in Congress must impress the
reading public that senators and congresmen are not all of them
the pure-hearted, unselfish patriots that they proclaim themselves
to be at the hustings. That there is some sinister motive inspir-
ing the candidate for re-election in keeping alive sectional issues
and partisan passions and in breathing ponderous rhodomontades
against all who are inclined to ask strict accountability and to
go into unpleasant details about individual connections with spe-
cial interests unduly favored by the laws of the country.
Language is so imperfect and yet so perfect (pardon the seem-
ing contradiction) that it is easy to use such prolixity of expres-
sion in the text of the statute, that intended reform measures to
Ed Anderson; treasurer, Gus Jacobson;
conductor,1 H. Deubner; warden, L.
.Verbeck; trustees, Wm. Helfenstein, R.
U. Clark, C. S. Kirkpatrick.
Brothers, do you make resolutions?
This is the time we reckon up past
failures and resolve on future achieve-
ments, but in order to be successful
you must have an ambition. Nothing
else in the world will bring you such
a degree of happiness as an honest ef-
fort toward realizing a worthy ambi-
tion. Successful ambition will win self
satisfaction as well as the admiration,
approbation and appreciation of those
around you. You, perhaps, may think
there are insurmountable obstacles in
the path leading to your ambition, but
there are none such. You perhaps feel
that you cannot progress in your pres-
ent task, but you have it in your power
to make your purpose vigorous enough
to lift you out of the rut. Don’t allow
anything or anybody to paralyze your
development; don’t let your abilities
lie stagnant.
Here it is in a nutshell: You have
an ambition. Take a step toward it
each day, let nothing, great or small,
I
UNIONEELABEL
strangle or stifle your purpose of reach-
ing out after your ambition. Take for
your motto, “I can and I will.” Just
at the moment you really and truly
make up your mind with all your heart
that you can and will get what you
want, you will be astonished to find
■ how quickly things will begin to veer
around, adjusting all conditions to your
purpose.
If there is anything needed to pro-
mote the success of a man. it is hon-
esty. This does not mean the honesty
of not appropriating to yourself that
which belongs to another, but it ap-
plies to that class of men who are not
honest with themselves, and who ha-
bitually underestimate their ability.
Ambition, ruled by reason and re-
ligion, is a virtue; without ambition
no great deed was ever accomplished.
It is a guiding star to the wise and
the good—only a snare to the vain and
the foolish. Ambition is the strongest
incentive to perseverance, and difficul-
ties will shrink before it, where they
had appeared mountain high.
It is ambition which keeps alive hope
and courage. Without it man would
be content to be a poor, debased crea-
ture, allowing the powers of his brain
to rust for want of energy to cultivate
and apply them. He could never rise
in his profession, having no incentive
to reach its highest point.
Ambition appears to me the pure,
honest desire to excel in whatever we
undertake, provided always that we
do not suffer our selfish desire to rise
and lead us into doing wrong to our
fellow man or violating the commands
of God.
My dear brethren, I have asked you.
Do you make resolutions? and I have
gone further into your needs, and have
shown that if you want to be successful
in life you must possess ambition and
brotherly love. Make use of as much
ambition as you can command, and
spare a little for union principle. Re-
member, “United, we stand; divided,
we fall.” This is an axiom which has
burst forth from many conventions in
a city named Unity and Brotherly
Love, and is today the national axiom
of about 3,000,000 people.
It teaches its membership the sim-
plest and most important duties of
man to man. It keeps man in the
pathway of duty, educates them mor-
ally and socially, quickens their per-
cention and broadens their views. It
aids those in need and brings happi-
ness to troubled homes. It never casts
a darkened shadow upon a home. It
never knowingly wounds a human,
heart. It is never deaf to the wants
of the deserving. It promptly responds
to call back the erring, to lift up the
fallen, to aid the distressed. It pro-
tects your honor and character and pro-
tects your respective trade.
It teaches the most pure and noble
lessons for the guidance of human
lives. It inculcates habits of industry
and economy. It teaches men to stand
shoulder to shoulder in their common
defense against the attacks of unjust
been no crusade against the sale by retail of alcoholic
beverages, since it is natural for the American to look with dis-
favor on sumptuary laws invading the individual’s privileges to
do as he pleases about eat and drink.
The question of prohibition will be the subject of earnest con-
ideration during thhe ensuing year The submission of an
amendment to the state constitution has been practically assured
for some time, in fact many Antis wish the matter disposed of,
expecting thereby for a time to have peace from the agitation.
The piotestant clergy have made the question a moral and re-
ligious one, and in doing this they have expelled from prohibi-
tion ranks many liberal thinkers who look upon the proposition
not as a religious, nor as a moral question altogether, but as pe-
culiarly an important economic subject for consideration. These,
who hold to this latter view, are reluctant to ally themselves with
any movement that will encourage the firebrand of the fanatic
in politics. These fear the advent of the preacher and the
crucifix on the stump more than they are offended by the open
saloons and their evils. Behind politics inflamed with prayer books
.. ____________ .
“885,
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Galveston Labor Journal (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 1, No. 10, Ed. 1 Friday, January 1, 1909, newspaper, January 1, 1909; Galveston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1447536/m1/4/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rosenberg Library.