it, in the case in which it is applicable, as substantially the only benefit. I suppose you used the word "benefit" in the sense of remedy?

Mr. FULLER. For argument's sake, then, place it as a benefit alone. Mr. TENNEY. I should prefer the word "remedy," because that has a definite significance in connection with this matter.

Mr. FULLER. That being true, that the injunction is such a great remedy in your opinion, would any law which would grant that injunction to a certain class of people and withhold it from others be class legislation; would that be equal protection under the laws?

Mr. TENNEY. Answering it first in a general way, I should say no. Mr. FULLER. That it would not be class legislation?

Mr. TENNEY. No; I did not mean it that way. I should say that in general to grant a remedy by injunction to one class and to withhold it from another would be class legislation. Now, what is your application?

Mr. FULLER. You are familiar with the interstate-commerce law, and especially with the bill that passed Congress, I suppose, which grants additional remedies by injunction. You are also familiar with the Sherman antitrust laws. They permit certain things to be enjoined, and no other statute that I know of in the United States permits things of that nature to be enjoined. They are, however, inade criminal in some statutes. But in this particular class of cases the shipper has not only the right of indictment and trial by jury, but he is also granted this additional protection or remedy, as you may term it, in the way of injunction. Now, what would you say, as a lawyer, as to the provisions in the interstate-commerce law and the Sherman antitrust laws with regard to class legislation, if my understanding of that is right?

Mr. TENNEY. Let me first ask you is this remedy by injunction given to the shipper or to the Government as the means of enforcing the law?

Mr. FULLER. It is given to the Government for the benefit of the shipper.

Mr. TENNEY. It is given to the Government for the benefit of the public.

Mr. FULLER. And the shipper.

Mr. TENNEY. And the right of indictment is not the right of a shipper. It is the right of the Government for the benefit of the public, in whose interest the law is enacted; and you lose sight-if you will permit me to use that expression-you lose sight, both in putting the question and in the view which the question shows you possess, between private remedies and public remedies-between the private remedy of the party, which even can not be taken away under the sanction of the Constitution, and the remedy of the public, which is independent and entirely separate from it, for the violation of a public law injurious to the public.

Mr. FULLER. To make myself clear, then. Of course you know by this time without my informing you that I am not a lawyer

Mr. TENNEY. I would not have known it from your argument yesterday.

Mr. FULLER. I want to get it right. I want simply to suggest that the fact has been argued very strongly that not only property rights. but personal rights, should be protected; men should be protected

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from bodily harm. Now, admit your position is right as to the Government restraining the shippers from doing certain things under the interstate-commerce law. It benefits the whole Republic.

Now, then, it is a fact that there is a safety-appliance law on the statute books, which was passed for the benefit of the employees of those same carriers and for the public who travel over their roads. There is a remedy there in the way of criminal prosecution, but there is nothing in that law that says the Government can enjoin that road from running its trains in violation of that law. Is it not a fact that property rights or financial conditions have received the greater consideration at the hands of Congress in the act to regulate commerce, due to this injunctive power granted to the Government, than the public have as to those things which affect their life and limb in any other act? Do you consider that that is class legislation, or unequal, or unfair?

Mr. TENNEY. I do not regard that as class legislation. The question of whether Congress should add to the beneficent effect of the interstate-commerce law by saying that a carrier shall not conduct his business until he complies with a regulation of the Commission is a question about which many people now disagree and is a question for further legislation, and not a reason, whichever view a man may take of it, it seems to me, furnishing ground for criticism upon any of the positions which I have endeavored to state here or justification for the theory of this bill, regarded only in the light of class legislation.

Mr. FULLER. Now, as to the Sherman antitrust law. That not only affects the carriers, but it affects other people. There is the power to enjoin. The circuit courts are plainly authorized by that act to enjoin the things called criminal in that act. Do you call that class legislation?

Mr. TENNEY. No; that is a remedy given for the benefit of the public at large.

Mr. FULLER. I ask you whether you do not think that is class legislation, because it favors certain people who are affected, while there are other people who do not enjoy the benefit of this injunctive power that has been so strongly upheld here?

Mr. TENNEY. I must say that I can not see why when the Government has the right to do something it can be said that in doing it it does it for the benefit of one class rather than the other. It seems to me when the Government is given power to enforce some remedy, in enforcing it it acts as the representative of all classes; and I can not admit into my mind, as a thinkable proposition, the idea that what the Government may do it does as the representative of anything less than the whole body of the people who created the Government.

Mr. FULLER. But speaking now as a matter of policy, for a moment leaving the constitutional feature of it, the injunction has been advocated here as a means of protecting human life in a strike, for instance. Is it not right, then, that Congress when it passes a law for the protection of human life and limb should also put into that statute an injunctive power as an additional remedy?

Mr. TENNEY. Do you mean to give the right to the Government to enforce by injunction the

Mr. FULLER. For instance, the safety-appliance law; would you say in addition to the penalty that the Attorney-General may appeal to

the cirucit or district courts of the United States, and that they shall have power to enjoin violations of this act?

Mr. TENNEY. Now, what is your question; whether that would be class legislation?

Mr. FULLER. Put those two cases alongside of each other, one where property rights are involved and the other where personal rights are involved, or a man's own body and limb, his life, the safety of his life. If the life and limb are as important as has been advocated here by the proponents of this bill, that they should be protected by injunction, is it not class legislation when Congress will protect property rights by injunction and will not protect life and limb? I am not finding fault; I just want to put the two cases side by side

Mr. TENNEY. I wanted to get the question, whether they were the

same.

Mr. PARSONS. We have quite a number speakers to be heard, Mr. Chairman, and I suggest that we be allowed to proceed.

Mr. TENNEY. I think I can answer the question. I think you overlook this. You are assuming that Congress has passed a law giving an affirmative right to the remedy by injunctions, and in another class of cases giving the right to the remedy by the interstate-commerce law. The first proposition is not true; the right to injunction depends upon the general principles of the law.

Mr. FULLER. One more question.

(Mr. Parsons addressed the Chair.)
Mr. PEARRE. Does the gentleman yield?
Mr. FULLER. Just one more question.

Mr. TENNEY. Perhaps you had better ask some other gentleman. Mr. PARSONS. We have quite a number of speakers, and I do not think those questions ought to be extended quite so far, quite so long. Mr. FULLER. I only had two, and it took quite a time for us to understand each other.

I will be through in a moment. This is the other question. It has been said that an injunction is an additional remedy. It prevents the crime. Now, I cite this instance: Supposing a man is enjoined from destroying another man's property in a trade dispute, and he is bent on destroying it; he does destroy it. What additional remedy from a financial standpoint has the owner of that property got out of that injunction; does it restore any of his property; has he any remedy at all from the financial standpoint any more than he would have had had there been only the one remedy of indictment and trial by jury?

Mr. TENNEY. The remedies of the law, Mr. Fuller, often prove inefficient, because men, overriding or disregarding the law, array themselves on the side of those who believe there should be no law, and the instance you cite is one of that character.

Mr. FULLER. And he would have no additional remedy, I understand, in such a case.

Mr. TENNEY. I thank you very much for your attention, gentlemen of the committee.

(Thereupon, at 1 o'clock, the committee took a recess until 1.30 o'clock p. m.)

STATEMENT OF MR. GEORGE F. MONAGHAN, REPRESENTING NATIONAL FOUNDERS' ASSOCIATION.

Gentlemen of the committee, the National Founders' Association is the body on behalf of which I have the honor to address you at this time. The association is composed of 525 of the leading manufacturing establishments of the United States and represents a capitalization of over $500,000,000.

This body was from the beginning conservative in its character and purpose and has adopted as its basic principle the prevention of trouble rather than the promotion of it. It is from experiences of that association, as well as from the records to be found in your courts, that I desire to bring such pressure as may be upon this committee to refuse to ratify the radical demands made by organized labor through the American Federation of Labor and kindred societies, and to request of this committee that it stamp with its emphatic disapproval this attempt to deprive the industries of this country of a protection essential to the preservation of their very existence.

The proposed bill raises two principal issues: First, as to the right of Congress to regulate the judicial power of the Federal courts in the matter of injunction, so as to limit their equity jurisdiction and thereby abolish the application of the principles of equity in all disputes of labor; second, is it expedient that the right of injunction and its protection accompanying it should be withheld from capital, when labor, in violation of all law, is destroying its property without warrant or justification?

The gentleman who has just preceded me touched briefly upon the power of courts to issue injunctions. We approach the query as to how far Congress has the right to regulate this power. I lay it down as my first premise, with authority sustaining the position taken, that the Federal courts of the United States have inherent in them the power to issue injunctions, and that as a coordinate branch of the Government of this country, it has a right to make effective its injunctive process whenever, under the facts submitted, and under the law of the land, it appears necessary. My authority for the statement, if authority is necessary before this committee, is taken from the 158 United States Reports in the case of Debs and cases therein cited. A more careful perusal of that case than can be made in the brief time allotted me will be productive of benefit. I quote only the conclusions of the learned judge, without attempting to follow in detail the reasoning which led to them. In his conclusion, Mr. Justice Brewer, in summing up the decision, says:

Summing up our conclusions, we hold that the Government of the United States is one having jurisdiction over every foot of soil within its territory, and acting directly upon each citizen; that while it is a Government of enumerated powers, it has within the limits of those powers all the attributes of sovereignty; that to it is committed power over interstate commerce and the transmission of the mail; that the powers thus conferred upon the National Government are not dormant, but have been assumed and put into practical exercise by the legislation of Congress; that in the exercise of those powers, it is competent for the nation to remove all obstructions upon highways, natural or artificial, to the passage of interstate commerce or the carrying of the mail; that while it may be competent for the Government through the executive branch and in the use of the entire executive power of the nation to forcibly remove all such obstructions, it is equally within its competency to appeal to the civil courts

for an inquiry and determination as to the existence and character of any alleged obstructions, and if such are found to exist, or threaten to occur, to invoke the powers of those courts to remove or restrain such obstructions; that the jurisdiction of courts to interfere in such matters by injunction is one recognized from ancient times and by indubitable authority; that such jurisdiction is not ousted by the fact that the obstructions are accompanied by or consist of acts in themselves violations of the criminal law; that the proceeding by injunction is of a civil character, and may be enforced by proceedings in contempt; that such proceedings are not in execution of the criminal laws of the land; that the penalty for the violation of injunction is no substitute for and no defense to a prosecution for any criminal offenses committed in the course of such violation; that the complaint filed in this case clearly showed an existing obstruction of artificial highways for the passage of interstate commerce and the transmission of the mail, an obstruction not only temporarily existing, but threatening to continue; that under such complaint the circuit court had power to issue its process of injunction, etc.

Incidentally this answers a question propounded to Mr. Tenney by one gentleman. It was asked him whether it was his understanding of the law that a criminal act could be enjoined by the court. The answer is found in the above opinion. We venture further to say, in passing, that the doctrine is unquestioned that it is not within the jurisdiction of the equity court to enjoin the commission of crimes as such. Something more than a threatened commission of offenses against the laws of the land is necessary to call into exercise the injunctive power of the court. There must be some interferences, actual or threatened, with property or rights of a pecuniary nature, and when such interferences do appear, and when acts criminal in themselves reach that climax where they constitute a destruction of property, the collateral fact that the acts are criminal does not deprive the injured party of his civil remedy. An assault with intent to kill may be punished criminally, but an action for damages may accrue in consequence of it, and the same is true of all other offenses which cause injury to persons or property. In such cases the court's jurisdiction is prayed not for the enforcement of the criminal law or for the punishment of the wrongdoer, but in order that the injured party may have redress in damages. It is no defense to a civil action that the acts of the defendant expose him to indictment and punishment in a court of criminal jurisdiction. So it is in all instances where the court finds it necessary to invoke its injunctive power. The dynamiting of property, the maiming of employees, and a conspiracy to perform such acts may be criminal, but the court, nevertheless, for the purpose of protecting the persons and property of citizenship of the Government, may exercise its equitable powers, and the issuance of an injunction by the court does not prevent the arrest and conviction for the crime committed of the person or persons offending.

Inherent power.-It is of interest to note that Justice Brewer, in declaring the right of that controversy, saw fit to determine the issue, not from the standpoint of statute law as set forth in the antitrust act of 1890, but while recognizing its application to the lawless acts of the unions involved, to determine from the questions at issue and the importance of the principles at stake the doctrine that the United States courts without special authorization of Congress have inherent in them the right and the duty to extend the strong arm of equity's restraint over all men, whether members of labor unions or capitalistic combines, who seek by violence or other means unlawful to inflict irreparable injury upon the property of others.