The Supreme Court, Bulwark of Child Slavery
Debs, Eugene V.
The Supreme Court, Bulwark of Child Slavery By EUGENE V. DEBS *m HE people who'hold the J, acepter of political power ajaj wield thfe economic lash lave an instinctive dread that the common herd...
...The Government is its government and functions in its interest, so that property rules the people and the dollar of the capitalist hat supremscy over the life and liberty of the citizen...
...There are others of minor significance, but these make up the bulk of the interests that are responsible for the political and economic situation in America and which demands relief...
...the Dollar If the sweaters of child labor who coin the blond of infants into bloated fortunes had by tome magic favored a child labor law, their judicial servants on the bench, headed by that ponderous pet of the profiteers, William Howard Taft, would without the shadow of a doubt have de...
...Lessons of 1924 By WESTERN STARR AS a rule, intelligent people learn more from their mistakes and failures than from their successes...
...If a judge is (he servant of the people I would like to see the whole American populace, barring Wall Street, fire just one of tho corporation lawyers who officiate as Federal judges...
...Are they not entitled to the here-fit of the 7,000,000 majorities they give to capitalist class Presidents who stufT the Supreme Court with corporation lawyers...
...For the salvation of the nation depends, mind you, upon an ignorant reverence and superstition for the courts, especially the Supreme Court presided over by Carnegie's mortgaged manikin, and upon abjectly making a fetish of the "Stnr Spangled Banner...
...The Caer of Russia, were he alive todtf, would have nothing on a BWiW States...
...What a farce it is to declare in the piesent order of things that public officials are the servants of the people when we know as a matter of fact that a court judge has dictatorial power snd is the boss of the community...
...The campaign of 1924 indicates with practical certainty that apolitical party cannot be built up on the foundation of a perjonality...
...Therefore, some can see only oppression by railroads or other public utilities...
...In view of the fact here stated, is it any wonder, is it in the least surprising, that the Supreme Court, consisting wholly of high-grade corporation attorneys, has twice driven the knife to the hilt info the heart of the child labor law...
...if they were not so easily gulled by bunk and hokum, by sham and false pretense...
...Every human being within our borders who thinks more of a child than he docs of a dollar will stand manfully for the child labor amendment and do all in his power to have the hideous evil, the outrageoua crime, the Infinite disgrace of child-slavery wiped out in the United States...
...This system is the subject of assault...
...Dors not the Supreme Court In its attitude and in its interpretation of the law reflect precisely the attitude of the ruling class, the employers and sweaters of child labor, thus proving for the thousandth time that the la., la the will of ihe niattar and that the judge is but the servant of the master aad interpret* Jibe las* accordingly...
...Holmes At the Center Forum Dr...
...Holmes speaks to audiences of 3,000 I every Sunday morning, and Brooklyn admirers will be glad of the opportunity of hearing him speak...
...Rufus Choate was one of these eminent gentlemen in his day, achieving international fame in that capacity, and Wendell Phillips said of him tint thieves inquired about his health before they started out to steal...
...Lft it be understood lit once that ¦jder the capitalist system of private ownership of public necessities the courts, like other social institutions, are class concerns and controlled absolutely, so far as vital, fundamental issues are concerned, ay and for the class in power...
...The same principle applies to all monopolies...
...The Supreme Court, Bulwark of Child Slavery By EUGENE V. DEBS *m HE people who'hold the J, acepter of political power ajaj wield thfe economic lash lave an instinctive dread that the common herd may lose theu reverence for the courts .nil come to understand just no» these shell-game con-0im are constituted, how fley function, and how the l*inions, decisions and injunctions they "hand down" serve the purposes of their rich and respfi table masters...
...if ever they come to see with but half an eye just what courts and judge* are and why the "f'tar Spangled Banner" is waved so frantically and why they are commanded to doff their hats and bow down to the dust in its presence as if it were the holy of holies...
...There are only two ways of correction—Rationally—by political action: Irrationally—by direct action...
...Children vt...
...if they ware but capable of realising that a court of law is not and never can be a court of justice in a class-ruled society and that the average judge is simply sn ordinary human being the same as the rest of us, just aa liable on the bench aa on the sidewalk to be weak or wrong or venal aa the average run of men, they would no i longer make themselves ridiculous and contemptible in the eyes of these judges by toadying in their presence and kow-towing to them as if they were gods...
...4. Middlemen (as the packers, flour trust, wool trust, *tc...
...Every industry or activity that depends upon a grant of Government power for its right to exist and oper-i ate is, by the very terms of its ; being, a public institution and pos-' se"sses the power of taxation, the power to levy tribute, without regard to the actual value of the services or commodities it offers...
...6. Credit control (The Federal Reserve Bank system...
...The Czar of Russia in his palmiest days never had greater power over his subjects than has the Supreme Court today over the people of the United States...
...But for heaven's sake do not lose confidence in the immaculate conception and the God-ordained virtue, impartiality, uprightness, honesty and integrity of the Supreme Court, or fail to stand and uncover like a thoroughly trained monkey when a puppet of Wall Street propaganda at a movie show "leads" in the "Star Spangled Banner...
...Bunk and Hokum If the people were not the victim* of centuriea ef slavish tradition and raining...
...If the campaign of 1924 can teach us anything, it should be tho further lesson that any attack upon the lea...
...In answer to this let It be ssid that "strict constitutional ground" covers a multitude of possible interpretations...
...Senator Lyman Trumbull who wrote the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolishing chattel slavery, declared before his death that under injunction rule, which had just then been inaugurated in its drastic and sweeping modern application, conformably to the demand of modern capitalist imperialism, that "any Federal judge can now Imprison any citizen at will...
...The claim will of course be mile that the Supreme Court was conscience bound to determine the validity of the law on etrictly constitutional ground...
...While far from thinking the demonstration of the Independent or Progressive movement of 1924 either a mistake or a failure, a little study of the campaign develops conclusions that may be useful in future efforts to articulate a mass consciousness among those who are trying to bring about a more equitable social order...
...e. the people—simply assumes the...
...Courts for the Matters Is there anyone in his right senses who believes that if the mill owners, manufacturers and child-sweaters generally favored inr.trad of opposed the child labor law, that the Supreme Court would have declared it unconstitutional...
...while others feel the tariff extortions or the exactions of the middlemen—while still others seem to see only the staggering price of coal, lumber and other products of natural resources...
...The instrument of exploitntion in every instance is monopoly—and the disease that afflicts society is monopolism...
...It shows, also, that a political party cannot be constructed by associating heterogeneous groups of the dissatisfied, that are unrelated except as they are the common victims of a system that operates in different ways on the different groups...
...Nat since the days of Chief Justice John Marshall, the particular judicial god of the Virginia planters aad slave owners, has a single Federal judge been seated By the people...
...mini the absolute constitutionality of that law, had it been put to the test, which would be inconceivable in such a situation...
...Let it also be understood that, like all other capitalist nations under the sun, the United States has its ruling class and that this class consists of its owning class...
...Without undertaking to asi-ign positions of relative importance among these five groups, it ia obvious that | the power of credit control is the | foundation on which all the others I now depend...
...if ever that time comes, and there is reason to think it is 0^1 the way, although on a very slow schedule, there will certainly be an overturning of the present topsy-turvy order that will make history...
...3. Tariff taxation...
...An attack on any one of them is an attack on ' the principle, while an assault on the whole line prevents concentration of defense and compels each to defend itself alone...
...Corporation lawyers ate still corporation lawyers after they change their clothes and don flowing robrt and funny-looking lids with tassel attachments...
...If the Government—i...
...The Supreme Court is opposed to the child labor law and has cast it into the gutter for the sole reason that the dominant element of the ruling class that controls industry and therefore the Government, and therefore the Supreme Court, employs, sweats and profits by child lsbor for ths reason that it Is the cheapett of all labor, and is therefore opposed to having the children snatched from itt cruel clutches by a child labor law...
...The owning class is always the ruling class...
...A first class corporation lawyer has no trouble in proving any law constitutional or unconstitutional according to the size of his retainer...
...Credit Crimps Is All Certain groups among the people j feel more acutely than do other 'groups the impositions of this or that monopoly...
...the Supreme Court which has grown steadily in power achieved by usurpation and practically rules the lend...
...Not at all...
...Dr...
...Politics Distributes Wealth It is also evident that unity of purpose, the essence of any political party, hinges upon a common understanding of the causes of complaint and of appropriate measures for relief...
...Let us have a little tense and understanding about tnis matter...
...The world is in the grip of a vast moral revolt against an obviously immoral economic system, th.nt,has been built up through betrayals of public interest by political action...
...This is the source of nil the evils that afflict society as u body politic...
...The personnel of that body determines its character...
...And, also, that, this particular monopoly is more completely within the reach of correction than any other...
...This la capitalism, the thing for Which the people gave Coolidge a majority of over 7,000,000 votes...
...ing themselves at opposite side* with Nicholaa Murray Butler on tho child labor amendment...
...The Supreme < . .11 is not to blame...
...Csaritt Courts The truth of this statement is reflected infallibly in the personnel of the Supreme Court since the very foundation of the republic...
...Nicholas Murray Butler, the Wall Street handy-man who draws salary at president of Columbia University, has given reasons for opposing the child labor amendment that would put to shame even a half-wit who had never seen the Inside of a school room, and In so doing sustains his well-earned reputation for being true to his trust, not only, but to all the trusts...
...exercise of its Sovereign money functions, as imposed upon it by the Constitution,, the (now lawful) money trust will be deprived of its monopoly powers and compelled, if it continues in business at all, to operate without I the power it now derives from mon...
...That is the kind of court the American people want and why should they not have it...
...A Shining Example A shining example of these be-gowned "supremes" is...
...It is this power of taxation—the exercise of a Government, a public power, alone, that gives value to the posses-1 sion of monopoly...
...opoly...
...If ever the people bul hall' arouse from their torpor and stupefaction...
...The prime issue before the people of all the world centers in the disparity in the distribution of wealth: It is the politically created system by which wealth is so apportioned that some arc enabled to enjoy a larger share of the total production of wealth than their own contribution thereto—whereby others are forced to live on a share that is less than their contribution...
...Federal judge...
...but until our people can unite on the principle (and principles alone can sustain political parties) of anti-monopoly, under whatever name, they must continue a futile struggle for emancipation while sinking deeper into helplessness...
...Names mean but little...
...These may be roughly catalogued as 1. Natural resources...
...A monopoly is a law-made, or permitted, power to use a public right, a social right, for a private benefit...
...John Haynes Holmes, the noted [ rector of the Community Church in j New York, will speak at the Forum : of the Brooklyn Jewish Center, 667 Knstern Parkway, Monday evening, February !', at H: 1 r> o'clock...
...As a rule, to which I know of no exception, these supreme gentlemen have been the attorneys of the rich, the retainers and servants of the owning class, and why, it may be asked, should they be expected by any sane person to be other than the servants of that class when they step from the Bar to the Bench...
...His subject will be, "This Enormdus Decade from 1!»I4 to 1H24—Its Great Events, Great Men snd Great Con-aenutmpetk" The inlblic is invited...
...I...
...2. Public utilities...
...That would be the very height of treason, black, shameless treason, such as only a traitor and dastard would be guilty of, and must be punished accordingly to prevent the ruin and downfall of the nation...
...Once this is adequately understood, the remedy will be nt hand...
...the present Chief Justice himself, who was qualified for his supreme judicial pinnacle by having been retained, subsidized and mortgaged to the extent of $10,000 per year by that prince of plutocrats of Homestead memory, Andrew Carnegie, which the ponderous Chief Justice has been drawing from steel trust bonds and stowing in his ample jeans ever since...
...The people of this country will certainly make no mistake In plac...
...Five Main Monopolies ,Thc principle of monopoly as it appears in America is presented in a very few types or forms...
...The monopoly of credit control seems re-mote to most, yet this control determines the buying power of every coin 1 or money token, the price and value of every unit of production, every hour of labor service, every bond or insurance policy in all the land...
...The owners of the nation's industries whereby the people live, and without access to which they die, are ef course the rulers of the nation's destiny...
...t of all the subsidiary offshoots ; of monopoly is the signal for a mass ! movement of the whole list of monopolies to the defense...
...It is elemental that the primary function of politics is the distribution of wealth—exactly as the production of wealth is the function of industry...
Vol. 2 • February 1925 • No. 6
