Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/769

 588

THE GREEN BAG

wool growers of Ohio ought also to have the same exemption. While the bill was pending before the Senate, having been reported from the committee of the whole to the Senate, a successful effort was made to refer it to the Judiciary Committee, it having been en cumbered in the committee of the whole by a large variety of amendments, a great deal of doubt being expressed as to what would be its proper construction. Pending the adoption in the Senate of the amendment already quoted, which had been adopted in the committee of the whole, Senator Edmunds, who was easily one of the greatest if not the greatest lawyer in the Senate at that time, and one of the greatest lawyers the Senate ever had in its member ship, took occasion to discuss this particu lar amendment. His discussion and his opinions are extremely significant, because, as will appear later, the bill was finally, after the debate in which he participated, referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, of which he was the chairman. In referring to this particular amendment he said: "However, the whole thing is wrong, as it appears to me; and so I think the amend ment is wrong in the same way, which says that while the capital and the plant in any enterprise shall not combine to defend and protect itself, to increase the price of the product of that capital and plant, the labor which is essential to the production of that plant may combine to increase the price of the product of that capital and plant, the labor which is essential to the production of that plant may combine to increase the price of the work that is to be done to make the production of that enter prise." . . . And again : "The fact is that this matter of capital, as it is called, of business and of labor, is an equation, and you cannot disturb one side of the equation without disturbing the other. If it costs for labor 50 per cent more to produce a ton of iron, that 50 per cent more goes into

what that iron must sell for, or some part Of it. I take it everybody will agree to that. . . . Neither speeches nor laws nor judgments of courts nor anything else can change it, and therefore I say to provide on one side of that equation that there may be com binations, and on the other side that there shall not, is contrary to the very inherent principle upon which such business must depend. If we are to have equality, as we ought to have, if the combination on the one side is to be prohibited, the combination on the other side must be prohibited, or there will be certain destruction in the end" This is a very clear and concise state ment of the precise business proposition involved in this legislation. The only answer attempted to be made to this argu ment of Senator Edmunds was the su gestion by Senator Hoar, who said, in under taking to differentiate the employee from the other factors upon which the legisla tion was intended to operate : "The laborer who is engaged lawfully and usefully and accomplishing his pur pose in whole or in part in endeavoring to raise the standard of wages is engaged in an occupation the success of which makes republican government itself possible, and without which the Republic cannot in sub stance, however it may nominally do it in form, continue to exist. "I hold, therefore, that, as legislators, we may constitutionally, properly and wisely allow laborers to make associations, combi nations, contracts, agreements for the sake of maintaining and advancing their wages, in regard to which, as a rule, their contracts are to be made with large corporations who are themselves but an association or com bination or aggregation of capital on the other side. When we are permitting and even encouraging that we are permitting and encouraging what is not only lawful, wise and profitable, but absolutely essential to the existence of the Commonwealth itself." While we might all agree with Senator Hoar as to the essential importance of the