Twentieth Century Socialism Part 37

_Journal American Medical a.s.sociation_, Feb. 26, 1910.

III

EXTRACTS FROM EDICT OF LOUIS XVI, 1776, ABOLIs.h.i.+NG THE GUILDS[230]

Louis, etc. We owe it to our subjects to a.s.sure them the full and complete enjoyment of their rights; we owe that protection especially to that cla.s.s of men who, possessing nothing but their labor and industry, above all others have the need and right of employing to the limit of their capacity their sole resources for subsistence.

We have viewed with pain the multiplied blows which have been struck at this natural and common right of ancient inst.i.tutions, blows which neither time, nor opinion, nor even the acts emanating from the authority, which seems to have sanctioned them, have been able to make legitimate.

[After describing the vicious effects of the guild monopoly, it continues:]

... Some persons ... contend that the right of labor is a royal right, one that the Prince could sell and that the subjects ought to purchase. We hasten to place beside this another maxim:

G.o.d, by giving to men needs and making them dependent upon the resources of labor, has made the right of labor the property of all men, and that property is primary, the most sacred and most imprescriptable of all.

We regard it as one of the first obligations of our justice, and as an act in every way worthy of our beneficence, to emanc.i.p.ate our subjects from all their restraints which have been laid upon that inalienable right of humanity. Wherefore, we will to abolish the arbitrary inst.i.tutions which do not permit the indigent to live by their labor; which exclude the s.e.x whose weakness implies greatest needs and fewest resources ... which stifle emulation and industry and make useless the talents of those whom circ.u.mstances exclude from admission into the guild; which deprive the state and art of all the advantages which foreigners might furnish....

FOOTNOTES:

[230] Translation taken from "Turgot and the Six Edicts," by R.P.

Shepherd, 1903, pp. 182, 186-7.

IV

POLICE COMMISSIONER BINGHAM

Declaring that "law-breaking is the easiest and the most lucrative business in New York for the work involved," Police Commissioner Bingham yesterday forwarded his annual report to Mayor McClellan.

After stating that law-breaking in the city is an easy and lucrative business, the Commissioner continued:

"Its profits for slight effort are enormous and law-breaking has been able to intrench itself behind such a rampart of legislation and highly paid lawyers that the forces of law and order are placed in the astonis.h.i.+ng position of being actually on the defensive against the law-breakers. Law-breakers and their highly paid lawyers frequently fool even the courts into giving them protection against the police on the grounds of illegal interference, or oppression.

"The howl of innocence is never so loud as when raised by crooks, and this includes not only the actual criminals, but their friends and protectors, crooked politicians. How otherwise is it possible for prizefights to be held in New York city, in spite of the earnest efforts of the police to prevent them? How otherwise is it possible for places positively known by the police to be gambling resorts to be conducted, and to obtain injunctions restraining the police from interfering with them?

"The foregoing is far from saying that the police force of New York is incompetent, or not able to cope with the situation. The police force is competent, short-handed though it is. Its activity and efficiency are proved by the very resistance given it by law-breakers, for the better the work done by the police, the more stubborn is the resistance they meet with from law-breakers."

As an example of what the police have to cope with the Commissioner mentions the recent Sunday-closing incident, where a court decision was handed down, and enforced, and the Aldermen straightway amended the law. He then asks: "How then can the police execute the law, when there seems to be so much doubt as to what the law really is?"

Gen. Bingham continues:

"These points are necessary in order that scheming politicians may be deprived of any possibility of summarily getting rid of an honest commissioner and in order that the honest men of the police force may be encouraged. The men of the force to-day are not quite sure who is their real boss--the 'machine' or the police commissioner. If once satisfied that it is the commissioner, with a long term and only removable on publication of charges, they will obey him."

Legislation requiring persons who sell any sort of dangerous weapons to record the date and hour of the sale, and report it, with the name and address of the buyer, to the police, is suggested, as well as a daily report from p.a.w.nbrokers, giving the date, hour, and other particulars of their transactions. This, the Commissioner says, is the custom in other large cities.

The following figures of arrests, etc., in the last year are given in the report:

ARRESTS MADE

By uniformed force 192,680 Detective Bureau 11,416 ------- Total 204,096

These figures refer to the Boroughs of Manhattan, The Bronx, and Richmond.

N.Y. _Times_, Jan. 5, 1908.

V

PETTIBONE v. NICHOLS

_Dissenting opinion_ of Mr. Justice MCKENNA:

I am constrained to dissent from the opinion and judgment of the court. The principle announced, as I understand it, is that "a Circuit Court of the United States, when asked upon _habeas corpus_ to discharge a person held in actual custody by a State for trial in one of its courts under an indictment charging a crime against its laws, cannot properly take into account the methods whereby the State obtained such custody." In other words, and to illuminate the principle by the light of the facts in this case (facts, I mean, as alleged, and which we must a.s.sume to be true for the purpose of our discussion), that the officers of one State may falsely represent that a person was personally present in the State and committed a crime there, and had fled from its justice, may arrest such person and take him from another State, the officers of the latter knowing of false accusation and conniving in and aiding its purpose, thereby depriving him of an opportunity to appeal to the courts, and that such person cannot invoke the rights guaranteed to him by the Const.i.tution and statutes of the United States in the State to which he is taken. And this, it is said, is supported by the cases of _Ker_ v. _Illinois_, 119 U.S. 436, and _Mahon_ v. _Justice_, 127 U.S. 700. These cases, extreme as they are, do not justify, in my judgment, the conclusion deduced from them. In neither case was the State the actor in the wrongs that brought within its confines the accused person. In the case at bar, the States, through their officers, are the offenders.

They, by an illegal exertion of power, deprived the accused of a const.i.tutional right. The distinction is important to be observed. It finds expression in _Mahon_ v. _Justice_. But it does not need emphasizing. Kidnapping is a crime, pure and simple. It is difficult to accomplish; hazardous at every step. All of the officers of the law are supposed to be on guard against it. All of the officers of the law may be invoked against it. But how is it when the law becomes the kidnapper, when the officers of the law, using its forms and exerting its power, become abductors? This is not a distinction without a difference--another form of the crime of kidnapping, distinguished only from that committed by an individual by circ.u.mstances. If a State may say to one within her borders and upon whom her process is served, I will not inquire how you came here; I must execute my laws and remit you to proceedings against those who have wronged you, may she so plead against her own offences? May she claim that by mere physical presence within her borders, an accused person is within her jurisdiction denuded of his const.i.tutional rights, though he has been brought there by her violence? And const.i.tutional rights the accused in this case certainly did have, and valuable ones. The foundation of extradition between the States is that the accused should be a fugitive from justice from the demanding State, and he may challenge the fact by _habeas corpus_ immediately upon his arrest. If he refute the fact he cannot be removed. _Hyatt_ v. _Corkran_, 188 U.S. 691.

And the right to resist removal is not a right of asylum. To call it so in the State where the accused is is misleading. It is the right to be free from molestation. It is the right of personal liberty in its most complete sense. And this right was vindicated in _Hyatt_ v.

_Corkran_, and the fiction of a constructive presence in a State and a constructive flight from a constructive presence rejected. This decision ill.u.s.trates at once the value of the right and the value of the means to enforce the right. It is to be hoped that our criminal jurisprudence will not need for its efficient administration the destruction of either the right or the means to enforce it. The decision in the case at bar, as I view it, brings us perilously near both results. Is this exaggeration? What are the facts in the case at bar as alleged in the pet.i.tion, and which it is conceded must be a.s.sumed to be true? The complaint, which was the foundation of the extradition proceedings, charged against the accused the crime of murder on the thirtieth of December, 1905, at Caldwell, in the county of Canyon, State of Idaho, by killing one Frank Steunenberg, by throwing an explosive bomb at and against his person. The accused avers in his pet.i.tion that he had not been "in the State of Idaho, in any way, shape or form, for a period of more than ten years" prior to the acts of which he complained, and that the Governor of Idaho knew accused had not been in the State the day the murder was committed, "nor at any time near that day." A conspiracy is alleged between the Governor of the State of Idaho and his advisers, and that the Governor of the State of Colorado took part in the conspiracy, the purpose of which was "to avoid the Const.i.tution of the United States and the act of Congress made in pursuance thereof, and to prevent the accused from a.s.serting his const.i.tutional right under cl. 2, sec. 2, of art. IV, of the Const.i.tution of the United States and the act made pursuant thereof." The manner in which the alleged conspiracy had been executed was set out in detail. It was in effect that the agent of the State of Idaho arrived in Denver, Thursday, February 15, 1906, but it was agreed between him and the officers of Colorado that the arrest of the accused should not be made until some time in the night of Sat.u.r.day, after business hours--after the courts had closed and judges and lawyers had departed to their homes; that the arrest should be kept a secret and the body of the accused should be clandestinely hurried out of the State of Colorado with all possible speed, without the knowledge of his friends or his counsel; that he was at the usual place of business during Thursday, Friday, and Sat.u.r.day, but no attempt was made to arrest him until 11.30 o'clock P.M. Sat.u.r.day, when his house was surrounded and he was arrested. Moyer was arrested under the same circ.u.mstances at 8.45, and he and accused "thrown into the county jail of the city and county of Denver." It is further alleged that, in pursuance of the conspiracy, between the hours of five and six o'clock on Sunday morning, February 18, the officers of the State and "certain armed guards, being a part of the forces of the militia of the State of Colorado," provided a special train for the purpose of forcibly removing him from the State of Colorado, and between said hours he was forcibly placed on said train and removed with all possible speed to the State of Idaho; that prior to his removal and at all times after his incarceration in the jail at Denver he requested to be allowed to communicate with his friends and his counsel and his family, and the privilege was absolutely denied him. The train, it is alleged, made no stop at any considerable station, but proceeded at great and unusual speed; and that he was accompanied by and surrounded with armed guards, members of the State militia of Colorado, under the orders and directions of the adjutant general of the State.

I submit that the facts in this case are different in kind and transcend in consequences those in the cases of _Ker_ v. _Illinois_ and _Mahon_ v. _Justice_, and differ from and transcend them as the power of a State transcends the power of an individual. No individual or individuals could have accomplished what the the power of the two States accomplished; no individual or individuals could have commanded the means and success; could have made two arrests of prominent citizens by invading their homes; could have commanded the resources of jails, armed guards and special trains; could have successfully timed all acts to prevent inquiry and judicial interference.

The accused, as soon as he could have done so, submitted his rights to the consideration of the courts. He could not have done so in Colorado, he could not have done so on the way from Colorado. At the first instant that the State of Idaho relaxed its restraining power he invoked the aid of _habeas corpus_ successively of the Supreme Court of the State and of the Circuit Court of the United States. He should not have been dismissed from the court, and the action of the Circuit Court in so doing should be reversed.

VI

EUGENE v. DEBS

"Yes," said Debs. "The trusts are wiping out the compet.i.tive system.

They are a stage in the process of evolution: the individual; the firm; the corporation; the trust; and so, finally, the commonwealth.

By killing compet.i.tion and training men to work together, trusts are preparing for the cooperative stage of industry: Socialism."

"Then you would keep the trusts we have and welcome others?" I asked.

"Of course," he answered, and Berger nodded approval.

"They do harm now," I suggested.