THE RIGHTS OF THE WORKINGMAN.
(The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, October, 1903.) The right to the free use of his hands is the workman's property as much as the rich man's right to the undisturbed income from his factory, houses, and lands; by his work he earns present subsistence for himself and family; his savings may result in accumulations which will make him as rich in houses and lands as his employer. This right of acquiring property is an inherent, indefensible right of the workman; to exercise it, he must have the unrestricted privilege of working for such employer as he chooses, at such wages as he chooses to accept. This is one of the rights guaranteed him by our "Declaration of Rights;" it is a right of which the Legislature can not deprive him, one of which the law of no trade union can take from him, and one which it is the bounden duty of the courts to protect. The one most concerned in jealously maintaining this freedom is the workman himself.