ATTACKING THE PRESIDENT.
By Editor
(Editorial from San Francisco "Call," Sept. 22, 1903.) It is evident that the American Federation of Labor is giving impulse to a campaign which is operated on several converging lines. Members of the federation in Porto Rico are spreading sedition among the very ignorant members of the labor unions in that island, and have gone so far as to denounce the flag of the United States as the emblem of rascality, and to threaten the life of Governor Hunt. On the mainland the movement is more cautious, tho in the same direction. Here the laws of the unions and the laws of the land conflict in respect to membership in the National Guard. Federal and State laws recognize the militia organized in the National Guard as the defensive arm of the government and the training-school of the military rank and file. In times of civil disorder, when the peace officers and the courts are confronted by a physical force obstructive of their functions, the militia is the sole resource of the State for protection against that actual anarchy which exists when the civil courts can no longer enforce the law. The next resort is to Federal authority enforced by the regular army of the United States. The unions in the American Federation strike at the nearest support of law and order by striking at the militia. During the past few months National Guardsmen, and some of them officers, have been compelled by their unions to resign. They have given their reason that, if they remain in the guard, they will be expelled from the union, and then, if they attempt to work, they will be killed. It will be seen at once that this is the use of duress of the most serious kind in order to break down the first defense of the law. It is in effect threatening with assassination every man who holds the law of his country to be higher than the laws of his labor union. The extravagant assumptions with which the country has been made familiar, and at which good citizens have laughed as mere vaporizing of ignorant enthusiasts, have borne fruit. When Mr. Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, declared here, in the presence, and the approving presence, too, of the mayor of this city and the governor of this State, that his organization had "sovereign rights," law-abiding citizens believed that he was using terms in ignorance of their meaning, since here only the State has sovereignty and sovereign rights. But Mr. Gompers was not using a term in ignorance of its significance. He knew and meant exactly what he said, that his organization had taken, in the allegiance of its members, the place of the State, and they knew no other sovereignty than that represented by him. Again at New Orleans, Mr. Gompers gave evidence of his sense of the importance of his position and authority when he said, with his sovereign character in mind, "Our most dangerous competitor is the Federal Government." He undoubtedly meant that his federation of labor unions was strong enough in its sovereignty to subvert a single State, or to overcome, one by one, a group of States, inasmuch as one State can not go to the aid of another, except as it operates through Federal energy. But after that he would find the Federal Government, with the regular army, making a stand for public sovereignty, as against the claims of voluntary organizations bound by secret oaths. It must be admitted that Mr. Gompers has inspired his confederated unions with the courage of his convictions. They are now fearlessly attacking the laws of the United States and threatening the President for enforcing them. So far, every considerable conventicle of labor unions held during the summer has declared for the sovereign right of the unions to dictate the terms of employment in the government printing office, book bindery, and bureau of engraving and printing. The terms they dictate violate the laws of the land, and as those laws conform to the Constitution, the unions are striking at the fundamental law. President Roosevelt, as his oath and duty require, has upheld and enforced the law, and for this they threaten him with vengeance. Having shown their power to disorganize the National Guard, and to leave a single State powerless to enforce the law, they now aim their vengeance at the President himself. There is no use denying the fact that this contest puts our institutions to a new test and subjects them to a new strain, in some of its aspects more serious than secession itself. The talk of the last few years, supposed to be wild and empty, has been accepted as the teaching of a principle, and has impressed the vast numbers of alien immigrants who have recruited the ranks of union labor, to the exclusion of Americans, and now the conflict rages around the Federal Government, and the President is threatened because he represents the sovereignty of the United States and the supremacy of the law. The issue is serious; it is revolutionary; it is subversive of all law. It is to be carried, secretly or openly, into the next Presidential campaign, and may easily cause all other issues to be forgotten. If the people of this country tolerate another sovereignty than that of the State, then anarchy is here.