The matter of injunctions against strikers is beginning to be funny. The first injunction [against strikers] was mild and reasonable. It prohibited the strikers from mistreating their fellowmen who were so lacking in good sense that they would accept the jobs left by other workers because wages were too low. Since then, injunctions have increased in harshness and in stupidity. It seems at least that such injunctions contrary to the law of the land, which will forbid a person's joining a union, are stupid. At the present, it appears that every judge is trying to gain renown by issuing injunctions against strikers. In Omaha, three wise men have endangered their own standing as keen judges by issuing injunctions against strikers.

If, as might frequently occur, a striker trespasses on the arbitrary law which a judge decides against him on the plea of some prominent people interested in the matter, then he is sentenced to a term in jail. And the case against him is tried, and sentence is passed by the same man who laid down the law in the first place, without reference to the adopted laws of the country. In this manner, some of our judges have made criminals of law-abiding fellow-citizens.

Injunctions have been issued against walking along certain streets designated by the judge; against holding meetings at certain designated places, of which the government is the sole owner; against quitting work, something in which the worker has the sole right to make decisions; against belonging to a union, an injunction which all the judges in the country, 3with all their power, are lacking the might to enforce. Under all these laws of coercion, the striking workers have suffered, vet not without complaining.

Able lawyers and just judges have warned against the steadily growing custom of issuing injunctions, the sole reason for which has been that shortsighted employers have wished to carry on their work through the employment of men who were lacking the sense of solidarity. Many of these lawyers have predicted the coming of a day when the strikers will employ the same type of weapon against the employers as the latter have employed against the former. Of late their predictions have proven true.

In the city of Omaha, where 3,000 men are on strike, and where three injunctions 4are hanging over their heads, the strikers have let their employers feel the full weight of an injunction, far more just than those under the pressure of which they themselves have been suffering. The injunction has been issued by Judge Dickinson, a very conservative judge according to reports, and it prohibits the Business Men's Association from compelling any person to join their Association, from hurting, financially or physically, any of the members of their Association, if such member should decide to use only union men in their work; to pay money to break up the workers' union; to import workers from other localities to take the places of the striking workers; to apply for any further injunctions against the strikers.

The issuance of this injunction has given the business men of Omaha tit for 5tat, and now since the ice is broken, we shall expect strikers in other localities to follow the example set, combatting injunctions with other injunctions.

We do not believe that the injunction issued at the behest of the workers is more legal than any of the rest. But it may be well, of course, that the employers come to realize that this weapon which they so often have been using against the workers is a double-edged sword which needs to be handled with care if the wielder of it is not, himself, to be hurt.