Show A SERIOUS SITUATION this paper recently referred to the situation of we tee homestead strikers etri kers them making it A already the charge against one of the be celebrated oases cases of the country treason in his charge to the grand jury chief justice paxson gave a most learned and perspicuous exposition of the crime named explaining its ito elements ele mento and pointing out its ita features featured it was unusually lengthy about word and was considered coni dered by the local bar as a unfavorable to the defendants defend ante the judge gave moms instructions to the jury that carry conviction along with them and although they seem at umen times to deal in commonplace ahing twinge these them are necessary for a more perfect understanding of the whole legal fabrie fabric presented to the panel his statement th that atthe the mutual right of the parties to contract in ward to the wages and the character of the employment whether by the lees or by the jay day whether for ten g elece ours ouro or less lees is fixed as any other right we elloy all and the subjoined sub joined statement that ier it is the plain duty of the to protect them in the enjoy ment of it are unanswerable answerable as legal propositions albeit somewhat prejudicial to the cause of those who hold bold to the supremacy of the union by which the workers were controlled he does not stop atop with this general reference however but goes on to make special 11 a I 1 1 mention of the interference by the 0 organization r g animation aniza tion saying it is ia alleged that the advisory committee did more than induce others not to accept employment from the corn com it allowed no persons to enter the mill and even permitted no strangers to enter the town without its consent 1 the judge refers to the corn com mit mitte wB military organization showing how the authority of the had been defied aud then deals with the homestead battle and concomitant circumstances with which we are all familiar the language of the charge to is in places quite graphic and throughout maintains a high literary character some of the passage palagea are dramatic and pathetic as aa witness the following we can have some sympathy with a mob driven to desperation by hunger as in the days of the french revolution but but we can have none for men receiving receiving exceptionally high wages in restating resisting the law and resorting to violence and bloodshed in the assertion of imaginary rights and entailing such a vast expense upon the taxpayers of the commonwealth it was not a cry for bread to teed leed their famishing lips resulting in a sudden out rage roge with wih gaoa good provocation it was a deliberate attempt by men without authority to control others in the enjoyment of their highs 11 such a state of things existing in ID any country his honor concludes shows that there to is a weak spot which is in not in the law itself but probably in its enforcement if those who are charged with its administration do but their plain duty all that is deeded will be accomplished and he did not think by reason of a long experience on the bench that the jury fury in this case would fall fail to do theirs treason was defined by his bis honor as the organization of a large number of men in a common purpose to defy the law resist the officers and deprive any portion of their fellow citizens of rights under the constitution and laws it was wag shown as an a maxim of criminal law that a man is presumed to have intended that which to Is the natural and probable consequence of his bis acts act and then the judge closed by saying we have reached the point in the history of the state where there are but two roads left for as to pursue the I 1 one leads to order and good government the other leads to anarchy after reading and considering the report of the I 1 judges charge we are inclined I 1 n to the opinion previously spoken of that it was unfavorable to the strikers unless union this thin judgment to is greatly at fault in the premises we might go a step further and may lay that it amounts substantially to a direction to the jury to has already been seen men they did in the oases cases of thirty one of the strikers the evidence seems strong so go that convictions are more than proba eleand the crime to is the highest known to the law the situation its is a most serious one |