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Show When On Trial A CONTEMPORARY says, speaking of the prosecution of certain labor leaders, that union "labor is not on trial." That is only half true. Union labor is more than half on trial. When a union labor leader pleads guilty to wholesale murder, done, presumably, presum-ably, by direction of the officers of a union, in tho eyes of honest men theVe is but one thing to do, that is for the union to repudiate such men and see that all connected with those men as officers of the union are dismissed and honest men elected. When they will not, then the union itself is on trial in public estimation, because be-cause there is no compromise that is due wtih crime. There is no law, human or divine, that justifies the members of an organization to go about the country committing murder and arson, and when labor unions falter in doing their duty in a case of that kind, when the case is absolutely abso-lutely confessed, then they are hurting their union, because such a thing, driven far enough, will cause decent men to determine that no labor union man shall get employment from them. When Mr. Heywood, who had been on trial for a like offense, said upon hearing that two labor union leaders had confessed to murder, that he sympathized with them; by that act the rank and file of his union should not have hesitated hesi-tated one moment, but should have filed him out of office, as there is no labor union strong enough to support a man of that kind and retain the confidence con-fidence of its fellowmen. |