Most  assuredly  remedial  measures  must  be  but  patch-
work and  ineffectual  so  long  as  Privilege  exists,  to  create,
to  adapt,  to  pervert  to  or  for  its  own  continuance  and
benefit.  So  long  as  Privilege  exists,  it  will  crowd  and
oppress  unorganized  labor.  So  long  as  it  exists  it  will,
where  it  cannot  make  terms  satisfactory  to  itself  with
organized  labor,  use  and  abuse  the  powers  of  the  courts
to  club  laborers  into  submission.
Indeed,  we  have  recently  witnessed  how  the  combined
railroad,  mining  and  smelting  monopoly  powers  in  the
State  of  Colorado  used  the  injunction  power  to  strike  at
the  ballot  itself.  This  was  done  on  the  theory  of  protect-
ing the  political  prerogatives  of  the  sovereign  people  —  the
kingly  prerogatives  which  the  American  people  derive
from  the  common  law  of  England.1  On  this  plea  two
of  the  three  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  enjoined  certain
persons  from  committing  election  frauds  in  the  guberna-
torial election  there  in  the  fall  of  1904  —  election  frauds
that  were  crimes  under  the  law.  After  the  election  the
two  judges  who  had  issued  the  injunction  ordered  all  the
ballots  of  certain  voting  precincts  to  be  thrown  out ;  not
because  the  vote  was  tainted  by  fraud,  as  was  commonly
believed,  nor  yet  because  the  statutes  authorize  such  action,
for  they  do>not.  The  exclusion  was  made  solely  on  the

1  See  signed  letter  from  Denver  by  Louis  F.  Post  in  the  The  Public,
Chicago,  Dec.  3,  1904  (p.  547,  seventh  year),


200  The  Menace  oj  Privilege

ground  that  acts  were  committed  in  those  precincts  in
violation  of  the  injunction.
Said  a  brilliant  publicist  at  that  time,  Mr.  Louis  F.
