A Judge Tells Spokane's Restaurant Men Their Strike Injunction Is Worthless

The hotel and restaurant employers in Spokane received a solar plexus blow the other day when Judge Webster denied their petition for an injunction against members of the cooks, waiters and waitresses' union.

The application was an outcome of the successful fight the union has been waging against the employers' association. Organized labor has been getting it in the neck from the courts with such painful regularity of late years that it is rather an innovation to score. The following brief statement of the court's decision is copied from the columns of The Spokane Inland Herald:

A complete knockout was scored by organized labor in the fight instituted by the hotel and restaurant men who have been affected by the strike of the cooks and waiters. Judge J. Stanley Webster of the superior court dismissed the restraining order secured before Judge W. A. Huneke and denied the application for an injunction pending the suit.

The matter was first argued before the court on a demurrer interposed by T. Connor, attorney for the unions, but this demurrer was overruled. The court then went into the facts in the case and decided that there was no evidence before the court which would warrant an injunction.

The case had previously been narrowed down by eliminating all of the defendants excepting Frank Gould, Ida Holmes, Bessie Shaw and May Brown, the service against the Allied Crafts and the cooks' and waiters' unions having been thrown out by Judge Huneke.

In giving his decision Judge Webster stated that the rules of law had been well settled in the past few years as to when injunctions should and should not be granted in labor disputes. He first stated that workers had the undeniable right to strike or walk out at any time, and went further to hold that the strikers unquestionably had the right to use any peaceable means to induce others to walk out. No threats, intimidation or violence can be tolerated by law, and when these methods are pursued the actions of the strikers are then unlawful.

The court raised the question as to whether the actions of the strikers in approaching strike breakers was such as to cause them to leave their work through fear, or whether it left them free to do as they pleased, and he held that, under the evidence as applying to the four defendants, no illegal act had been committed. He cited the instance of a waitress in the Model Bakers who was approached by Bessie Shaw, and held that the striker had a perfect right to talk to the waitress and, in fact, was not denied a hearing by the woman. Miss Shaw's acts, he said, did not warrant an injunction being issued against her.

The court also made an important ruling on the matter of the circulation of the cards bearing the names of union and non-union houses, and held that there was nothing in these cards which brought them within the law. That they contain the truth was not denied in the evidence, and the court held that there is a certain amount of good will attached to a union house, and the public generally has a right to know which houses are union and which are not. He also upheld the cards on constitutional grounds, and stated that if they were libelous the plaintiffs had recourse through the criminal courts. If they were scandalous the remedy was through a civil suit, the ability of the offender to pay having nothing to do with the matter.

No Conspiracy Found.

The court held there was no evidence of a conspiracy on the part of the four defendants to ruin the restaurant men through any unlawful acts and the testimony failed to involve them with anything unlawful.

It was also held that there was no evidence of the four defendants having been doing picket duty, nor was there an active boycott shown.

The court expressed the opinion that picketing, as it is known in labor battles, may properly be enjoined, and stated that had the evidence disclosed that the defendants had been picketing restaurants he would have issued an injunction.

The decision of Judge Webster was clear cut. He fully amplified his decision by illustration from time to time. The opinion was handed down immediately following the closing argument of Attorney Samuel R. Stern, who appeared for the restaurant men.