Such proposals as those mentioned above as advocated by the extreme labor leaders contain the vital error of being class legislation of the most offensive kind, and even if enacted into law I believe that the law would rightly be held unconstitutional.  Moreover, the labor people are themselves now beginning to invoke the use of the power of injunction.  During the last ten years, and within my own knowledge, at least fifty injunctions have been obtained by labor unions in New York City alone, most of them being to protect the union label (a “property right"), but some being obtained for other reasons against employers.  The power of injunction is a great equitable remedy, which should on no account be destroyed.  But safeguards should be erected against its abuse.  I believe that some such provisions as those I advocated a year ago for checking the abuse of the issuance of temporary injunctions should be adopted.  In substance, provision should be made that no injunction or temporary restraining order issue otherwise than on notice, except where irreparable injury would otherwise result; and in such case a hearing on the merits of the order should be had within a short fixed period, and, if not then continued after hearing, it should forthwith lapse.  Decisions should be rendered immediately, and the chance of delay minimized in every way.  Moreover, I believe that the procedure should be sharply defined, and the judge required minutely to state the particulars both of his action and of his reasons therefor, so that the Congress can, if it desires, examine and investigate the same.

The chief lawmakers in our country may be, and often are, the judges, because they are the final seat of authority.  Every time they interpret contract, property, vested rights, due process of law, liberty, they necessarily enact into law parts of a system of social philosophy, and as such interpretation is fundamental, they give direction to all law-making.  The decisions of the courts on economic and social questions depend upon their economic and social philosophy; and for the peaceful progress of our people during the twentieth century we shall owe most to those judges who hold to a twentieth century economic and social philosophy and not to a long outgrown philosophy, which was itself the product of primitive economic conditions.  Of course a judge’s views on progressive social philosophy are entirely second in importance to his possession of a high and fine character; which means the possession of such elementary virtues as honesty, courage, and fair-mindedness.  The judge who owes his election to pandering to demagogic sentiments or class hatreds and prejudices, and the judge who owes either his election or his appointment to the money or the favor of a great corporation, are alike unworthy to sit on the bench, are alike traitors to the people; and no profundity of legal learning, or correctness of abstract conviction on questions of public policy, can serve as an offset to such shortcomings.  But it is also true that judges, like executives and legislators, should hold sound views on the questions of public policy which are of vital interest to the people.