State v. Julow

• Decision Date: 18 June 1895
• Citation: 129 Mo. 163,31 S.W. 781
• Parties: STATE v. JULOW.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

31 S.W. 781

129 Mo. 163

STATE v. JULOW.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

June 18, 1895.

DUE PROCESS OF LAW — MEMBERSHIP OF LABOR UNION — PROHIBITION BY EMPLOYER — SPECIAL LEGISLATION.

1. Act March 6, 1893, in making it unlawful for an employer to prohibit an employé from joining, or to require an employé to withdraw from, a trade or labor union or other lawful organization, violates Const. U. S. Amend. 5, and Const. art. 2, § 30, declaring that no one shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, and article 14, § 1, prohibiting any state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

2. Act March 6, 1893, making it unlawful for an employer to prohibit an employé from joining, or to require an employé to withdraw from, a trade or labor union or other lawful organization, is unconstitutional, as being special legislation.

3. A citizen cannot be deprived of a right secured by the constitution by a statute passed as a police regulation.

Appeal from St. Louis court of criminal correction; James R. Claiborne, Judge.

George Julow was convicted of violation of a law making it unlawful for an employer to prohibit an employé from joining a labor union, or to require him to withdraw from such union, and appeals. Reversed.

The defendant, being tried upon an information, was fined $50, and appeals to this court. The information had for its origin the following statute:¹

"Section 1. No employer, superintendent, foreman, or other person exercising superintendence or authority over any mechanic, miner, engineer, fireman, switchman, baggageman, brakeman, conductor, telegraph operator, laborer or other workingman, shall enter into any contract or agreement with any such employé to withdraw from any trade union, labor union or other lawful organization of which said employé may be a member, or requiring said employé to refrain from joining any trade union, labor union, or other lawful organization, or requiring any such employé to abstain from attending any meeting or assemblage of people called or held for lawful purposes, or shall by any means attempt to compel or coerce any employé into withdrawal from any lawful organization or society.

"Sec. 2. Corporations, and the managers, superintendents, overseers, master mechanics, foremen, officers and directors, and others exercising authority for and on behalf of corporations doing business in this state, shall be subject to the provisions of this act, and, upon conviction of the violation of any of its provisions, to the punishment prescribed by it.

"Sec. 3. Any person or corporation violating any of the provisions of this act shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not less than fifty dollars nor more than one thousand dollars, or imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment."

The particular portion of section 1 on which the information is bottomed is that in italics. The information, in substance, charged that George Julow was on the 23d of May, 1894, a foreman or superintendent of the Hamilton-Brown Shoe Company, and as such exercised authority over one Richard C. Simmonds, then a mechanic or workman and employé of said Hamilton-Brown Shoe Company, but not under contract for any definite period of time; that at the same time Simmonds was a member of the Lasters' Protective Association of America, a lawful labor organization or society; that on the date last aforesaid Julow notified Simmonds that unless he withdrew from membership of said association he could no longer work for or be employed by said shoe company; that Simmonds refused to withdraw from said association, and thereupon he was on said date, for the reason aforesaid, by Julow discharged from the service of said shoe company, etc. The evidence supported the charge contained in the information. The defendant introduced no evidence on his part, nor did he make any admission as to the truth of such charge, but having previously demurred to the sufficiency of the information, without success, at the close of the testimony of the state he unsuccessfully renewed his attack on the information, and the evidence offered in support thereof, by moving for his discharge, which motion being denied, and he found guilty and judgment rendered against him, as aforesaid, for $50, he moved for a new trial and in arrest, but without avail; hence this appeal.

S. B. Jones & Williams, for appellant. R. F. Walker, Atty. Gen., for the State.

SHERWOOD, J.

1. The defendant alleges various grounds why the act under which he was convicted is unconstitutional, among them these: "Because the act of the legislature under which the said information was drawn is unconstitutional and void, because it violates the following provisions of the constitution of the state of Missouri: (1) `That all persons have a natural right to life, liberty and the enjoyment of the gains of their own industry.' Section 4, art. 2. (2) `That no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.' Section 30, art. 2. (3) That the act of the legislature aforesaid violates the constitutional provision forbidding the legislature to grant `to any corporation, association or individual any special or exclusive right, privilege or immunity.' Section 53, art. 4. That the act aforesaid violates the 14th amendment to the constitution of the United States, which provides: `Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'"

For the present purpose it will be assumed that defendant attempted to do the act with which he is charged, and that it lay in his power to compel or coerce Simmonds to withdraw from a lawful organization with which he was connected; because by so doing all discussion of matters merely preliminary to the main question herein involved will be avoided. A similar provision to that contained in section 30, art. 2, supra, is found in the 5th amendment to the constitution of the United States, providing, among other things, "nor deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law." In section 30, supra, as well as in the section in the federal constitution just recited, it will be noted that the rights of life, liberty, and property are grouped together in the same sentence; they constitute a trinity of rights, and each, as opposed to unlawful deprivation thereof, is of equal constitutional importance. With each of those rights, under the operation of a familiar principle, every auxiliary right, every attribute necessary to make the principal right effectual and valuable in its most extensive sense, pass as incidents of the original grant. "The rights thus guarantied are something more than the mere privileges of locomotion; the guaranty is the negation of arbitrary power in every form which results in a deprivation of a right."

These terms, "life," "liberty," and "property," are representative terms, and cover every right to which a member of the body politic is entitled under the law. Within their comprehensive scope are embraced the right of self-defense, freedom of speech, religious and political freedom, exemption from arbitrary arrests, the right to buy and sell as others may, — all our liberties, personal, civil, and political, — in short, all that makes life worth living; and of none of these liberties can any one be deprived except by due process of law. 2 Story, Const. (5th Ed.) § 1950. Now, as before stated, each of the rights here tofore mentioned carries with it, as its natural and necessary coincident, all that effectuates and renders complete the full, unrestrained enjoyment of that right. Take, for instance, that of property. Necessarily blended with that right are those of acquiring property by labor, by contract, and also of terminating that contract at pleasure, being liable, however, civilly for any unwarranted...