The Daily News Of The Virgin Islands

THURSDAY, FEB. 15, 1962

ORGANIZED BANDITRY

Under the bill recently passed by the Legislature "to regulate the insurance of injunctions in labor disputes" we are witnessing a dangerous overemphasis on the protection of labor unions and union leaders to the potential detriment of other insular groups.

This points up the serious question of a labor union leader in the Legislature who is pushing, magnifying, and exaggerating out of all proportion the need, real or imagined, of his personal-interest group and above the welfare of the whole community.

The founding fathers of our nation in their wisdom instituted a government of carefully devised checks and balances characterized by three branches, executive, legislative, and judicial.

For good reasons this same pattern has been the model for most state and territorial government under the American flag. This sound organization has made it possible for any one branch of the government to hamstring the efforts of any other branch to function freely for, of, and by the people.

When the private-interest dictates of any one group are forced by law upon another group, we have a political structure which is less than American and, in some instances, positively unAmerican.

When we tamper with the courts and tie their hands, we are moving into the dangerous and questionable province of organized banditry. In effect, the Legislature is making the code of gangsters and thugs the code of the land.

It is this kind of Legislation which Mr. Hoffa would have given his heart to have passed by the Congress of the United States.

There is still another hazard in the kind of legislation which tends to favor one group exclusively over all others, regardless of the interests of all the people.

We have sought in these islands for a greater measure of self government.

We have tried to convince the Government in Washington that we have grown up, that we are now mature enough, intelligent enough, to assume the responsibility of charting our own destiny.

If the recent labor law is a sample of our political insight, we fear that self-determination is a long way off.

Certainly the Legislature has not learned the first page of American history, has not understood the most rudimentary principles of American government, does not have the slightest regard for the American way, except insofar as special interests are to be served.

Perhaps the Governor will want to check very carefully into the peculiar provisions of this bill before becoming a party to it.