ing the later eighties and during the nineties that they experienced a revival of suspicion and hostility on the part of the courts and a renewal of legal restra

nd brought to a fine point in practical application. The history of the courts' attitu

o of the court's decision in the Theiss boycott case in New York in 1886, which proved a prime moving factor in launching the famous Henry George campaign for Mayor. And we gave due note to the role of court injunctions in the Debs strike of 1894 and in other

it for its own purposes. The condemnation of the journeymen on this ground gave rise to a vehement protest on the part of the journeymen themselves and their friends. It was pointed out that the journeymen were convicted for acts which are considered lawful when done by masters or merchants. Therefore when the next conspiracy case in New York in 1809 was decided, the court's charge to the jury was very different. Nothing was said about the ille

here diverse persons," he said, "confederate together by direct means to impoverish or prejudice a third person, or to do acts prejudicial to the community," they are engaged in an unlawful conspiracy. Concretely, it is unlawful to "conspire to compel an employer to hire a certain description of persons," or to "conspire to prevent a man from fr

duals. The court, however, rejected the arguments on the ground that there was a basic difference between an individual doing a thing

o the public. The judge condemned the defendants because they tended "to create a monopoly or to restrain the entire freedom of

821, and the judge held that it was lawful for the masters, who had recently been forced by employes to a wage increase, to combine in order to restore wages to their

bers. As in previous cases the court rejected the plea that a combination to raise wages was illegal, and directed the attention o

m the indictment. The issue turned squarely on the question of conspiring to injure others by coercion and i

middle of the thirties brought in, as

the closed shop against a workman who persisted in working below the union rate. The indictment went no further than charging this offence. The journeymen were convicted in a lower court and appealed to the Supreme Court of th

d strike against a reduction in wages. Judge Edwards, the trial judge, in his charge to the jury, stigmatized the tailors' society as an illegal combination, largely basing himself upon Judge Savage's decision. The jury hande

in City Hall Park, with an estimated attendance of 27,000, burned Judge Savage and Judg

akers' in June and the Philadelphia plasterers' in July 1836. In both the juries found a verdict of not guilty. Of all journeymen indicted during this period the Hudson shoemakers

had gone out of existence under the stress of unemployment and depression,

l, but in all of them there were suggestions to this effect. Now it was recognized that trade unions are per se lawful organizations and, though men may band themselves together to effect a criminal object under the disguise of a trade union, such a purpose is not to be assumed without positive evidence. On the contrary, the court said that "when an association is formed for purposes act

against their employers. This is the essence of the question of the closed shop; and Commonwealth v. Hunt goes the full length of regarding strikes for the closed shop as legal. Justice Shaw said that th

he statute books of a number of Slates, notably New York and Pennsylvania. He pleaded that "if it (Congress) had not the power, it shall assume the power; and, if necessary, amend the constitution to do it." Adolph Strasser of the cigar makers raised the point of protection for union funds and gave as a second reason that it "will give our organization more stability, and in that manner we shall be able to avoid strikes by perhaps settling with our employers, when otherwise we should be unable to do so, because when our employers know that we are to be legally recognized that will exercise such moral force upon them that they cannot avoid recognizing us themselves." W.H. Foster, the secretary of the Legislative Committee of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, stated that in Ohio the law provided for incorporation at a slight cost, but he wanted a national law to "legalize arbitration," by which he meant that "when a question of dispute arose between the employers and the employe

ration without its pitfalls; their subsequent experience with courts converted them from expo

e voluntary arbitration and most of the laws which allowed unions to incorporate. Only in New York and Maryland were the conspiracy laws repealed. Four States enacted such laws and many States passed laws against intimidation. Statutes, however, played at that time, as they do now, but a secondary role.

s like "inciting to riot," "obstructing the streets," "intimidation," and "trespass" were first extensively used in connection with labor disputes. Convictions were frequent and penalties often s

ew lease of life to the doctrine of conspiracy as affecting labor disputes. During the eighties and nineties there seemed to have been more conspiracy cases than during all the rest of the century. It was especially in 1886 and 1887 that organized labor found court interference a factor. At this time, as we saw, th

as issued in a labor dispute as early as 1868;[31] but this case was not noticed in the United States and had nothing whatever to do with the use of injunctions in this country. When and where the first labor injunction was issued in the United States is not known. An injunction was applied for in a New York case

sed these Federal cases as precedents, in disregard of the fact that there the issuance of injunctions was based upon special statutes. In other cases the more logical course was followed of justifying the issuance of injunctions upon grounds of equity. But most of the acts which the courts enjoined strikers from doing were already prohibited by the criminal laws. Hence organized lab

eptional cases. Usually injunctions were sought to prevent not violence, but strikes, picketing, or boycotting. What is threatened by strikes and picketing is not the employer's physical property, but the relations he has established as an employer of labor, summed up in his expectancy of retaining the services of old employes and of obtaining new ones. Boycotting, obviously, has no connection with acts of violence against physical property

to leave his employ and had also been instrumental in preventing him from getting new employes. But as yet these expectancies were not considered property in the full sense of the word. A transitional case is that of Brace Bros. v. Evans in 1888.[36] In that case an injunction against a boycott was justified on the ground that th

n frequent statements in labor injunction cases to the effect that both the expectancies based

nce of an unlawful conspiracy. Thus the old conspiracy doctrine was combined with the new theory, and "malicious" interference with "probable expectancies" was held unlawful. Earlier conspiracy had been thought of as a criminal offence, now it was primarily a civil wrong. The emphasis had been upon the danger to the public, now it was the destruction of the employer's business. Occasionally the court w

ion. An injunction was also issued by a Federal court during a miners' strike at Coeur d'Alène, Idaho, in 1892.[38] A famous injunction was the one of Judges Taft and Rickes in 1893, which directed the engineers, who were employed by connecting railways, to handle the cars of the Ann Arbor and Michigan railway, whose engineers were on strike.[39] This order elicited much criti

junction which was issued in Chicago arose the famous contempt case against Eugene V. Debs,[42] which was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States. The decision of

e[43] in 1897. Therein the court held that all persons who have actual notice of the issuance of an injunction are bound to

ssion of a concrete goal in the trade agreement, but pressed on the other side by a new form of legal attack and by

TNO

ee abo

e above

ning Co. v. Riley, L

ter Co. v. Meinhard

.R. Co. v. Union Pacific R.R. Co.

ebs, 158 U.S

Mass. 5

Co. Ct. 1

es' Council, 53 N

ing Co. v. Miners' Uni

Co. v. Penn. Co.,

Trust Co. v. N.P.R. C

Fed. 310

ebs, 158 U.S

nnon, 166 U.S

RT

R CAREER