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injunction in strikes, the exemption of trade unions from the provisions of the Sherman anti-trust law of 1890 which penalized combinations in restraint of trade, woman suffrage by federal amendment (1890), abolition of child labor, equal pay for equal work (1894), the establishment of a national Department of Education, civic and political freedom for public employees, exclusion of Oriental labor, employers' liability and safety laws, voluntary social insurance, old age pensions (1909), government ownership of the telegraphs, government ownership or regulation of other utilities, opposition to antistrike legislation. It relied on persuasion and sought to avoid political controversies.

The first battle over the injunction.-However, labor again came into conflict with the courts. The issue this time was the injunction. An injunction is a bill or writ issued by a judge of a court ordering some person, corporation, or combinations of persons to perform a certain act or series of acts or to refrain from doing a certain thing or certain things. The injunction is an ancient legal device which came into prominence in the railway strike of 1877 and again in connection with the great Pullman strike in Chicago in 1894. On the latter occasion the local federal district judge issued a general or blanket injunction to Eugene V. Debs and all other persons involved in the labor dispute, ordering them to refrain from interfering with the transmission of

mails or with interstate commerce in any form. The leader, Mr. Debs, was arrested, fined and impris oned for refusing to obey the judicial order. He was punished for contempt of court, an action which did not call for trial by jury but merely the hearing by a judge.

Labor leaders were deeply moved by what they called "a new form of judicial tyranny" by which strikes might be broken through the imprisonment of leaders without trial by jury. Accordingly the power of the courts to issue injunctions was brought into politics by organized labor. Although the Republicans in their 1908 platform promised legislation restricting the use of the injunction, it was the Democrats who inclined a more friendly ear to labor's demand for drastic limitations on the issuance of the writ by the courts. In 1896 the Democratic platform denounced "government by injunction as a new and highly dangerous form of oppression by which federal judges, in contempt of the laws of States and the rights of citizens, become at once legislators, judges, and executioners." As a remedy the Democrats promised to restrain by law the hands of federal judges and to provide jury trial in contempt cases.

The campaign of 1896.-The more friendly attitude of the Democratic party in 1896 drew a large support from labor ranks. At that time a radical farmers' organization, the Populist party, was in

full swing with a number of ideas that were acceptable to organized labor. The nomination of Mr. Bryan by the Democrats and his endorsement by the majority of the Populists made a strong appeal to the labor vote. In that campaign the Democrats vigorously denounced "capitalism and the money power," and arrayed the masses against the classes. They proposed income taxes on the rich, free silver or an abundance of money in circulation, limitation of injunctions, and other measures which proved attractive to trade unionists in their struggle against powerful employers of labor, and especially against the great trusts with which they had found themselves unable to cope on equal terms. While Mr. Gompers refused to permit the Federation to enter politics on an independent basis, he privately worked for the election of Mr. Bryan. At the close of the campaign his conduct and policy were discussed at a secret session of the Federation officials and approved by the members present. In 1908 Mr. Gompers came out openly for Mr. Bryan, and boasted that eighty per cent of the voting members of the American Federation had cast their ballots for the Democratic candidate. Two years later the Federation resolved to "stand faithfully by our friends, oppose and defeat our enemies, whether they be candidates for president, for Congress, or for other offices, whether executive, legislative or judicial."

This policy bore fruit in 1914 in the enactment of

the Clayton anti-trust law which severely limited the use of injunctions in labor disputes and provided trial by jury in case of contempt committed outside of the court. The measure was hailed by Mr. Gompers as a mighty triumph and "the Magna Charta of labor." His assurance on the point was somewhat shaken, however, in 1919, when Judge Anderson of the federal district court of Indiana issued an injunction against the miners out on strike. This action was based on the Lever law passed during the Great War for the purpose of preventing interference with industries, and curtailment of production. The American Federation had been assured by responsible officers in the federal government that the law would not apply to labor unions. What appeared to be settled, therefore, was unsettled.

The collision with the Sherman anti-trust law. In 1890 Congress enacted the famous Sherman antitrust law, ostensibly directed against great trusts and combinations in business, forbidding all combinations in restraint of interstate and foreign trade. It was thought by labor leaders that Congress did not intend to apply this law to labor unions, but in the famous Danbury hatters' case started in the federal court at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1903, they learned that they were in error. In this case the Supreme Court of the United States on appeal found for the first time "that boycotts could be reached under the provisions of the Sherman anti-trust law,

and that labor unions, found guilty of combining to limit the market of goods transported from one state to another, were liable for the payment of threefold damages."1 As a result of this action on the part of the court, the American Federation of Labor combined its war on the injunction with a battle against the Sherman anti-trust law. It succeeded, in 1914, in securing from Congress (among the terms of the Clayton act mentioned above) the exemption of unions from the operations of the Sherman law.

1 See Laidler, Boycotts and the Labor Struggle.

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