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Show . oo LABOR UNIONS AND THE USE OF BOYCOTT. No late decision of the United States supreme court has caused more wide-spread discussion than that in which Justice Holmes wrote the opinion opin-ion in the Danbury Hatters' case, made public the first week In January. Jan-uary. Literary Digest presents the following comment. "The birth of the Labor party in Fngland, we are reminded, was due to an English court decision very similar sim-ilar to that handed down last week by the United States Supreme Court in the Danbury Hatters' ease. So in this country, the New York Globe predicts, pre-dicts, the Danbury case "is likely to have important political effects." For, as the New York Sun remarks, ' the general principle laid down by the Supreme Court of the personal liability liabil-ity of each and every consenting member mem-ber of a union for the collective or corporate acts of the union itself is the most effective restraint upon labor la-bor warfare that can be imagined or desired.'' It means, the same paper goes on to say "either that all the thrifty and substantial members of a union are certain to desert It when it makes an aggressive fight by means of the boycott, or else that the boycott boy-cott will be rendered nugatory by the compensation whlrh Its victims may levy upon the members of the union." Many union officials, says a Washington Washing-ton correspondent of the New York Evening Post, fear that "the membership mem-bership lists of labor unions will be woefully thinned of members of responsibility," re-sponsibility," since under this decision deci-sion any property-holding member of a union may be forced under the Sherman Sher-man anti-trust law to respond to damages dam-ages for a boycott started by his union uni-on "I feel awful in regard to how the men will take this when their homes are sold to pay this terrible judgment," says Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, adding: "They will not easily eas-ily submit. I can't tell you what will occur." "The history of this famous case goes back to July. 1902, when hatters in the employ of Loewe & Co., of Danbury, Conn., struck because the firm refused to unionize its shops, In August of the same year the firm brought suit for $80,000 damages against the Danbury Hatters' union and I he individual strikers, alleging that through the United Hatters and the American Federation of Labor Its name had ben posted all over the country on the "unfair list" and as one of the concerns which "we don t patronize." The homes, bank deposits, de-posits, and other property of the strikers were attached to secure payment pay-ment in case of Judgment From the superior Court of Connecticut the case ns advanoed to the Federal w-tricl w-tricl Court, because it Involved Interstate Inter-state trade, and In 10OS this court decided de-cided in favor of the firm, awarding damages of ?74.00n, which under the tripling provision of the Sherman law became $222,000. The Circuit Court of Appeals let aside this Judgment on question of doubt, but in lf'0!' the dried dr-ied States Supreme Court sustained the District Court in its contention that the case came under the Bhei mau law, and ordered a new trial In 1912 this new trial resulted in a dec' aion for the firm, allowing the f il claim of 180,000 to be trebled ai costs added In Its final disposal the case Inst week the United Bta Supreme Court confirms this verdi settling the question of the indlvldua responsibility of members of a labor union for nets done by the union of a nature that must of necessity be within with-in the knowledge- of the members. Of the original 11)1 Individual defendants in this case only about 180 are now living, and these are ordered to pay damages amounting t about $260,-000." $260,-000." From now on this must be the law - r 1 .. .. J 1. V, .I . I. .11 .la. Ul lll'r IdllU, U II iron 111' 'Mill Cllllll i- cide that labor organisations are exempted ex-empted from the full operation of the anti-trust law by the Clayton Antitrust Anti-trust Act The boycott is a dangerous weapon, and, used unfairly, can Inflict a great injustice. Designing unscrupulous leaders of men now and Mien hae been Known to apply lr to honest liberal lib-eral employers of labor for no other purpose than to break clown a business busi-ness at the prompting of a rival concern, con-cern, and yet the boycott is what may be termed an inherent defense bj which labor Is enabled to resist the grinding exactions of capital But the boycott has a very dangerous danger-ous aspect and must be curbed, if not destroyed. On the other capital by its power to starve labor, has a great advantage which In some manner man-ner should be restricted. One proposed pro-posed remedy is a minimum scale of wages, providing a living wage. oo |