Justice Shaw said that there is nothing
unlawful about such strikes, if they are conducted in a peaceable
manner. This was much in advance of the position which is taken by many
courts upon this question even at the present day.
After Commonwealth _v._ Hunt came a forty years' lull in the courts'
application of the doctrine of conspiracy to trade unions. In fact so
secure did trade unionists feel from court attacks that in the seventies
and early eighties their leaders advocated the legal incorporation of
trade unions. The desire expressed for incorporation is of extreme
interest compared with the opposite attitude of the present day. The
motive behind it then was more than the usual one of securing protection
for trade union funds against embezzlement by officers. A full
enumeration of other motives can be obtained from the testimony of the
labor leaders before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor in
1883. McGuire, the national secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters
and Joiners, argued before the committee for a national incorporation
law mainly for the reason that such a law passed by Congress would
remove trade unions from the operation of the conspiracy laws that still
existed though in a dormant state on the statute books of a number of
Slates, notably New York and Pennsylvania.
Pages:
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229