Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/463

 CAMPAIGN A GAINST GERMAN ORGANIZED LABOR 449

patrols directly, rather than to reach them through a very ques- tionable interpretation as "serious disorder."

In this section about strikers' patrols there is very plain nnanifestation of what is to be expected when the government and the representatives of the capitalistic party reiterate that the right of combination and the right to strike is not to be curtailed by this bill. So far as technical legal form is concerned, that is correct. In sec. 4, clause 3, this right is expressly recognized as belonging to the laborers and employers. Yet, as a matter of fact, the effective exercise of the right of coalition is made impos- sible to the laborers. What sense is there in entering upon a movement to affect wages if the persons engaged have no means of permanently controlling and supervising an agitation ? The formal legal right to strike is still present ; but if this bill should pass it is merely a tantalization instead of something with which the laborers can actually accomplish a purpose.

But this paragraph is far from being the only one which con- tains destruction of the right of coalition. The general prohi- bition of the ban has, as a matter of fact, the same effect. A labor organization cannot develop itself if it has not the right to communicate the names of the voluntaries to the affiliated organizations in other places. They must be permitted to make out and circulate lists in which all those are catalogued who at the given time have not obeyed the command of the organiza- tion, in order that in the future these people may be known and properly reckoned with from the start. Every person, however, who sends such a list may, according to the new law (sec. 6), be punished with imprisonment up to one year. It makes, how- ever, a very peculiar impression when we read in the justifica- tion of the law that so-called black lists, that is, catalogues of all the laborers who have taken part in a strike, are to remain within the rights of the employers in the future. If a manufacturer writes to another, " In my factory today such and such workmen struck ; I beg you not to employ these people," that is just as much a ban as if a labor organization transmits a list of the vol- untaries. And if an employer locks out a number of people on account of disorderly tendencies, and begs other employers