Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/191

 Rh invaded the hall and gummed upon the chairs and tables appeals to customers to 'Boycott Theiss.' The unions also used their influence with the brewers, and other tradesmen supplying Theiss with goods, to stop their supplies.

On March 10th some of the pickets were arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct. The evidence given did not bear out this charge, however, and the men were discharged. The next day the pickets were reinforced, to a strength variously estimated at from 75 to 150, wearing on their breasts large badges bearing the motto, '.' Thus decorated, the men marched solemnly in single file backwards and forwards in front of the music-hall. Arrests followed, and this time the charge was for 'engaging in a parade without a permit from the police board.' The justice who tried the case held that the law did not apply, and the blockade of the premises went on as before.

At last mediation took place, and Mr. Theiss met the representatives of the unions concerned in the movement against him. The terms offered to Theiss were: the discharge of all the men who had remained during the strike, and the employment of members of the various organizations which had instituted the campaign. Union rates of wages should be paid and none but union men were to be employed. To crown all, Mr. Theiss was to pay $1,000 as 'expenses of the boycott.' He agreed to all this and drew a cheque for the amount stated. On this latter point, however, the unions had overreached themselves, and the extortion of the $1,000 formed a ground for law proceedings against the representatives of the unions present when the payment was made. The grand jury found a true bill against these men, and in their presentment referred to the boycott as 'an accursed exotic' and a 'hydra-headed monster dragging its loathsome length across the continent, and sucking the very life-blood from our trade and commerce.'

Great stress was laid by Judge Barrett, who tried the case, upon the fact that there was a conspiracy to ruin the business of Theiss preceding the extortion of the $1,000; and he laid down what he seemed to consider the legal limit of the power of trade combinations in these matters in the following words: 'They have a right to go to all their friends, make known their wrongs, and say to them, "If you are a friend of labour withdraw your patronage from the man who injures us or refuses us justice." There is no law against that.'

One defendant was sentenced to one year and six months imprisonment in Sing Sing; another to three years and eight months; a third and fourth to two years and ten months; and