The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918. Page: 893
xv, 1025 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this legislative document.
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KROGER GROCERY & B. CO. V. RETAIL CLERKS' I. P. ASS1N 893
And the act proceeds:
"Or from paying or giving to, or withholding from, any person engaged in
such dispute, any strike benefits or others moneys or things of value; or from
peaceably assembling in a lawful manner, and for lawtul purposes, or from
doing any act or thing which might lawfully be done in the absence of dispute
by any party thereto; nor shall any of the acts specified in this paragraph be
considered or held to be violations of any law of the United States."
[1] It is a mistake to suppose that by these provisions of the act
any act or acts, which were unlawful at the time the act was passed,
were legalized. The only effect of this act is to prevent United States
courts, sitting as courts of equity, from granting injunctions in the
cases mentioned therein; but so far as the legality of the acts is con-
cerned, if they were illegal at that time, they are illegal to-day, and if
the plaintiff has been damaged thereby, he may obtain from the courts
any remedy which could have been obtained before that time, except
an injunction. Paine Lbr. Co. v. Neal, 244 U. S. 459-471, and dis-
senting opinion of Mr. Justice Pitney, loc. cit. 483, 37 Sup. Ct. 718,
720, 61 L. Ed. 1256.
[2] Now the questions to be determined in this action are whether
these defendants did induce or attempt to induce any employs of the
plaintiff to leave their employment by force, threats, or intimidation, or
did they attempt merely to persuade them peacefully. That is the first
question. It is useless for the court to review all of the testimony in
this case; but the court is satisfied from the great preponderance
of the testimony that these acts of the defendants were not quiet
and peaceable-that they used language which would naturally have
an intimidating effect on those to whom it was uttered. Whether
they meant to carry out these threats is wholly immaterial. The ques-
tion we are concerned with is: What was the effect on those persons
to whom they were applied? Another thing the evidence shows is
that harsh terms, approbrious epithets, were used towards these em-
ployds. They were called "scabs." One man was called "Kaiser,"
and while, ordinarily, that could hardly be deemed an insulting term,
yet, considering the conditions now prevailing in the minds of the pub-
lic towards the Emperor of Germany, who is generally alluded to as
"the Kaiser," we know it was intended as a term of insult, and not of
commendation The court finds from the evidence that the efforts
made to indc 'ce the employs of the plaintiff to quit their employment
were not made in a peaceful manner, but were by threats, insulting
language, and intimidation.
The same finding must be made in relation to the attempted boycott.
So far as the distribution of the circulars is concerned, they had a per-
fect right to distribute them, if it was done peaceably. They had a
perfect right to say to persons who were m the habit of trading in the
stores: "I wish you would not trade there; we have been clerks em-
ployed there, and have not been treated fairly; we have not been re-
ceiving wages that will allow us to live properly when the cost of liv-
ing is so high; if you people will stand by us, and refuse to trade with
these people until they grant us the relief to which we think we are
justly entitled," they may do so. That would not have been illegal,
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The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918., legislative document, 1918; Saint Paul, Minnesota. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38821/m1/908/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.