— that is, a strike or labor combination (for it is always the combination to strike or the threat of a strike that may be unlawful, not the mere leaving work by individuals) for the general benefit of laborers of the same class, but where the persons striking have no personal grievance — is still in doubt. A few courts, — usually Federal circuit courts, but not yet the Supreme court — and a few judges, such as Harlan of the Supreme court and Holmes of this State, have squarely taken this position. The pro bability may be said to be that in the next few years both the Federal courts and the State courts of the manufacturing States will come to it, though the State courts of the South and West may lag behind. The third and last stage — that of holding lawful a strike or labor combination made for any purpose whatever, such as the private benefit of strangers to the strike or boycott; or, stronger yet, the special injury of the em ployer, or parties stranger to the strike, such for instance, as non-union men seeking em ployment, — has as yet neither been reached nor recommended save in a few obiter dicta of minority opinions which have since been overruled on appeal. It would seem that this stage should never be reached; and the probability is that it will not be. This last stage is identical in its law with the case of the boycott, and it results from this, if I am right, that the boycott is always illegal. There is undoubtedly a growing opinion that the common law of conspiracy should so be changed that the motive of the combination to injure a person, or class of persons, should not make the parties to the combination liable criminally or civilly, unless in pursu ance of it they commit criminal acts. This principle has been embodied in the statutes of two or three States, and notably in the recent English statute, which, however, ap plies specifically and solely to labor ques tions, and, therefore, might be unconstitu tional in most of the States of this country as class legislation. Personally, the writer
believes that this common law of con spiracy embodies a valuable principle, and one which it would be dangerous in more ways than can now be foreseen to abrogate by statute or by judicial decision. But trades-unions having been thus thor oughly legalized, and by their action having brought about the recognition of the perfect legality of the strike, at least in some cases, they are now taking a position which, if not a false one, is at least contrary to the sane order of things in general. Organized labor in this country, if not in England, appears to be fairly committed to the principle that every man in the same grade of labor should be paid the same wage without regard to his excellence or experience; for instance, that a man just promoted from the place of fire man to run a " shirt-tail " engine, should at once receive the same wages as an experi enced engineer of the New York and Chicago Limited Express; and, failing that, should enforce his claim against the railroad em ploying him by all the strength of the labor organization, and even indirectly, by means of the " sympathetic strike" against other corporations. In other words, that the wages of the competent, or even of the specially skilled, should be levelled down to the value of the work of the lowest in ability. The "piece-work" principle also, which appar ently was one of the matters fought over in the late great engineers' strike of England, is a closely related question. In the opinion of the writer both these principles are radi cally false and wrong, counter to the scheme of things, dangerous to the society enforc ing them, and if brought about either by organized labor through the means of strikes and boycotts, or by the state, by means of statutes, will cripple the industries of the state adopting them and hopelessly damage or discredit the trades-unions for long years to come, as well as the principle of organiz ed labor itself. As we have said above, a strike to enforce either of these principles is not illegal, and therefore we must hope from
