WILLIAM H. TAFT shown, in a most thorough analysis of those cases and of Moores v. Bricklayers' Union how senseless such a suggestion is (The Review of Reviews, August, 1907). He was able, as attorney for the Brotherhoods in the Wabash case, to use the opinion of Judge Taft in the Phelan case, quoted above, in defense of the right of organized labor to appoint advisers and be governed by their instructions in controversies with their employees, so long, of course, as they acted, in their operations, within the laws governing the relative rights of employers and em ployees. Judge Adams, in his opinion in the Wabash case, says: "On the subject of organized labor no one has spoken more clearly or acceptably than did Judge Taft in the case of Thomas v. C. N. O. & T. P. Ry. Co. (Phelan case)." But a combination of manufacturers, unmindful of the law, also met with a declaration of the law by Judge Taft which put an end to their conspiracy and to all others of a similar character. The facts in the Addyston Pipe case showed that manufacturers of cast iron pipe, one a corporation of Ohio, one in Kentucky, two in Tennessee and two in Alabama, entered into an agreement cover ing thirty-six states and territories, by which they bound themselves to bid in such a way for contracts as that one of them would in all probability get the award as against others not in the combination. It was held to be a contract in restraint of interstate commerce. Here first the Sher man Anti-Trust Act was applied to illegal combinations among manufacturers. Judge Taft held that the reasonable restraints of trade recognized by common law, which are merely ancillary to some lawful con tract between the parties, did not extend to agreements the sole purpose of which was to restrain competition and enhance and maintain prices, and that this agreement was not only illegal at common law, but, affecting as it did commerce between the states, was an unlawful combination under
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the act against trusts and monopolies. This decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court (175 U. S. 211), and it is to be noted that the principles declared by Judge Taft in all of the cases in which he had taken apparently advanced ground relative to the scope and application of the Sherman AntiTrust Act, have received the affirmance of the highest tribunal in the land. He gave his decisions in these cases, as in all others, without fear or favor and without respect to persons. His aim was to ascer tain the law and then declare it regardless of individuals or combinations of individuals who might be affected thereby. On the one hand, the ill-advised laboring man, going beyond his rights, and on the other, the greedy manufacturer exceeding his rights, have each felt the repressing hand of this courageous expounder of the law. And if he had taken any other position than he did, he would have forfeited the respect of both. But he could not, for he must declare the law as he found it, and the weakness of expediency is not in the man. It so happens from the nature of things that injunctions have ordinarily been sought, when labor questions were involved, by the employer, usually some wealthy corporation. This fact undoubtedly prompted the inquiry put to Judge Taft by someone in the au dience on the occasion of his speech on "Capital and Labor" at Cooper Institute, January 10, 1908. "Why," asked his interlocutor, "should not a blacklisted laborer be allowed an injunction as well as a boycotted capitalist?" Instantly came the answer: "He ought to be, and if I were on the Bench, I would give him one mighty quick." That suggestion of unfriendliness comes either from dishonesty or ignorance. The searcher for truth, be he capitalist or labor ing man, will, when he reads these cases, the answer of Judge Taft to the letter of January 4, 1908, addressed to him by Mr. Llewelyn Lewis, President of the Ohio Federation of Labor, the address before the Cooper
