Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. IV.djvu/195

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 157 ing roads, forbidding them to refuse its freight, and now applied for one against the chief of the brotherhood of locomotive engineers, who had ordered the boycott. Judge Taft s opinion weighed all the considerations entering into the case, in cluding the probability that the engineers, not being learned in the law, were unaware that their course was in violation of the interstate commerce act, which imposed a fine of $5,000 on any repre sentative or employee of an interstate railroad who wilfully interfered with the reasonable and equal interchange of traffic between carriers. His de cision granting the injunction was the first to define thus the relations of interstate railroads with their employees, and established a universal stand ard for American courts. In another case, where a labor union, boycotting a railroad which was in the hands of a receiver, had definitely disobeyed the orders of the court, the situation was tense, and the atmosphere charged with the spirit of riot; but Judge Taft punished the chief ringleader in the incident for contempt, after showing in an exhaustive opinion that the boycotters were violating both the interstate com merce and the anti-trust laws ; and he served notice upon all concerned that the business of that road should not be interfered with as long as power enough remained in the United States army to run the trains. The strike did not last a great while