p. 8 | THE BOYCOTT EVIL by W. N. G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 2, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 22.

THE BOYCOTT EVIL.

By W. N. G.

The Los Angeles Times calls attention to a decision in the Superior Court of that county which, it says, “has excited some comment.” The case is entitled “Dellamore vs. the Master Plumbers’ Association, T. T. Stevens et al.” Says the Times:—

“Briefly stated, the facts, as alleged by the plaintiff, are that defendants are associated together for the purpose of preventing all master plumbers not members of the association from obtaining employment, contracts, labor, or material to carry on their business, and generally to stifle and prevent competition, and that the association prevented plaintiff from carrying out a contract which he had obtained in Los Angeles, by not permitting him to purchase the necessary materials, or procure the necessary labor, by intimidating merchants from selling such material to him. Judge Clark sustained the demurrer, thus deciding in favor of the association.”

The Times is not a court or a lawyer, and does not pretend to question the legal correctness of the decision in the case at bar, so far as it is confined to the issues actually before the court. We do, however, find that in rendering this decision, the court has gone out of the way by adding extraneous matter, not necessarily pertinent to this particular case, and in doing so has furnished unnecessary and undeserved encouragement to those who uphold the boycott in all its bald, unreasonable, and unreasoning brutality.”

It is by “adding extraneous matter not pertinent” to the particular case at bar that courts may and have declared dangerous dicta which become precedents for more dangerous legislation and other court decisions. It was by means of a great volume of “extraneous matter not pertinent” to the case under consideration, that the U. S. Supreme Court found occasion for uttering the dictum that “this is a Christian nation,” in which the Congress of the United States found warrant for enacting certain religious legislation contrary to the Constitution. From this dictum, also, a certain class of people find “unnecessary and undeserved encouragement” in continuing to importune Congress and State Legislatures for more of such legislation.

On the other hand, the Times refers to the once noted case of a newspaper proprietor against the Cincinnati Typographical Union, in which Judge Sage decided adversely to the boycott. He quoted Judge Blodgett as saying:—

“It shocks my sense of justice to say that a court of equity can not restrain systematic and methodical outrages like this of one man upon another’s property right. If a court of equity can not restrain an attack like this upon a man’s business, then the party is certainly remediless, because an action at law in most cases would do no good, and ruin would be accomplished before an adjudication would be reached. Statements and charges intended to frighten away a man’s customers, and intimidate them from dealing with him, may wholly break up and ruin him financially, with no adequate remedy, if a court of equity can not afford protection by its restraining writ.”

The Times closes its logical comments on the subject in the following pointed language:—

“The law defines the good-will of a business to be ‘the expectation of continued public patronage.’ The civil code says that ‘every person is bound without contract to abstain from injuring the person or property of another or infringing upon any of his rights.’ In another section of the code the good-will of a business is included in the definition of property, transferable like any other.

“The issue herein involved often trenches so near to the line of what is or is not unlawful, that we need not be surprised to find much variance among local decisions on the subject. Looking at the question from the broad standpoint of common sense, justice, and equity, the idea that a citizen may be prevented by boycotters from carrying on legitimate business in a peaceful manner is certainly repugnant to the properly-constituted mind.

“The true doctrine, whether it be declared by courts and lawyers in their own language, or by laymen in their own way, is that every citizen has the right, under the constitution and the laws, to pursue any lawful avocation in a lawful way.

“The boycott is a two-edged weapon, which cuts both ways. Its effects are sure to react upon those who resort to it in order to enforce their views. To boycott is to play with fire. In almost every case where a boycott has been started, those engaged in it have professed their intention to keep strictly within the law, and it may be admitted that in a majority of cases they have been honest in making such representations. In almost every case those engaged in a boycott have sooner or later overstepped the lawful limits. A ‘peaceful boycott’ is about equivalent to a ‘peaceful war.’ The boycott is doomed. It is an institution absolutely contrary to the spirit of this free country. It is violative of the fundamental law. A few years ago, when it was first introduced, it was hailed in some quarters as a panacea for all the ills of which laboring men are wont to complain. Already they are beginning to look at it askance, having found that almost invariably they are the ultimate sufferers from this discreditable and discredited practise.”

“This is a free country, but that is a curious conception of freedom which would grant to any man, or combination of men, the right to prevent others from following a lawful calling in a lawful way.”

Of all the dangers to which the people of a republican government are subject, none so threaten their liberties as court-made law, and the assumption that precedent is law. When once these heresies get deeply rooted, there is no remedy but a direct appeal to the people. Constitutions stand for nothing as long as any one co-ordinate branch of the government may with impunity usurp the functions of another, and one wrong act may be made a precedent for more of the same character.

W. N. G.