North America was organized and in the following year the National Trade
Association of Hat Finishers, the forerunner of the United Hatters of
North America. In 1859 the Iron Molders' Union of North America began
its aggressive career.

The conception of a national trade unity was now well formed; compactly
organized national and local trade unions with very definite
industrial aims were soon to take the place of ephemeral, loose-jointed
associations with vast and vague ambitions. Early in this period a new
impetus was given to organized labor by the historic decision of
Chief Justice Shaw of Massachusetts in a case * brought against
seven bootmakers charged with conspiracy. Their offense consisted in
attempting to induce all the workmen of a given shop to join the union
and compel the master to employ only union men. The trial court found
them guilty; but the Chief Justice decided that he did not "perceive
that it is criminal for men to agree together to exercise their own
acknowledged rights in such a manner as best to subserve their own
interests." In order to show criminal conspiracy, therefore, on the part
of a labor union, it was necessary to prove that either the intent or
the method was criminal, for it was not a criminal offense to combine
for the purpose of raising wages or bettering conditions or seeking to
have all laborers join the union. The liberalizing influence of this
decision upon labor law can hardly be over-estimated.

* Commonwealth vs. Hunt.

The period closed amidst general disturbances and forebodings, political
and economic. In 1857 occurred a panic which thrust the problem of
unemployment, on a vast scale, before the American consciousness.
Instead of demanding higher wages, multitudes now cried for work. The
marching masses, in New York, carried banners asking for bread, while
soldiers from Governor's Island and marines from the Navy Yard guarded
the Custom House and the Sub-Treasury. From Philadelphia to New Orleans,
from Boston to Chicago, came the same story of banks failing, railroads
in bankruptcy, factories closing, idle and hungry throngs moving
restlessly through the streets. In New York 40,000, in Lawrence 3500,
in Philadelphia 20,000, were estimated to be out of work. Labor learned
anew that its prosperity was inalienably identified with the well-being
of industry and commerce; and society learned that hunger and idleness
are the golden opportunity of the demagogue and agi