twenties, the first, a case against Philadelphia master
shoemakers, was decided in 1821, and the judge held that it was lawful
for the masters, who had recently been forced by employes to a wage
increase, to combine in order to restore wages to their "natural level."
But he also held that had the employers combined to depress wages of
journeymen below the level fixed by free competition, it would have been
criminal.

Another Pennsylvania case resulted from a strike by Philadelphia tailors
in 1827 to secure the reinstatement of six discharged members. As in
previous cases the court rejected the plea that a combination to raise
wages was illegal, and directed the attention of the jury to the
question of intimidation and coercion, especially as it affected third
parties. The defendants were found guilty.

In a third, a New York hatters' case of 1823, the charge of combining to
raise wages was entirely absent from the indictment. The issue turned
squarely on the question of conspiring to injure others by coercion and
intimidation. The hatters were adjudged guilty of combining to deprive a
non-union workman of his livelihood.

The revival of trade unionism in the middle of the thirties brought in,
as we saw, another crop of court cases.

In 1829 New York State had made "conspiracy to commit any act injurious
to public morals or to trade or commerce" a statutory offence, thus
reenforcing the existing common law. In 1835 the shoemakers of Geneva
struck to enforce the closed shop against a workman who persisted in
working below the union rate. The indictment went no further than
charging this offence. The journeymen were convicted in a lower court
and appealed to the Supreme Court of the State. Chief Justice Savage, in
his decision condemning the journeymen, broadened the charge to include
a conspiracy to raise wages and condemned both as "injurious to trade or
commerce" and thus expressly covered by statute.

The far-reaching effects of this decision came clearly to light in a
tailor's case the next year. The journeymen were charged with practising
intimidation and violence, while picketing their employers' shops during
a prolonged strike against a reduction in wages. Judge Edwards, the
trial judge, in his charge to the jury, stigmatized the tailors' society
as an illegal combination, largely basing himself upon Judge Savage's
decision. The jury handed in a verdict of guilty, but recommended mercy.
The judge fined the pr