e Supreme Court of
the United States had been deprived of rights essential to freedom and
citizenship in matters of voting, service upon juries, education, and
the use of common carriers, there remained even another right which
was to be infringed upon without the hope of any redress from the
United States Supreme Court. This was the right to contract, to labor.
Every honest man should live by his own labor and it is a well
established principle of democratic government, that in the exercise
of this right the individual should be free not only from interference
on the part of the government but should enjoy protection from
individuals subject to the government. Because of the development of
race prejudice into a flame of bitter antagonism among the laboring
men during the period of commercial expansion in the United States
since the Reconstruction period, the country has been all but
thoroughly organized through trades unions, so as to restrict the
Negro to menial service by written constitutions in keeping with the
caste which has so long figured conspicuously in American
institutions.

Negroes sought redress in the courts and finally in the United States
Supreme Court, the best case in evidence being that of _Hodges_ v.
_United States_.[73] In this case came a complaint from certain
Negroes in Arkansas laboring in the service of an employer according
to a contract. Because of their color certain criminals in that
community conspired to injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate them,
resulting in the severance of their connection with this employer and
the consequent economic loss resulting therefrom. The Negroes thus
complaining brought this case to the United States Supreme Court
contending that a remedy for this evil was to be found in the revised
statutes of the United States Senate, Sections 1977, 1979, 5508, and
5510. These sections follow in the order of their importance:

_Section 5508._ If two or more persons conspire to injure,
oppress, threaten or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise
or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the
Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his
having so exercised the same; or if two or more persons go in
disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with
intent to hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or
privilege so secured, they shall be fined not more than five
thousand