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y the use of vile language and opprobrious names
and epithets, to prevent the said employes from remaining
in the employ of said company. They
have not done any of these things above alleged.
John X. Jenkins, Harry Wollock, David Estep
and John Turner, have by peaceable persuasion
only tried to induce certain of the company's employes
to quit work and join the union or go
away. James Purcell and John Turner paid some
of those who quit and went away some money,
and David Estep offered Martin Wallace some
money if he would persuade some of these employes
to quit work. We notice these instances
because the amendment covers them.
The defendants were employes of the plaintiff
and the cause of the strike was a difference between
them on account of a reduction in wages.
They had the right to strike and quit work for
any reason or for no reason. The law gives them
that right. It also gives to the men who came
to take their places the right to work on any terms
they saw fit to make. So the men who quit work
and the men who took their places were equally
within their rights, and the law must and will
secure them in the exercise of those rights. When
any man or number of men undertake to abridge
those rights injunction is a proper remedy. A
court of equity may interfere by injunction to prevent
persons from attempting by intimidation,
threats of personal violence and other unlawful
means to force employes to quit work and join
in a strike. State Line & Sullivan Railroad Co.
vs. Brown et al., 11 District Report, 509. It is
needless to multip'y authorities in support of this
proposition. It would be the imperative duty of
a court of equity to interfere by injunction where
employes or those about to be employed had been
threatened, intimidated and assaulted becaute they
were, or were about to become, employes to take
the places of men who had quit work.
The plaintiff was
ENTITLED TO AN INJUNCTION
under the allegations of the bill. To justify
the maintenance of it there must at least have
been shown intimidation by acts or words, some
thing threatened or done to take away the exercise
of the free will of the employes. With the exceptions
already discussed there was nothing of
that kind shown. The mere presence of these
defendants and the others under the conditions
shown was not unlawful. They neither said nor
did anything calculated to interfere with the exercise
of free will by the new employes. It would
be a dangerous assumption of power and an unwarranted
interference with the rights of the citizen
for the court to maintain an injunction simply
on account of numbers. Members of working
men's associations have the right either as individuals
or as an organization to cease work for an
employer, and to use all lawful means to induce
inc. uUAL 1 K/\lJli li U L.L.J11 1 IN . -, I
others to cease to work for such an employer,
but an injunction will lie to restrain them
from attempting by force or threats to prevent
others from working for such employer.
Beach on Injunctions, Vol. 1, Section 504.
Persuasion, even supplemented by the offer of
money, is not an interference with the exercise
of free will. "A permanent injunction will not
be granted against a combination of persons whose
object it is to entice away workmen from their
employment, nor can the employer maintain an
injunction in equity to recover such damages as
he has sustained." Beach on Injunctions, Vol. 1,
Section 505. They (the strikers) are free men and
have the right to quit the employ of the plaintiff
company whenever they see fit to do so, and no
one can prevent them; and, whether their act of
quitting is wise or unwise, just or unjust, it is
NOBODY'S BUSINESS BUT THEIR OWN.
And they have the right to use fair persuasion to
induce others to join them in their quitting. This
was said hy the supreme court of Missouri in the
ease of Hamilton Brown Shoe Co. vs. Saxey, 2d
American and English Dec. in Equity 356.
In Erdman vs. Mitchell, 207 Pa., the court say:
"It is argued defendants either individually or by
organization, have the right now to peaceably persuade
plaintiffs and others not to work and their
employers not to hire them; so they have. This
deliverance of the supreme court clearly shows
that the defendants, whose conduct we are now
considering, were clearly within their rights in
all they did.
"Workingmen who are dissatisfied with the
wages they are receiving, or have other grievances,
may 'strike,' either individually or as a union.
without making themselves amenable to law."
To accomplish the purpose of their strike they
have the right to speak of and publish their reasons
and grievances, and, by argument, entreaty
and other legitimate means, to persuade their fellow
workers and others that their cause is just.
Striking miners, as any other association or organization,
have a right to maintain a camp or a
camp meeting, and to have speeches and addresses
free from incendiary or inflammatory language.
for the purpose of attracting and gaining new
converts to their way of thinking; and, to advance
the interests of their cause, they have the right to
do anything that does not unlawfully interfere
with the rights of others. Cook & Sons vs. Dolan
et al., 6th D. R. 524. In the case cited it was
shown that the strikers had established a camp
and paraded with a flag and music. On page 526
the court says: "Whether the conduct of the
strikers is unlawful or not depends on circumstances.
If the camp is established and the
parades with music are indulged in in a reasonable
degree and manner, but to attract the plaintiff's
miners and to impress upon them the magni-