The First American Labor Case

THE yeast which was to raise the labor injunction was workingvigorously in 1877.1 But some of its earlier ferments are alsoinforming to the student of the subsequent product. Before 1877there had not, in this country, been many instances of resort tothe courts in labor troubles.2 To contemporary observation theymay have seemed to affect the lives and fortunes of employersand workmen only locally and for brief periods. But theirexistence as history has had effect upon modern law. The chemistryof the forces which pressed upon the courts in labor cases--hopes, desires, values, emotions, opinions, beliefs-was, moreover,as it is to-day. The law of social physics which explains ordescribes judicial response and resistance to such forces-a lawwhich, though clearly perceivable, eludes satisfactory formulation-- was also the same then as still. And the facts and questions were substantially similar to those of which our view,when we look at them in contemporary labor cases, is confusedby a clutter of adjudications