The Labor Clauses of the Clayton Act

The Supreme Court's decision in the Danbury Hatters' case marked the beginning of a new era in trade-union activity, for laborers well realized that the Sherman act, as interpreted and applied by the court in that case, was a measure with which they would eventually have to reckon. The provision expressly declaring that equity courts may be resorted to in order to restrain violations of the act was an objection in itself, serious enough. But the statute held for laborers a much more vital concern: they also perceived that a strict construction of its provisions might even jeopardize the existence of the trade union itself. Laborers naturally felt very keenly even the suggestion that the Anti-Trust Act might be interpreted in such a manner as to deny to laborers the right to organize, and they undoubtedly believed, and not without a certain justification, that the dissolution of the trade union, as a combination in restraint of trade, would be the probable, if not the necessary, result of the court's decision in the Hatters' case. “Under the interpretation placed upon the Sherman Anti-Trust law by the courts,” Mr. Gompers averred, “it is within the province and within the power of any administration … to begin proceedings to dissolve any labor organization in the United States.” Labor unions exist only “at the suffrance of the Department of Justice.”