The Law as to the Boycott. peril of being deprived of their employment and of the means of making a livelihood." A case of boycott by organized capital that is worth comparison with this last case is Jackson г. Stanfield, 137 Ind. 592. This Jackson was a broker engaged in buying and selling lumber; Stanfield was a member of a retail lumber dealers' association. The rules of this association provided that if any whole sale dealer should sell lumber direct, instead of through retailers, all of the members of the association of the retailers should upon notice refuse to have further dealings with such a wholesaler. In this particular case Jackson was the person injured by the operation of this rule. In holding this a conspiracy, Dailey said: "The great weight of authority supports the doctrine that where the policy pursued against a trade or business is calculated to destroy or injure the business of the person so engaged either by threats or by intimida.tion it becomes unlawful, and the person in flicting the wrong is amenable to the injured party in a civil suit for damages therefor. It is not a mere passive, let-alone policy—a withdrawal of all business relations, inter course, and fellowship that creates the liabil ity, but the threats and intimidation involved in it." In view of the indefinite language in which the boycott is described in most opinions the definite language of the learned Chief Baron in this latest case is worth quotation, as it marks a distinct settlement: "It is necessary that I should distinguish two things from one another. I must distinguish between the ex ercise by an individual of his own liberty to deal with whom he likes, and an act of that same individual and others in combination with him, inducing persons not to deal with another. Each of you is at liberty to deal with whom you like. No person is at liberty to coerce or to unduly influence your will; and if that which is complained of here were the isolated action of a single individual, as
213
distinct from the joint action of a combina tion of several, this action would not lie. You will commence, then, by keeping clearly in your mind (and I should be glad that you should do so all through my summing up, and your consideration of the case), the dif ference between the isolated action of a single individual, and the combined action of several to effect a common purpose. Some people have said that such a distinction is illogical; that what would be wrong if done by several must necessarily be wrong if done by one. Well, we have not to dive into the reasons of the law and see whether the law is right or wrong. At all events, a wrongful violation of another man's right, committed by many assumes a far more formidable and offensive character than when committed by a single individual." The essential thing in the boycott, then, is the concert in the refusal by the many to have dealings with the one. One may refuse to deal with one, the law regards them a match; but many may not refuse to deal with one; the law holds that not fair. More exactly, perhaps, the law gives one man a privilege to cut off dealings with another, but the privi lege is a personal one. It does not cover the action of many, all directed against a single man. At that point the law steps in, as in deed it must; for the one is helpless against the many, as experience has shown. That is why a boycott is a tort. The solution of the logical difficulty follows from this different estimate that is put upon an act done by one and a like act done by many. It is not accurate to say that the single act and the combined act are the same; the truth is, that the concert gives the com bined act a different potentiality from the single act. The antinomy is done away with if this solution be accepted. One man may do a single act without legal wrong; but many men may not do a like joint act without legal wrong. Formal' logic does not oppose this solution now. And certainly public
