Liberalism: Power, Economic Crisis, Reform, War 73So the outcome, whether the violence of McKinley or negotiations of
Roosevelt, were not much different—in all cases labor was without power,
vulnerable to the desires of the bosses, and not protected by the courts, mili-
tary, or politicians. Roosevelt believed his approach would convince labor that
change was possible without unions and strikes and boycotts, and thus keep
workers away from unions like the WFM, which he considered a group of
“undesirable citizens” who, along with other labor radicals, were Socialists and
anarchists and would use violence against their bosses and even the govern-
ment. TR wanted “harmony” and “cooperation” in industrial relations, mean-
ing that workers would accept the desires of their bosses without starting a
union, going on strike, or fighting back.
After Roosevelt came William Howard Taft and then Woodrow Wilson,
who was a strong liberal and strongly anti-labor, at first at least. Wilson, like
Roosevelt, wanted to avoid “class” legislation, meaning laws that might help
labor. He had no issue with a legal system that was created by and favored
the ruling class. In this era, the U.S. court system became more important in
dealing with labor conflicts too. Courts could issue injunctions, official
decrees that forced unions to end a strike and go back to work. Judges often
also banned boycotts, attempts by labor to get better wages and conditions by
encouraging all people to avoid the products of the companies against which
they were protesting. And then there was the Clayton Act. In 1914, Congress
passed the Clayton Act with many claiming it was a “pro-labor” law. The Act
especially dealt with the issue of unlawful restraints and monopolies. An
unlawful restraint was some action that made it more difficult to conduct
trade, and a monopoly was a condition where one company controlled an
entire industry, as with Rockefeller in oil. In an earlier era Congress simi-
larly addressed the issue of big businesses forming mergers and trusts to
eliminate competition and form monopolies in the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in
1890, but that offered nothing to labor; Clayton was supposed to be different.
The Clayton Act contained a section directly relating to labor. Workers
often saw themselves as “tools” or “machines,” forced to do a job for a mini-
mal wage but otherwise being denied basic rights, and vulnerable to being
fired or laid off at any time. The new law seemed to humanize those who
worked in the factories and farms, stating that “the labor of a human being is
not a commodity or an article of commerce.” It thus forbade corporations
from preventing the organization of labor unions; it also said antitrust laws