Injunctions Quotes
Judges were commonly granting injunctions against unions that were boycotting companies, which was then against the law. However, no judge had ever given an injunction against a company to stop them from boycotting individual workers who were known union organizers. Taft, who had a distinguished career as a Judge earlier in his career shocked the business world and delighted organized labor. Considered politically, a Republican running for President publicly advocated a new right and protection for labor organizing, when his party was supposed to protect companies against Labor. Taft however, was not an ideologue, but was a very fair man, and to him this particular issue was simple. Veteran politicians thought that he should have ducked the question, as he would offend much of the Republican base, but he was used to that being the number 2 man in Theodore Roosevelt’s Administration.
At the time, it was relatively easy to find some sympathetic judge who saw labor unions as a menace, to issue an injunction forbidding a strike. It would take weeks, months and often years in those days to get to higher courts for appeals so this was a common strike breaking technique. That was the immediate stimulus for the statement. However it has been true generally. Almost all tyrannies operate under the cloak and authority of a judiciary and legal system which they control or is intimidated. 25 years after this quotation the world would see the worst example when the German judiciary supported and found legal all the Nazi excesses including the holocaust.
