The plaintiffs, who were manufacturers of hats, complained that the defendants--members of the United Hatters of North America, an organization which was a part of the American Federation of Labor--were "engaged in a combined scheme and effort to force all manufacturers of fur hats in the United States, including the plaintiffs, against their will and their previous policy of carrying on their business, to organize their workmen . . . into an organization of the said combination known as The United Hatters of North America, or, as the defendants and their confederates term it, to unionize their shops, with the intent thereby to control the employment of labor in, and the operation of, said factories . . . and to carry out such scheme, effort and purpose by restraining and destroying the interstate trade and commerce of such manufacturers by means of intimidation of, and threats made to such manufacturers and their customers in the several States, of boycotting them, their product and their customers . . . until . . . the said manufacturers should yield to the demand to unionize their factories." These methods had been successfully employed before, as is evidenced by the fact that seventy of the eighty-two manufacturers of fur hats had been compelled to accept the conditions set forth by the American Federation of Labor. The boycott against the Danbury, manufacturers began in July, 1902, and was widened to include the wholesalers who handled the goods of the Danbury concern, the dealers who bought from the wholesalers, and customers who bought from these dealers. Notices to this effect were printed in the official organs of the American Federation of Labor and the United Hatters of North America. To make the feeling against the manufacturers more intense, statements were published to the effect that they were practising an unfair, un-American policy in discriminating against competent union men in favor of the cheap unskilled foreign labor. The counsel for the defence argued that no case could be set up under the Sherman act, since the defendants were not engaged in interstate commerce, implying that a combination of laborers was not a violation of the act. The court held that an action could be maintained in this case and that the combination as it existed was "in restraint of trade" in the sense designated by the act of 1890. The significance of the decision lies in the fact that the Supreme Court made no distinctions between classes. Records of Congress show that efforts were made to exempt, by legislation, organizations of farmers and laborers from the operation of the act and that their efforts failed. Therefore the court held that every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade was illegal and cited a former decision (The United States vs. Workingmen's Amalgamated Council) to show that the law interdicted combinations of workingmen as well as capital.