It is clearly indicated, therefore, what labor leaders, under the Sherman Act, can do. They have the right to organize, to combine--that is, to form unions; they have the right to refuse to work for wages or terms of employment unsatisfactory to themselves--that is, to strike. Under the Sherman Act, indeed, mere organizations of laboring men are regarded as no more outlawed than ordinary social clubs or college fraternities. _How the Chicago Strike of 1894 Restrained Trade_ On the other hand, labor leaders know what, under the Sherman Act, they can not do. They cannot enter into combinations that restrain trade. This vital point has been settled in several important proceedings--those involving the Chicago disturbances in 1894, and, more recently the decision just handed down in the matter of the Danbury Hatters. These cases so clearly show the bearing of the Sherman Act upon illegal labor practices, that they may profitably be reviewed here. [Illustration: _Copyrighted by C. R. Buck_ CONGRESSMAN CHARLES E. LITTLEFIELD OF MAINE, WHOSE KEEN ANALYSIS OF LAST WINTER'S CIVIC FEDERATION TRUST BILL WAS LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS DEFEAT] In 1894 the employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company of Chicago struck for higher wages. These employees were not railway men; they were workmen engaged in the manufacture of railway cars. In spite of this, about four thousand had been admitted to membership in the American Railway Union, an organization of railroad operatives, which, under the vigorous management of Eugene V. Debs, had acquired a membership of 250,000, and a correspondingly great power in the field of railroad labor. In order to help the Pullman workmen in their struggle with the Pullman Company, the American Railway Union declared what was in effect a boycott upon all railroads using Pullman cars. Nearly all the larger American railroads had entered into contracts with the Pullman Company, by which parlor and sleeping cars were to be used on their trains. Debs now demanded that these railroads should break their contracts, and thereby, of course, become responsible for heavy damages to the Pullman Company. In other words, he demanded that all American railroads cease patronizing the Pullman Company because of its "unfair" attitude toward union labor; that is, he started a boycott against the Pullman Company. When the railroad companies refused to meet his demand, he ordered out all American Railway Union men employed on these lines. He even declared war upon several of the Vanderbilt roads, which had no Pullman sleepers, operating instead the Wagner cars. In effect, in order that several thousand workmen in Chicago might profitably settle their private grievances with their employers, Debs proposed, practically to end railroad communication in the larger part of the United States.