Mr. Gompers' demands were entirely simple and direct. He wished labor unions entirely exempted from the operations of the Sherman Act. That law, if properly respected and enforced, would practically put an end to Mr. Gompers' occupation. Referring lately in a public speech to the effect of a recent court decision against inter-State boycotts, Mr. Gompers quoted, as applicable to his own organization, Shylock's speech in "The Merchant of Venice," "You might as well take from me my life as take from me the means whereby I live." Mr. Gompers' chief interest in the Civic Federation bill, therefore, was a clause which specifically declared that the Anti-trust Act should not be so interpreted "as to interfere with or restrict any right of employees to strike for any cause or to combine or to contract with each other or with employers for the purpose of peaceably obtaining from employers satisfactory terms of their labor or satisfactory conditions of employment." Mr. Low and Mr. Jenks denied that this language legalized the boycott; Congressman Littlefield, however, and many other opponents of the measure, emphatically asserted that it did. Such sweeping concessions as "_to strike for any cause_" and "_to combine or to contract with each other or with employers for the purpose of peaceably obtaining from employers satisfactory terms_," it was maintained, clearly authorized such boycotts as that prosecuted against the Danbury Hatters. That proceeding, it was pointed out, was entirely peaceable--there was no law-breaking, no rioting, no bloodshed. It would also legalize, it was said, many of those arrangements between labor unions and employers--by which employers' associations contract to employ only members of certain labor unions, the latter, on their part, contracting to work only for certain employers--which were brought to such perfection by the late Sam Parks. Mr. Gompers demanded that, if the clause in question did not authorize boycotts, another should be substituted which did; to make the case sure, therefore, he proposed an amendment which did so in no uncertain tone. The following extract from the record clearly defines Mr. Gompers' position: MR. LITTLEFIELD: Now, Mr. Gompers, a word. Would this amendment you suggest, if it became a law, authorize the prosecution of such a boycott as was attempted in the Danbury Hatters' case, which was in violation of the Sherman Anti-trust Law? Is that the purpose? MR. GOMPERS: One of the purposes; yes, sir. That case was brought under the Sherman Anti-trust Law. MR. LITTLEFIELD: Yes. And the purpose of the amendment you have offered is to relieve you from the operation of the Sherman Anti-trust Law as construed by the court in that case? MR. GOMPERS: Yes, sir. MR. LITTLEFIELD: And to authorize that kind of an inter-State boycott? MR. GOMPERS: Yes, sir.