If the workmen of an employer refuse to work for him except on better terms at a time when their withdrawal will cause great loss to him, and they intentionally inflict such loss to coerce him to come to their terms, they are bona fide exercising their lawful right to dispose of their labor for the purpose of lawful gain. But the dealings between Parker Brothers and their material men, or between such material men and their customers had not the remotest natural connection either with defendants' wages or their other terms of employment. There was no competition or possible contractual relation between the plaintiffs and defendants, where their interests were naturally opposed. The right of the plaintiffs (Moore & Company) to sell their material was not one which, in its exercise, brought them into legitimate conflict with the rights of defendants' Union and its members to dispose of their labor as they chose. The conflict was brought about by the efforts of defendants to use plaintiffs' right of trade to injure Parker Brothers, and, upon failure of this, to use plaintiffs' customers' right of trade to injure plaintiffs. Such effort cannot be in the bona fide exercise of trade, is without just cause, and is, therefore, malicious. The immediate motive of defendants here was to show to the building world what punishment and disaster necessarily followed a defiance of their demands. The remote motive of wishing to better their condition by the power so acquired, will not, as we think we have shown, make any legal justification for defendants' acts. The doctrine of excommunication, the great engine of the Church in the Middle Ages, has not been revived and transferred from the Pope to the labor unions. _End of the Engineers' Famous "Rule 12"_ The next decision of Taft's in a labor dispute came after his elevation to the Federal Bench, and again involved the same principle--the extent to which the rights of a third party, against whom neither labor nor capital has any grievance, can be impaired by involving him against his will in labor disputes. This case arose out of a strike of locomotive engineers on the Toledo-Ann Arbor Railroad in 1893. The strike had been called after numerous conferences between the railroad officials and Mr. Arthur, the representative of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. It was a legitimate strike, as against the Toledo-Ann Arbor Railroad, for higher wages. The phase of the controversy which came into court for Judge Taft's consideration, however, was not the strike itself, but grew out of an attempt by the Union to compel other railroads to refuse to receive freight from the Toledo Road and thereby paralyze that road and coerce it into granting the demands of the engineers.