The boycott, however, was not laid aside as a necessary weapon of organized labor because it had been abused by corrupt or overzealous unionists, nor because it had been declared illegal by the courts. All the resources of the more conservative unions and of the American Federation of Labor have been enlisted to make it effective in extreme instances where the strike has failed. This application of the method can best be illustrated by the two most important cases of boycott in our history, the Buck's Stove and Range case and the Danbury Hatters' case. Both were fought through the Federal courts, with the defendants backed by the American Federation and opposed by the Anti-Boycott Association, a federation of employers. The Buck's Stove and Range Company of St. Louis incurred the displeasure of the Metal Polishers' Union by insisting upon a ten-hour day. On August 27, 1906, at five o'clock in the afternoon, on a prearranged signal, the employees walked out. They returned to work the next morning and all were permitted to take their accustomed places except those who had given the signal. They were discharged. At five o'clock that afternoon the men put aside their work, and the following morning reappeared. Again the men who had given the signal were discharged, and the rest went to work. The union then sent notice to the foreman that the discharged men must be reinstated or that all would quit. A strike ensued which soon led to a boycott of national proportions. It spread from the local to the St. Louis Central Trades and Labor Union and to the Metal Polishers' Union. In 1907 the executive council of the American Federation of Labor officially placed the Buck's Stove and Range Company on the unfair list and gave this action wide and conspicuous circulation in The Federationist. This boycott received further impetus from the action of the Mine Workers, who in their Annual Convention resolved that the Buck's Stove and Range Company be put on the unfair list and that "any member of the United Mine Workers of America purchasing a stove of above make be fined $5.00 and failing to pay the same be expelled from the organization."