vative 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."

Espionage became so efficient and letters from old customers withdrawing
patronage became so numerous and came from so wide a range of territory
that the company found itself rapidly nearing ruin. An injunction
was secured, enjoining the American Federation from blacklisting the
company. The labor journals circumvented this mandate by publishing
in display type the statement that "It is unlawful for the American
Federation of Labor to boycott Buck's Stoves and Ranges," and then in
small type adroitly recited the news of the court's