against by
others, or competed with by a monopoly favored by the state. These
last two clauses, of course, belong to our next chapter. This right of
contract is not peculiar to the English law, as is the right not to be
compelled to personal service, and is much better understood; though
it is still earnestly argued by many advocates of union labor that
there is no real freedom of contract, or, at least, equality of
contract, between the employer and the employee; that therefore
"collective bargaining" should be allowed, and that therefore, and
furthermore, the wiser or the better organized should be permitted to
combine to control the contract or the labor of the individual. But if
we hold thoroughly these two principles before our mind we shall have
the key to the understanding of our labor legislation; and if we add
to that the third principle against conspiracy, we shall have the key
to our more complicated legislation against trusts and blacklists and
boycotts, and to an understanding of the more difficult questions,
affecting labor in combination and the regulation of labor unions.

That there has been a vast deal of interference, or attempted
interference, with these principles in modern American legislation
goes without saying. The motive or force behind such legislation has
pretty clearly two sources: First, the behest or desire of the "Labor
interest" or organized labor, the trades-unions themselves; and when
we analyze these and their constituents we shall find that it really
means only mechanical or industrial labor, not farm or agricultural
labor (which is still in numbers the greatest body of labor in the
United States), nor, as yet, domestic service labor, nor what the
census calls "personal service," which is probably next in numerical
importance, nor clerks; it is a comparatively small class in numbers,
this class of skilled mechanical or manufacturing labor, that has
brought about this immense mass of legislation of our modern States
aimed at improving their own labor conditions; and which therefore,
necessarily perhaps, interferes with personal liberty as to the labor
contract, or, at least, seeks to regulate it.

The other great influence is rather a motive than a source; we may
call it, for want of a better word, the sentimental or the altruistic
motive--the moral motive; the forces behind it being mainly of a
religious or moral origin, philanthropists, students of ethics, and
recently, to a great