to be
almost impossible of regulation under a strict English common-law
system. Farming on shares appears to be almost equally unsatisfactory.
The farmer gets his subsistence, but the share of the proprietor in
the crop produced is almost inappreciable.

In closing this chapter reference should be made to a large amount
of American legislation, most of which was absolutely unnecessary as
merely embodying the common law. Still it has its use in extending the
definition of the "unlawful act." It will be remembered that one of
the three branches of conspiracy was the combination to effect a
lawful end by unlawful acts. Now many of the States have statutes
declaring even threats, or intimidation without physical violence, to
be such unlawful act. It may possibly be doubted whether it might not
have been so held at the common law; but such legislation has always
the advantage of getting a uniform line of decisions from all the
judges. The New York statute passed many years ago may serve as a
sample: It provides in substance that any threat or intimidation or
abusive epithets or the hiding of tools or clothes, when done even by
one individual, is an unlawful act; therefore when strikers, although
engaged in a lawful strike, as to raise their own wages, or any one
of them, intend or do any such act, they become guilty of unlawful
conspiracy.

This is probably the only legislation on such matters which adds
anything to the common law. Many of the States, usually Western
States--apt to be more forgetful of the common law than the older
Commonwealths--have been at pains to pass statutes against blacklists.
Such statutes are entirely unnecessary, but as they relate to
combinations they will be considered in the next chapter.

From the official report of the U.S. government, prepared by the
Commission of Labor in 1907, it appears that twenty States and
Territories, including Porto Rico, have provisions against
intimidation, of which the best example is the New York statute quoted
above. Alabama and Colorado have express statutes against picketing,
other than the general statutes against interference with employment.
Nineteen other States, of which, however, only a few--Massachusetts,
Michigan, Oregon, Texas, and Utah--are the same, have provisions
against the coercion of employees in trading or industry, usually to
prevent them from joining unions, but such statutes are also levelled
against the compelling them to buy or trade