aders in general
understand this principle and try to avoid violence at all costs. They
do so not on the basis of principle, but on the basis of expediency.[39]

In the great wave of enthusiastic organization of labor that swept over
the United States in 1936 and 1937, American labor copied a variant of
the strike, which had been used earlier in Hungary and in France.[40]
Instead of leaving the property of the employer and trying to prevent
others from entering it to take their places, workers remained on a "sit
down strike" within the plants, so that the employer would have been
forced to use violence to remove them in order to operate the factory.
These strikes were based in part upon the theory that the worker had a
property right to his job, just as the employer did to his capital
equipment. Such strikes were for a time more successful than the older
variety, because strike-breaking was virtually impossible. However, it
was not long before public opinion forced the abandonment of the
technique. It was revolutionary in character, since it threatened the
old concept of private property. The fear of small property holders that
their own possessions would be jeopardized by the success of such a
movement, made them support the owners of the plants against the
strikers, who were then forced to give way. In this case the public's
fear of revolutionary change was greater than their dislike of violence,
so they even supported the use of physical force by the employers and
the police authorities to remove the strikers from the plants. The very
effectiveness of the method which labor was employing brought about its
defeat, because the public was not yet persuaded to accept the new
concept of the property right of the laborer to his job.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] A. J. Muste, _Non-Violence in an Aggressive World_ (New York:
Harper, 1940), 70-72.

[40] Barthelemy de Ligt, _The Conquest of Violence: An Essay on War and
Revolution_ (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1938), 131-132.

The Boycott

The boycott is a more indirect type of non-cooperation than the strike,
in most cases.[41] This word originated in Ireland in 1880 when a
Captain Boycott, an agent for an Irish landlord, refused the demands of
the tenants on the estate. In retaliation they threatened his life,
forced his servants to leave him, tore down his fences, and cut off his
food supplies. The Irish Land League, insisting that the land of Ireland
should belong to its people,