h no law forbids, and even things which
the Constitution and statute law declare to be legal.

Mr. John Mitchell refers to this subject, in strong but not too strong
terms. "No weapon," he says, "has been used with such disastrous effect
against trade unions as the injunction in labor disputes. By means of
it, trade unionists have been prohibited under severe penalties from
doing what they had a legal right to do, and have been specifically
directed to do what they had a legal right not to do. It is difficult to
speak in measured tones or moderate language of the savagery and venom
with which unions have been assailed by the injunction, and to the
working classes, as to all fair-minded men, it seems little less than a
crime to condone or tolerate it."[132] This is strong language, but who
shall say that it is too strong when we remember the many injunctions
which have been hurled at organized labor since the famous Debs case
brought this weapon into general use?

In this celebrated case, which grew out of the Pullman strike, in 1894,
Eugene V. Debs, president of the American Railway Union, was arrested
and arraigned on indictments of obstructing the mails and interstate
commerce. Although arraigned, he was not tried, the case being
abandoned, despite his demands for a trial. President Cleveland's strike
commission subsequently declared, "There is no evidence before the
commission that the officers of the American Railway Union at any time
participated in or advised intimidation, violence, or destruction of
property." Realizing that it had no sort of evidence upon which a jury
might be hoped to convict, a new way was found. Debs and his officers
were enjoined in a famous "blanket" injunction directed against Debs and
all other officials of the union, and "all persons whomsoever." For an
alleged violation of that injunction, Judge Woods, without trial by
jury, sentenced Debs to six months' imprisonment and his associates to
three months'. The animus and class bias of the whole proceeding may be
judged from the fact that President Cleveland selected to represent the
United States Government, at Chicago, Mr. Edwin Walker, general counsel
at that very time for the General Managers' Association, representing
the twenty-four railroads centering or terminating in Chicago. And these
railroads were operating in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law at
the time.[133]

In 1899 an injunction was issued out of the United States C