States, the matter coming to said Supreme Court from the decision of the trial judge by whom, as a question of law, it was decided that the law did not apply to associations of working men.

Nevertheless, in an action brought by D. E. Loewe and another, in September, 1903, against your petitioners and a number of others, many of whom have since deceased, the plaintiffs have recovered judgment, not only for the. full amount of damages sustained, but for a sum which, in the aggregate, is three times the amount of the damages actually sustained by the plaintiffs. The theory of the action is that the defendants conspired together to restrain the interstate trade and commerce of the plaintiffs. The methods employed to that end, it is charged, were:

(1) A strike, by which the Union employes of plaintiffs quit work. It is not pretended that the strike was not fully authorized by the law of Connecticut, or that a single act was committed by any one of the strikers which was not lawful under the law of that state. Indeed, the strikers never sought to even discourage any one from entering the employ of the plaintiffs. On the contrary, they advised non-union workmen to continue the work. All the strikers did was to go away, never to return. Moreover, not one of your petitioners was an employe of the plaintiffs.

(2) It is further alleged in the complaint and proven, that for a number of years prior to the acts complained of the United Hatters' Association had agents upon the road urging the purchase of hats bearing the Union Label. But this was not illegal. Indeed, sound public policy not only encouraged, but authorized its use, as is shown by the fact that the statutes of forty-one states permit the use of the Union Label, and the courts protect it from the frauds perpetrated by those who would advantage themselves by the popularity of the label. The theory of the plaintiffs is that, notwithstanding the sanction of the law, the Union Label can be, and is, made an effective instrument of boycott. As it happens in the case, a jury has been encouraged by the courts to find that a strike lawfully conducted under the laws of the state of Connecticut, and the use of the Union Label, and of agents in other states where it is perfectly lawful to do so, together constitute a restraint of the plaintiffs' interstate trade and commerce. Assuming, as we must, now that the court has spoken, that these perfectly lawful acts constituted an unlawful conspiracy to restrain the interstate trade and commerce of the plaintiffs within the intent and meaning of the Sherman Antitrust Law, nevertheless, we humbly invite your attention to the fact that we, your petitioners, had no lot or part whatsoever in the doing of any one of these things to which reference has been briefly made. We repeat, no one of us was in the employ of Loewe & Company, but were employed by other hat manufacturers, some in other towns than Danbury; while others of us were not employed in the Hat-making Industry for ten years prior to the bringing of the Loewe suit. No one of us was consulted about it by any one, officer or employe. No one of us by word or deed sought to bring about or encourage the strike. No one of us was an agent on the road urging the use of the Hatters' Label. Nor did we have aught to do with the sending of agents upon the road, nor were we familiar with

When the action above referred to was brough was commenced against each one of us by the atta ment of our several homes, and in the instant where a little savings bank account had b created, in addition to the home, such acco was attached. In other words, the selection of the defendants in this action, which was determined by the counsel for the American Anti-Boyc Society, who were also counsel for the plaint was based on the ownership of property and not conduct from which the plaintiffs claim to have s fered injury. Each and every one of the 9. n members of the Hatters' Association, wherever over the United States they were residing and having property, could have been selected as defendant upon precisely the same grounds as your petitioner That said Sherman Act was not designed or tended to apply to or affect labor organizations combinations of working men, and this was state repeatedly in the discussion of the measure in an by your Honorable Body prior to its enactment it: law, and neither the subscribers nor any other pe sons had any knowledge that the law could be he to apply to the normal acts of labo organizatioc until the question had been submitted to and decid by the Supreme Court of the United States, the ma ter coming to said Supreme Court from the decisio of the trial judge by whom, as a question of law, was decided that the law did not apply to associ tions of working men.

That through the construction and interpretati.: given to said law by said Supreme Court a cond. tion has been created and now exists which was not contemplated or intended when said law was frames and enacted, in that labor organizations have bec: held amenable thereto, and the individual member thereof have been subjected to the penalty of tripl damages thereby provided.

That the condition above mentioned has grow: out of a certain action brought by D. E. Loewe an another, in September, 1903, under the said act against the subscribers, and a number of others wh have since deceased, in which action the homes an bank accounts of the defendants were attached an held to respond to any possible judgment recovered in said action.

That the homes and bank accounts so attache : were the results of work and savings and accumulations of many years spent by the defendants in the occupations as journeymen hatters before the act referred to had been conceived or enacted, and the efforts and accomplishments of their entire lives were affected by such attachment and possible judgment.

That at the time said suit was commenced and said attachments made, the defendants, in many instances, were already old men who had exhauste their earning capacity, and since that time, which t almost twelve years ago, many others of the defendants have ceased to have earning capacity or powers, and of the original defendants, numbering 243, many have passed away, leaving widows an

Iren whose only inheritance is the little estate the deceased defendants encumbered by the len of said attachment. Of those who were le defendants at the institution of the suit but remain to respond to the final judgment. hat during the period mentioned in the comnt in said action the defendants were engaged in ing the means of providing for themselves and ir families, and had no knowledge that they or the anization of which they were members, or the ters thereof, had done or were doing any act or s in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Law, of any other law.

That by reason of the decision of the Supreme urt that the act referred to covered the actions of or organizations and their members, a judgment been entered against the subscribers in the acn above-mentioned and in favor of said D. E. ewe and another for the recovery of two hundred d fifty-two thousand dollars ($252,000), and inest and costs, and said judgment and costs, satisfied, by the defendants, must be satisfied rough the loss of their homes and bank accounts, d the reducing of many of them, and possibly twidows and children of deceased defendants, to € position practically of paupers, with the probable sequence of throwing upon the state the burden their support.

That this situation is due to the construction of e aforesaid Sherman Antitrust Law by the Su-* reme Court, in giving to it the not intended effect applying to labor organizations, and in not limitits application to combinations and monopolies y capital and capitalists, as was intended by your Honorable Body.

That such construction was made possible through fortunate phraseology in drafting said act, and the misconception of its scope and breadth; and ardship has thereby been brought upon the subcribers.

That your Honorable Body enacted a law, aproved by the President, October 15, 1914, known as An Act to Supplement Existing Laws Against nlawful Restraints and Monopolies, and for other urposes," and commonly known as the Clayton Antitrust Law, and by the provisions of which abor organizations are exempted from the operaon and effect of all antitrust laws, and such orcanizations are now permitted to do the things for hich, under the act hereinbefore referred to, the Supreme Court held them and their members to be hable; and said Clayton law now provides specifially for that which was thought and intended to have been provided, though indirectly, in the Sherman Antitrust Law, and inferentially vindicates The belief of the defendants, and of the members of the labor organizations generally, that they were intended to be and were exempt from the effect of said act.

That from the hardship brought upon the subscribers through the construction placed on said Sherman Antitrust Law by the Supreme Court nd the loss of their homes and bank accounts hrough the satisfaction of said judgment, and the vil consequences resulting therefrom, the subcribers have no recourse, no source to which they an look for relief, other than your Honorable Body.

WHEREFORE, the subscribers humbly petition your

Honorable Body to take such action as may be necessary and proper to appropriate from the funds and revenues of the government such a sum or such sums of money as may be required to liquidate and satisfy said judgment, and to relieve the subscribers from the unintended and unjust effect of said Sherman Antitrust Law and the unexpected construction given thereto.

We respectfully urge that for obvious reasons your Honorable Body take immediate action, if in your judgment the subscribers should be relieved as prayed for in this petition, and, as in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.

Thomas A. Evans, Henry C. Judd, Mrs. William Ochs, Charles H. Green, Charles H. Frost, Mrs. Levi Short, William F. Ohler, Mrs. Frederick E. Benedict, Owen Murray, Byron B. Morgan, John L. Keane, Reuben Johnson, William Deaken, Martin McGettrick, John Crotty, Thomas Boyd, John Halpin, William E. Geartner, John Hassett, Byron Brooks, Christian Rheinhold, Peter O'Boy, Theodore Bright, Adolph Holdeichel, Andrew Aitken, Frank Rohde, John Pribula, Michael Hurd, Emil Flosky, Fred L. Stahl, Nelson H. Booth, Martin Keating, Patrick McCarthy, Michael Corbet, Archille Canale, George M. Herrick, Guiseppe Tosi, Christian G. Garni, Thomas McGanley, Wright Hampson, Myron L. Trowbridge, D. H. Barnes, Henry C. Michales, Samuel S. Wilson, Frank Krebs, Michael Hennessey, H. V. Dibble, David J. Hardy, Edward D. Lees, Patrick F. McCarthy, William V. Nowlan, Patrick McGrath, Timothy Farrell, James P. Callahan, Michael F. Kenny, William S. Dutcher, James Crotty, Alphonse Bresson, Herman Bohman, Jeremiah McCarthy, Thomas E. Waters, John Harkness, Charles Shaffer Frank Kornhass, Patrick Feeley, G. J. Miller, Thomas Leonard, George F. Denton, Eugene L. Mulkin, Thomas McHugh, Thomas Foley, Nicholas W. Allen, Patrick Hart, Charles A. Hodge, John Leonard, Charles F. McHan, J. M. Blake, Martin McCue, John McGlone, James McGlone, Peter J. Brennan, James N. Boughey, Michael F. Lynch, Elmer R. Clark, Lewy W. Comes, Alex. Harkness Frank Seamen, Patrick Jeffrey, Timothy Murray, J. B. Nowlan, Steven Havran, John Elligett, Daniel McInerney, Thomas Keenan, Patrick Fisher, Charles W. Hurd, Martin Lauf, Andrew G. Brown, Chauncey H. Butler, John H. Collins, George A. Davis, Patrick Keating, John E. Rooney, John E. Paul, Fanton W. Beers, John Redway, Peter J. Ward, James Kinnane, Edward Cunningham, Frederick H. Taylor, Thomas M. Saunders, Byron W. Crane, Theophilus Abieniste, Frank L. Wildman, Nicholas W. Barzin, Patrick Troy, Daniel Murphy, Thomas H. Allen, Barney Murphy, George T. Oakley, Clemens Beschle, John J. Callahan, Mrs. James D. Costello, Daniel Kearns, Albert S. Pearce, William Humphries, George Stuckey, John Keogh, William Clancy, James Dillon, J. H. Craft, Thomas Layhe, Owen A. Riley, Addison F. Hathaway, Albert Berg, Max Singerwald, Charles J. Flynn, William J. Weiseti, James Whitney, W. A. Brennan, Charles Smith.