A local assembly of the Knights of Labor had declared a boycott against
one George Theiss, a proprietor of a music and beer garden. The latter
at first submitted and paid a fine of $1000 to the labor organization,
but later brought action in court against the officers charging them
with intimidation and extortion.

The judge, George C. Barrett, in his charge to the jury, conceded that
striking, picketing, and boycotting as such were not prohibited by law,
if not accompanied by force, threats, or intimidation. But in the case
under consideration the action of the pickets in advising passers-by not
to patronize the establishment and in distributing boycott circulars
constituted intimidation. Also, since the $1000 fine was obtained by
fear induced by a threat to continue the unlawful injury to Theiss
inflicted by the "boycott," the case was one of extortion covered by the
penal code. It made no difference whether the money was appropriated by
the defendants for personal use or whether it was turned over to their
organization. The jury, which reflected the current public opinion
against boycotts, found all of the five defendants guilty of extortion,
and Judge Barrett sentenced them to prison for terms ranging from one
year and six months to three years and eight months.

The Theiss case, coming as it did at a time of general restlessness of
labor and closely after the defeat of the eight-hour movement, greatly
hastened the growth of the sentiment for an independent labor party. The
New York Central Labor Union, the most famous and most influential
organization of its kind in the country at the time, with a membership
estimated at between 40,000 and 50,000, placed itself at the head of the
movement in which both socialists and non-socialists joined. Henry
George, the originator of the single tax movement, was nominated by the
labor party for Mayor of New York and was allowed to draw up his own