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, used this method of opposition in the years
that followed. Its members refused to deal with peasants or tradesmen
who sided with the government, but they used acts of violence and
intimidation as well as economic pressure. The government employed
15,000 military police and 40,000 soldiers against the people, but they
succeeded only in filling the jails. The struggle might well have won
land for the Irish peasant, if Parnell, who had become leader of the