intrigue, and revolution. As far back as 1305 there was enacted a
statute defining conspiracy and outlining the offense. It did not
aim at any definite social class but embraced all persons who
combined for a "malicious enterprise." Such an enterprise was the
breaking of a law. So when Parliament passed acts regulating
wages, conditions of employment, or prices of commodities, those
who combined secretly or openly to circumvent the act, to raise
wages or lower them, or to raise prices and curtail markets, at
once fell under the ban of conspiracy. The law operated alike on
conspiring employers and conniving employees.

The new class of employers during the early years of the machine
age eagerly embraced the doctrine of conspiracy. They readily
brought under the legal definition the secret connivings of the
wage-earners. Political conditions now also worked against the
laboring class. The unrest in the colonies that culminated in
the independence of America and the fury of the French Revolution
combined to make kings and aristocracies wary of all
organizations and associations of plain folk. And when we add to
this the favor which the new employing class, the industrial
masters, were able to extort from the governing class, because of
their power over foreign trade and domestic finance, we can
understand the compulsory laws at length declaring against all
combinations of working men.

The second legal doctrine which Americans have inherited from
England and which has played a leading role in labor
controversies is the doctrine that declares unlawful all
combinations in restraint of trade. Like its twin doctrine of
conspiracy, it is of remote historical origin. One of the