Under the act of 1885 (Revision Sup., p. 812, § 21), the defendant association, the Journeymen Stonecutters' Association of Newark, consisting of seven or more persons, unincorporated, can be sued by its recognized name, in an action affecting the common property or the joint rights or the liabilities thereof; † but no provision having been enacted to authorize voluntary associations to prosecute actions by their adopted names, it was necessary that the members of the complainant association, the Master Stonecutters' Association, should prosecute in their individual names, for any infringement of any alleged right of the society.

The relief prayed for in the bill is, (1) that this court shall require the defendant association to admit two certain journeymen stonecutters, residing in Newark and vicinity, to be members of the association on paying the customary dues and fulfilling the rules imposed upon other members, and to give each the customary card or other usual evidence of such membership; and (2) that the association be enjoined from denouncing said stonecutters as "scabs," or in any manner persecuting or injuring them on account of their exercising their lawful trade without being admitted to such membership; and from attempting to coerce or intimidate the complainants, who are master stonecutters, or any other master stonecutters from employing

*2 Dickinson 519; opinion by Vice Chancellor Green. + See Labor Legislation: Miscellaneous, above.

such or other skilled journeymen, whether members of said association or not, by means of strikes, boycotts or other methods of violence or intimidation.

These organizations are formed for purposes mutually agreed upon; their right to make by-laws and rules for the admission of members and the transaction of business is unquestionable; they may require such qualifications for membership and such formalities of election as they choose; they may restrict membership to the original promoters, or limit the number to be thereafter admitted. The very idea of such organization is association mutually acceptable, or in accordance with regulations agreed upon. A power to require the admission of a person in any way objectionable to the society is repugnant to the scheme of its organization. While courts have interfered to inquire into and restrain the action of such societies in the attempted exclusion of persons who have been regularly admitted to membership, no case can, I think, be found where the power of any court has been exercised, as sought in this case, to require the admission of any person to orignal membership in any such voluntary association. Courts exist to protect rights, and where the right has once attached they will interfere to prevent its violation, but no person has any abstract right to be admitted to such membership. That depends solely upon the action of the society, exercised in accordance with its regulations, and until so admitted no right exists which the courts can be called upon to protect or enforce.

Neither is it clear upon what ground of jurisdiction the court can inquire into the action of the defendant association in the passage of the resolution complained of, namely, that in the month of May, 1889, or about that time, the association determined to admit no more members for the space of one year, thus excluding from employment all stonecutters seeking work not already admitted to membership. It appears from the testimony, however, that it was passed to. prevent the admission of persons known as "harvesters." This is a term used in the trade to designate foreigners, skilled workmen, who come to this country when work is plenty and wages high, get employment, and in winter return with their earnings to their homes in foreign countries; and that such was the scope of the resolution is shown by the fact that persons not coming within that class were admitted to membership after its passage. In the light of national

legislation, with reference to the importation of contract labor, it can scarcely be said that such action is against the policy of the law. But the body has clear right to prescribe qualifications for its membership; it may make it as exclusive as it sees fit; it may make the restriction on the line of citizenship, nationality, age, creed or profession, as well as numbers. This power is incident to its character as a voluntary association, and cannot be inquired into, except on behalf of some person who has acquired some right in the organization, and to protect such right.

There is nothing in the evidence to show that the defendants threaten to use any violence or commit any trespass, or do any overt,. positive act of injury. It does appear that the members of the defendant association, by the scheme of organization, agree to work. only with those that are members of their union, and not to work in any shop or yard where such others are employed, and that they have adopted measures to elicit the facts and carry out their purpose, by the use of cards of membership, the appointment of shop stewards, and the withdrawal from work on the refusal of the employer to enter into their plans. The restraining power of the court is invoked to enjoin the association, its officers and members, from denouncing two of the complainants, journeymen stonecutters, by the use of an offensive appellation, from persecuting or preventing them from getting work, and from coercing or intimidating the other complainants, master stonecutters, by the use of strikes, boycotts or other methods of violence, from employing them. The interference of the court is asked on the ground that the right to exercise a trade is a right of property, and that the right to employ laborers willing to work is also a right of property, and that the anticipated acts of the defendants. tend to deprive complainants of such rights of property.

In the whole history of this long-continued struggle which has been going on between these combinations on the one hand and employers on the other, there is but one reported and unreversed case where a court of equity has, by writ of injunction, attempted to control the action of these associations, and then only to prevent a continuing trespass upon the lands of the complainant. (New York, L. E. & W. R. R. v. Wenger, 17 Week. L. Bul. and Ohio L. J. 306.) Of course the well-known interference of the court for the protection of property, and the action of a receiver, appointed by it, of the property

of an insolvent corporation, operated under the order of the court, and threatened by the action of such combination, stands upon an established and well-defined basis, to which no fact in the present case can apply.

Whatever may have been the rule of the common law with reference to such acts as are under consideration, and however criminal many of them have heretofore been considered, the Legislature of this State, by the act of 1883,* has greatly changed the law which declared combinations to effect such purposes unlawful. In fact, the policy of the law with reference to such combinations was revolutionized, and what before that time would have been held to be an unlawful combination and conspiracy, became in this State a lawful association, and acts which had been the subject of indictment became inoffensive to any provision of our law. Nothing in this case has been proved to warrant a finding that the defendants have done or threatened aught that is not legalized by this act of the Legislature. It is true that much of intent is charged which might overstep the boundary line defined by the law, but there is no evidence to sustain the assumption that any unlawful act to the injury of the complainants' rights of property is threatened by the defendants. They have agreed not to work with any but membere of their association, and not to work for an employer who insists on their doing so, by withdrawing from his employment. So long as they confine themselves to peaceable means to effect their ends, they are within the spirit and letter of the law, and not subject to the interference of the courts.†

CONSPIRACY.

State v. Donaldson and others. I

A combination will be an indictable conspiracy whenever the end proposed, or the means to be employed, are of a highly criminal character, or where they are such as to indicate great malice in the con

*See "An act relative to persons combining and encouraging other persons to combine." Laws 1883, Chap..28, p. 36; also Labor Legislation: Crimes and Misdemeanors, above.

+ See State v. Donaldson, below.

13 Vroom 155; opinion by Chief Justice Beasley, Supreme Court. This case was decided before the law of 1883 referred to in Vice Chancellor Green's opinion above, and consequently the doctrine of common-law conspiracy, as there defined, is abrogated in this State. See above.