Roots of the Underclass: The Decline of Laissez-Faire Jurisprudence and the Rise of Racist Labor Legislation
![handle is hein.journals/aulr43 and id is 95 raw text is: ROOTS OF THE 'UNDERCLASS':
THE DECLINE OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE
JURISPRUDENCE AND THE RISE OF
RACIST LABOR LEGISLATION
DAVID E. BERNSTEIN*
[A] colored worker who is denied the protection and the benefits
of organized labor because they will not take him in, has only one
place of redress in case his right of employment is assailed, and that
is in our courts.
Harry E. Davis, Member, Ohio House of Representatives, 19281
[I]nstead of taking the part of the Negro and helping him toward
physical and economic freedom, the American labor movement
from the beginning has tried to achieve freedom at the expense of
the Negro.
W.E.B. Du Bois, 1929
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ...................................... 86
I. The Racist History of American Labor Unions ....... 91
II. The Growth of National Labor Legislation .......... 96
A. Railroad Labor Legislation .................... 98
1. Early discriminatory legislation ............. 98
2. World War I and federal intervention
on the railroads ......................... 101
* Associate, Crowell & Moring, Washington, D.C.;J.D., Yale Law School, 1991. Numerous
friends and colleagues read drafts of this Article and provided insightful comments and research
leads. Special thanks to Les Benedict, Geoffrey Hazard, and David Mayer for their assistance
at key junctures. Earlier versions of this Article were presented to the Capital University Law
School Faculty Enrichment Series in the Spring of 1992, and the Yale Law School's Legal History
Seminar in the Spring of 1991.
1. Limiting Scope of Injuncions in Labor Disputes: Hearings on S. 1482 Before a Subcomm. of the
Senate Comm. on the Judiciay, 70th Cong., 1st Sess. 610 (1928) [hereinafter Shipstead Hearings]
(statement of Harry E. Davis, Member, Ohio House of Representatives).
2. W. E. B. Du Bois, TheDenial of Economicjustice to Negroes, THE NEW LEADER, Feb. 9,1929,
at 43, 46 [hereinafter Du Bois, Denial ofJustice].](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/aulr43&div=10&collection=journals&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Roots of the Underclass: The Decline of Laissez-Faire Jurisprudence and the Rise of Racist Labor Legislation
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