Felix Frankfurter

“ The question which thus emerges is whether a state can choose to authorize its courts to enjoin acts of picketing in themselves peaceful when they are enmeshed with contemporaneously violent conduct which is concededly outlawed. The Constitution is invoked to deny Illinois the power to authorize its courts to prevent the continuance and recurrence of flagrant violence, found after an extended litigation to have occurred under specific circumstances, by the terms of a decree familiar in such cases. ”

“ And in exercising its power a state is not to be treated as though the technicalities of the laws of agency were written into the Constitution. Certainly a state is not confined by the Constitution to narrower limits in fashioning remedies for dealing with industrial disputes than the scope of discretion open to the National Labor Relations Board. It is true of a union as of an employer that it may be responsible for acts which it has not expressly authorized or which might not be attributable to it on strict application of the rules of respondeat superior. ”

“ On the other hand, if they choose to leave their courts with the power which they have historically exercised, within the circumscribed limits which this opinion defines, and we deny them that instrument of government, that power has been taken from them permanently. Just because these industrial conflicts raise anxious difficulties, it is most important for us not to intrude into the realm of policy-making by reading our own notions into the Constitution. ”

“ We are here concerned with power and not with the wisdom of its exercise. We merely hold that in the circumstances of the record before us the injunction authorized by the supreme court of Illinois does not transgress its constitutional power. ”

“ In this case the master found 'intimidation of the customers of the plaintiff's vendors by the Commission of the acts of violence', and the supreme court justified its decision because picketing, 'in connection with or following a series of assaults or destruction of property, could not help but have the effect of intimidating the persons in front of whose premises such picketing occurred and of causing them to believe that non-compliance would possibly be followed by acts of an unlawful character'. It is not for us to make an independent valuation of the testimony before the master. ”

“ A state may withdraw the injunction from labor controversies but no less certainly the Fourteenth Amendment does not make unconstitutional the use of the injunction as a means of restricting violence. We find nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment that prevents a state if it so chooses from placing confidence in a chancellor's decree and compels it to rely exclusively on a policeman's club. ”

“ To maintain the balance of our federal system, insofar as it is committed to our care, demands at once zealous regard for the guarantees of the Bill of Rights and due recognition of the powers belonging to the states. ”

“ The supreme court of Illinois sustained an injunction against the Milk Wagon Drivers Union over the latter's claim that it involved an infringement of the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. ”

“ These vendors departed from the working standards theretofore achieved by the Union for its members as dairy employees. The Union, in order to compel observance of the established standards, took action against dairies using the vendor system. The present respondent, Meadowmoor Dairies, Inc., brought suit against the Union and its officials to stop interference with the distribution of its products. A preliminary injunction restraining all Union conduct, violent and peaceful, promptly issued, and the case was referred to a master for report. ”