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BOYCOTT

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 353 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BOYCOTT , the refusal and incitement to refusal to have commercial or social dealings with any one on whom it is wished to bring pressure. As merely a See also:

form of " sending to See also:Coventry " or (in W. E. See also:Gladstone's phrase) " exclusive dealing," boycotting may be, from a legal point of view, unassailable, and as such has frequently been justified by its See also:original See also:political inventors. But in practice it has usually taken the form of what is undoubtedly an illegal See also:conspiracy to injure the See also:person, See also:property or business of another by unwarrantably putting pressure on all and sundry to withdraw from him their social or business inter-course. The word was first used in See also:Ireland, and was derived from the name of See also:Captain See also:Charles See also:Cunningham Boycott (1832-1897), See also:agent for the estates of the See also:earl of See also:Erne in Co. See also:Mayo. For refusing in 188o to receive rents at figures fixed by the tenants, Captain Boycott had his See also:life threatened, his servants compelled to leave him, his fences torn down, his letters intercepted and his See also:food supplies interfered with. It took a force of 900 soldiers to protect the See also:Ulster See also:Orangemen (" Emergency Men ") who succeeded finally in getting in his crops. He wa.s hooted and mobbed in the streets, and hanged and burnt in effigy. The See also:system of boycotting was an essential See also:part of the Irish Nationalist " See also:Plan of See also:Campaign," and was dealt with under the Crimes See also:Act of 1887. The See also:term soon came into See also:common See also:English use, and was speedily adopted by the See also:French, Germans, Dutch and Russians.

In the See also:

United States this method of " persuasion " was taken up by the See also:trade unions about 1886, an employer who refused their demands being brought to terms by a See also:combination IV. I2to refuse to buy his product or do his See also:work, or to See also:deal with any who did. Various cases have occurred in See also:America in which labour organizations have pronounced such a boycott against a See also:firm; and its illegal nature has been established in the See also:law-courts; notably in the See also:case of the Bucks See also:Stove See also:Company v. The See also:American Federation of Labor (1907) in the Supreme See also:Court of the See also:district of See also:Columbia, and in a suit against the Hatters' See also:Union (See also:February 1908) in the U.S. Supreme Court. A boycott has also been held by the U.S. Supreme Court to be a violation of the See also:Sherman See also:Anti-See also:Trust law.

End of Article: BOYCOTT

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