An examination of labor cases from the 1890s to 1920s shows a judicial preoccupation with worker violence that went beyond the realities of actual worker behavior. An exaggerated notion of worker violence thus shaped legal doctrines and judges debated whether violence was an inherent part of organized labor activity. Federal and State antitrust laws were used to regulate labor union picketing. Judge (and later Chief Justice) William Howard Taft's labor union opinions are cited as representative of judicial opinions in the time period studied. Taft and other judges carried out ambivalent goals: they wanted to limit pickets, boycotts, and labor violence while at the same time legalizing and rationalizing the acts of labor unions. The imagery employed by judges in justifying their decisions failed to capture the real conditions of workers' lives. 538 footnotes.