 According to historian Louis L. Gould, "while Taft shared the fears about social unrest that dominated the middle classes during the 1890s, he was not as conservative as his critics believed. He supported the right of labor to organize and strike, and he ruled against employers in several negligence cases." Among these was Voight v. Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railway Co. Taft's decision for a worker injured in a railway accident violated the contemporary doctrine of liberty of contract, and he was reversed by the Supreme Court. On the other hand, Taft's opinion in United States v. Addyston Pipe and Steel Co. was upheld unanimously by the high court. Taft's opinion, in which he held that a pipe manufacturers' association had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, was described by Henry Pringle, his biographer, as having "definitely and specifically revived" that legislation.
