Civil Justice Leagues

I came across an antecedent for the term Justice League the other day. The American journalist and civil rights campaigner Mary Heaton Vorse published a book of reminiscences entitled A Footnote to Folly. She writes that,

A year later [after the USA entered World War One], I received an appeal from the Justice League, organised by miners’ wives in May, 1915. In their appeal to defend the imprisoned miners, and their desire to bring the murderers to justice.

The incident that she is referring to is the Ludlow massacre/battle/disaster of 1914 when tensions between the Colorado militia and a group of 1200 striking miners flashed into full blown warfare. The President was forced to send in Federal troops to disarm both sides. During the battle eleven children and two women were killed, but the militia men do not seem to have been censured for the deaths.

Putting aside the terrible incident itself, it’s the fact that Vorse refers to a “Justice League” as a singular definitive article that I find interesting. By the context it would seem that this group is a civil rights group designed to lobby the justice system. Today there are “Civil Justice Leagues” in Texas, Colorado, and Illinois who follow similar causes, but with their own local agendas and backers. The meaning of a Justice League as an umbrella organisation made of up civil rights groups and legal campaigners seems to have a distinguished history.