Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-05-28
LAW PROHIBITING
i PPICE-CUT IS VOID
U. S. Supreme Court Decides
Patentees Can't Forbid
UnderseIling.
JERSEY STATUTE SHOWN
TO BE UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Decision ForestalIs Remedial
Bill Long Held Up Through
Lobby in Congress.
star Bureau.
Metropolitan National Bank Bldg.
WASHINGTON, May IS.

WASHINGTON, May IS.
A decision of the Supreme Court
this week may show as unconstitu-
tional a law of farreaching effect
and Importance passed by the New
Jersey Legislature at its regular ses-
sion this year.
The New Jersey law whose effect
is now left uncertain was signed by
Governor Fielder late in the regular
session. Its general purpose is to
prohibit unfair competition, but its
real intent is contained in a single
sentence which makes it illegal to
seek to gain trade "by price induce
ment'
This law, when it was in the Legis-
lature, had the endorsement of
Chancellor Edwin r. Walker As
semblyman Charles o. Hennessey,
George a.. Record and a number of
other prominent Progressives. 1t
was also backed by organizations Of
advertisers and publishers.
Declared to be in line with Presi-
dent wilson's much-advertised policy
of Regulating competition" to sup
press and destroy monopoly, members
of the New Jersey Legislature who
supported the bill referred loosely
to its passage as putting one over
on the seven sisters"
The direct purpose of the Jersey
law is to make it illegal for depart
ment stores and other retailers to
cut prices on advertised goods pro-
tected by patents, trademarks or
copyrighted brands.
The decision of the Supreme Court
this week declares that manufac-
turers of patented goods have no
constitutional right to fix the price
at which a retailer shall sell such
goods.
This decision was rendered in the
case of patent medicine company in
New York which sold some of its
medicine to a Washington druggist.
The manufacturers printed on the
label q warning that the medicine
was not to be sold for less than a
dollar a bottle. The druggist, who
runs a big cut-rate store, sold it for
eighty-five cents bottle, and the
patent medicine people took the case
into court
The Supreme Court on appeal
sustained the right of the druggist
TO cut prices as much as he pleased,
regardless of what the manufac-
furers might say. In their opinion,
the six judges sustaining this view
asserted that when a manufacturer
made a sale outright of any article,
he could not dictate at what price
the article should be resold.
This decision is regarded here as
one of the most important rendered
by the country's highest tribunal in
a long time. It's effect is very far
reaching, and is a body blow for a
strong organization of manufacture
ers of patented and branded articles
who have been conducting a national
campaign in favor of price-fixing.
Charles A. Ingersoll, of East Or
ange. is one of the men prominently
identified with the movement to legal
ize price-fixing. which gets severe
setback by the courts decision in the
case of Bauer VS.. O'Donnell. Manu-
facturers of numerous other branded
goods have been active for more than
a year in organizing a movement
among manufacturers and magazine
publishers which seeks to protect
small retailers against mail order
houses and department stores by
making it illegal to sell branded goods
at less than the price fixed by the
manufacturer.
Edmund A. Whittier. of East Or
ange, who is active in the councils
of the Wilson Democrats of Essex
county, has represented this organi-
cation of manufacturers here for
year, in urging the defeat of the Old
field bill in Congress. the purpose Of
which is to accomplish by legislation
what is now accomplished by the
Supreme Court decision.
It is said that a majority of the