The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1920-07-01
GRAIN GRADING ACT
IS CONSTITUTIONAL

Fargo-June 21, 1920. In a decis-
ion announced today Federal Judge
Charles F. Amidon upholds the North
Dakota Grain Grading act, dismisses
the bill brought against it by the
grain gamblers acting thru the Emb-
den Elevator and sets aside the tenn
porary injunction issued by three fed
eral judges in St.. Paul which re-
strained Chief Grain Inspector Edwin
F.'Ladd and Deputy J. A. McGovern
from enforcing the provisions Of the
act. Coming as it does but three weeks
after the decision of the United
Statee Supreme Court in the "42 tax
payers" case that the state of North
Dakota vas within it's constitutional
rights in embarking upon the Indus
trial Program, it is the most eloquent
refutation of the charges of the Big
Business press and arotors that the
program is unconstitutional and a
complete vindication of the essential
soundness of the North Dakota pro-
gram and the Nonpartisan League
idea.
Just as the "42 Taxpayers" suit
made possible the sale of the bonds for
the state industries and the carrying
out of the Industrial program so the
Embden Elevator decision enables In
spectors Ladd and McGover to reg
ulate the purchase of grain by North
Dakota elevators and to see that the
farmers are paid for their dockage
and given fair grain grades.
Part of Judge Amidon's decision
follows
"The case involves two questions of
law:
1. Does chapter 1873 of the Session
Laws of 1919, impose a direct burden
upon interstate commerce.
2. Has Congress, by the United
States Grain Standards Act so fully
occupied the field Of grain grading,
weighing and dockage as to exclude
the state from that field, and does
Chapter 1873 of the Session Laws of
1919 come in conflict with this Fed
eral Law so as to render it void.
Until the plaintiffs property was
actually delivered to a common car
rier for transportation, or it's transfer
to another state was actually COM
menced it was subject to the police
power of North Dakota. "This must
be so. Otherwise the entire business
of buying personal property of every
kind would pass beyond state author
ity simply by the intent of the buyer
to transport it to another state. This
is the, capital fallacy of the plaintiffs
entire argument on this branch of the
case. It results, from what I have said
that the State Grain Grading Law has
only an indirect and remote effect
upon interstate commerce, and plain
tiff's first contention is unsound."
"We now pass to the second conten-
tion-From the. evidence of President
Ladd it appears that the federal and
the state statutes are not intended to
be exclusive, the of the other, but
complementary, constituting together
a complete system. The federal law,
instead of attempting to operate the
whole field, and exclude state action,
expressly recognizes such state action,
and depends upon it for the carrying
out of it's own scheme. X X x In en-
forcing the state law and in making
the necessary rules and regulations to
carry that out, President Ladd and
Mr.. McGovern have at all times had
the federal law clearly in view, and
have kept the two in harmony. * y
1T is only when state and federal
legislation in a field to which the