Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/196/375/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 16:31:36+00:00

Document:
Later superseded by the National Labor Relations Board decision, this decision held that local business practices that amount in the aggregate to a stream of commerce can be regulated by the federal government under its commerce power.
It does not matter that a combination of this nature embraces restraint and monopoly of trade within a single State if it also embraces and is directed against commerce among the States. Moreover, the effect of such a combination upon interstate commerce is direct, and not accidental, secondary, or remote, as in United Slates v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1.
The scheme as a whole seems to us to be within reach of the law. The constituent elements, as we have stated them, are enough to give to the scheme a body and, for all that we can say, to accomplish it. Moreover, whatever we may think of them separately when we take them up as distinct charges, they are alleged sufficiently as elements of the scheme. It is suggested that the several acts charged are lawful, and that intent can make no difference. But they are bound together as the parts of a single plan. The plan may make the parts unlawful. Aikens v. Wisconsin, 195 U. S. 194, 195 U. S. 206. The statute gives this proceeding against combinations in restraint of commerce among the States and against attempts to monopolize the same. Intent is almost essential to such a combination, and is essential to such an attempt. Where acts are not sufficient in themselves to produce a result which the law seeks to prevent -- for instance, the monopoly -- but require further acts in addition to the mere forces of nature to bring that result to pass, an intent to bring it to pass is necessary in order to produce a dangerous probability that it will happen. Commonwealth v. Peaslee, 177 Massachusetts 267, 272. But when that intent and the consequent dangerous probability exist, this statute, like many others and like the common law in some cases, directs itself against that dangerous probability as well as against the completed result. What we have said disposes incidentally of the objection to the bill as multifarious. The unity of the plan embraces all the parts.
combination alleged embraces restraint and monopoly of trade within a single State, its effect upon commerce among the States is not accidental, secondary, remote or merely probable. On the allegations of the bill, the latter commerce no less, perhaps even more, than commerce within a single State is an object of attack. See Leloup v. Port of Mobile, 127 U. S. 640, 127 U. S. 647; Crutcher v. Kentucky, 141 U. S. 47, 141 U. S. 59; Allen v. Pullman Co., 191 U. S. 171, 191 U. S. 179, 191 U. S. 180. Moreover, it is a direct object, it is that for the sake of which the several specific acts and courses of conduct are done and adopted. Therefore the case is not like United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1, where the subject matter of the combination was manufacture and the direct object monopoly of manufacture within a State. However likely monopoly of commerce among the States in the article manufactured was to follow from the agreement, it was not a necessary consequence nor a primary end. Here, the subject matter is sales, and the very point of the combination is to restrain and monopolize commerce among the States in respect of such sales. The two cases are near to each other, as sooner or later always must happen where lines are to be drawn, but the line between them is distinct. Montague & Co. v. Lowry, 193 U. S. 38.
recognize yard-traders, who were not members of their association. Any yard-trader could become a member of the association on complying with the conditions, and there was said to be no feature of monopoly in the case. It was held that the combination did not directly regulate commerce between the States, and, being formed with a different intent, was not within the act. The present case is more like Montague & Co. v. Lowry, 193 U. S. 38.
they do so, with only the interruption necessary to find a purchaser at the stockyards, and when this is a typical, constantly recurring course, the current thus existing is a current of commerce among the States, and the purchase of the cattle is a part and incident of such commerce. What we say is true at least of such a purchase by residents in another State from that of the seller and of the cattle. And we need not trouble ourselves at this time as to whether the statute could be escaped by any arrangement as to the place where the sale, in point of law, is consummated. See Norfolk & Western Ry. v. Sims, 191 U. S. 441. But the sixth section of the bill charges an interference with such sales, a restraint of the parties by mutual contract and a combination not to compete in order to monopolize. It is immaterial if the section also embraces domestic transactions.
It should be added that the cattle in the stockyard are not at rest even to the extent that was held sufficient to warrant taxation in American Steel & Wire Co. v. Speed, 192 U. S. 500. But it may be that the question of taxation does not depend upon whether the article taxed may or may not be said to be in the course of commerce between the States, but depends upon whether the tax so far affects that commerce as to amount to a regulation of it. The injunction against taking part in a combination, the effect of which will be a restraint of trade among the States by directing the defendants' agents to refrain from bidding against one another at the sales of livestock, is justified so far as the subject matter is concerned.
of title at the slaughtering places, also import that the sales are to persons in other States, and that the shipments to other States are part of the transaction -- "pursuant to such sales" -- and the third section imports that the same things which are sent to agents are sold by them, and sufficiently indicates that some, at least, of the sales are of the original packages. Moreover, the sales are by persons in one State to persons in another. But we do not mean to imply that the rule which marks the point at which state taxation or regulation becomes permissible necessarily is beyond the scope of interference by Congress in cases where such interference is deemed necessary for the protection of commerce among the States. Nor do we mean to intimate that the statute under consideration is limited to that point. Beyond what we have said above, we leave those questions as we find them. They were touched upon in the Northern Securities Company's case, 193 U. S. 197.
We are of opinion, further, that the charge in the sixth section is not too vague. The charge is not of a single agreement, but of a course of conduct intended to be continued. Under the act, it is the duty of the court, when applied to, to stop the conduct. The thing done and intended to be done is perfectly definite: with the purpose mentioned, directing the defendants' agents and inducing each other to refrain from competition in bids. The defendants cannot be ordered to compete, but they properly can be forbidden to give directions or to make agreements not to compete. See Addyston Pipe & Steel Co. v. United States, 175 U. S. 211. The injunction follows the charge. No objection was made on the ground that it is not confined to the places specified in the bill. It seems to us, however, that it ought to set forth more exactly the transactions in which such directions and agreements are forbidden. The trade in fresh meat referred to should be defined somewhat as it is in the bill, and the sales of stock should be confined to sales of stock at the stockyards named, which stock is sent from other States to the stockyards for sale or is bought at those yards for transport to another State.
After what we have said, the seventh, eighth and ninth sections need no special remark except that the cartage referred to in section nine is not an independent matter, such as was dealt with in Pennsylvania R.R. Co. v. Knight, 192 U. S. 21, but a part of the contemplated transit -- cartage for delivery of the goods. The general words of the injunction "or by any other method or device, the purpose and effect of which is to restrain commerce as aforesaid," should be stricken out. The defendants ought to be informed as accurately as the case permits what they are forbidden to do. Specific devices are mentioned in the bill, and they stand prohibited. The words quoted are a sweeping injunction to obey the law, and are open to the objection which we stated at the beginning that it was our duty to avoid. To the same end of definiteness, so far as attainable, the words "as charged in the bill," should be inserted between "dealers in such meats," and "the effect of which rules," and two lines lower, as to charges for cartage, the same words should be inserted between "dealers and consumers" and "the effect of which."
elements, if entered into with the intent to monopolize, as alleged, is a more delicate question. The question is how it would stand if the tenth section were the whole bill. Not every act that may be done with intent to produce an unlawful result is unlawful, or constitutes an attempt. It is a question of proximity and degree. The distinction between mere preparation and attempt is well known in the criminal law. Commonwealth v. Peaslee, 177 Massachusetts 267, 272. The same distinction is recognized in cases like the present. United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1, 156 U. S. 13; Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1, 128 U. S. 23, 128 U. S. 24. We are of opinion, however, that such a combination is within the meaning of the statute. It is obvious that no more powerful instrument of monopoly could be used than an advantage in the cost of transportation. And even if the advantage is one which the act of 1887 permits, which is denied, perhaps inadequately, by the adjective "unlawful," still a combination to use it for the purpose prohibited by the act of 1890 justifies the adjective and takes the permission away.

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