Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/231

 ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARD TRUSTS 2i;

United States. The United States filed its bill to have the pur- chases set aside as contrary to the anti-trust act of 1890. In dismissing the bill, the court pointed out that:

The regulation of commerce applies to the subjects of commerce and not to matters of internal police. Contracts to buy, sell, or exchange goods to be transported among the several states, the transportation and its instrumen- talities, the articles bought, sold, or exchanged for the purposes of such transit among the states, or put in way of transit, may be regulated, but this is because they form a part of the interstate trade or commerce. The fact that an article is manufactured in another state does not of itself make it an article of interstate commerce, and the intent of the manufacturer does not determine the time when the article or product passes from the control of the state and belongs to commerce.

After concluding that monopolies in the manufacture of a neces- sary of life are not covered by the act, the court says : "There was nothing in the proofs to indicate any intention to put a restraint upon trade or commerce." Note the word "intention," for its use in this connection seems to indicate that, if there had been proof of the intention, together with the indirect restraint of trade, the court might have sustained the bill.

In the second case, Addyston Pipe and Steel Co. vs. United States, the United States sought to break up, under the anti-trust act of 1890, an association formed between six corporations manufacturing cast-iron pipes, supplying thirty-six states, for the purpose of eliminating competition. The court in dissolving the association said :

As has frequently been said, interstate commerce consists of intercourse and traffic between the citizens and inhabitants of different states, and includes not only the transportation of persons and property, but also the pur- chase, sale, and exchange of commodities If, therefore; an agree- ment or combination directly restrains not alone the manufacture, but the purchase, sale, or exchange of the manufactured commodity among the sev- eral states, it is brought within the provisions of the statute.

Now, it will be readily seen that the purchase of the Philadel- phia refineries by the American Sugar Refining Co. would pro- duce practically the same effect upon the " purchase, sale, or exchange of the manufactured commodity among the several states " as it did in the association of the cast-iron pipe manu- facturers, and the former combination seems to have been