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For nearly twenty years the national tribunals have been engaged in interpreting the Anti-Trust Act of July 2, 1890. That it has been considered deeply and earnestly by the Supreme Court is shown by the constancy and strength of dissenting opinion.

And yet, when recently asking a number of able and experienced counsel for definite opinions concerning it, they either did not feel able to reply, or did so with the greatest hesitation and difference of view.

Hastily, myself, looking at the cases, I was involved in the same conclusion. The Knight case seemed in direct conflict with the Securities case—four of the Justices thought it was; and the Anderson case with the Montague case. Yet, in later cases, all are equally cited as authority, and often for the same principle. Again: many of the cases speak of the Act as an application of the common law to "national trade" (I mean both interstate and international trade when I use this term), with additional sanctions. Others treat it as going further, but do not say why, or how much.

Then it is decided that "direct" restraints are illegal, "indirect" lawful; but that "indirect" restraints might be "inevitable," while "direct" restraints were often most circuitous. It is confusing to be told that all arrangements tending to stifle competition in national trade are direct and illegal restraints, but that, of course, a partnership that