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 Latest Important Cases

555

that case from those of the present one.

state, and in. eﬂect become the act of the state itself’; in which event, should it

“There was no averment in the bill

operate unjustly, complainant would

that the objectionable ordinance (of

have its remedy by writ of error to the

which the Circuit Court of Appeals re

Supreme Court of the United States."

fuses jurisdiction in the Seattle case) Monopolies. Sherman Act—Reslraint had been passed under state authority, of Competition may not Amount to Re but to the contrary . . . it was ex pressly alleged that the second franchise

had been ‘granted illegally, without right, by the city of Seattle, and that said

alleged ordinance is without authority in law, and is null, void and of no force and

effect.’. . . “The Court was there dealing with a case in which the municipal ordinance was, as to any possible illegal aspect it might have, not only unauthorized by the state, but was aﬂirmatively alleged to have been passed ‘without right’ and

‘without authority in law,’ ——allega tions which must be taken to mean that it was without sanction under the laws of the state. It was clearly, therefore, a case in which the slate was in no manner

attempting to deprive the complainant of its constitutional rights as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, but simply one wherein in legal effect a municipality was alleged to be proceed ing in violation of complainant’s rights

under the Constitution and laws of the state. It was accordingly held that the averment that the enforcement of the ordinance would deprive complainant of

strain! of Interstate Trade.

U. S.

The United States Circuit Court for the District of Delaware handed down a decision June 22 declaring that the alleged Powder Trust, which is dominated by the E. I. Du Pont de Nemours Company, was a combination in restraint of interstate commerce in

powder and other explosives in viola tion of section 1 of the Sherman anti

trust law. The Court said: — “As enacted, it [the Sherman law] does not condemn every combination ‘to pre vent competition.’ What it condemns is every combination in restraint of trade or commerce among the several

States," etc.

“The recent decisions of

the Supreme Court in Standard Oil Co. v. United States and American Tobacco

Company v. United States make it quite clear that the language of the anti trust act is not to receive that literal construction which will impair rather than enhance freedom of interstate com merce. As we read those decisions, restraint of interstate trade and restraint

its property, contrary to the Fourteenth

of competition in interstate trade are not interchangeable expressions. There

Amendment, was purely colorable; that leged, the ordinance, was in contravention if having theof effect the state al—

straint of competition that does not

may be, under the anti-trust act, re amount to restraint of interstate trade,

Constitution, which itself prohibited the taking of property without due process of law, and that it would be presumed

that the state courts would protect com plainant's rights thereunder; that if the highest court of the state should enforce the ordinance, then only could it be said to ‘have received the sanction of the

just as before the passage of the act there might have been restraint of com petition that did not amount to a com mon law restraint of trade." The Court then came to this conclu sion:— “It matters not whether the combina tion be in the form of a trade associa