[424] 196 U.S. 375.—The Sherman Act was applied to break up combinations of interstate carriers in United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Asso., 166 U.S. 290 (1897); United States v. Joint-Traffic Asso., 171 U.S. 505 (1898); and Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197 (1904). In the first of these cases the Court was confronted with the contention that the act had been intended only for the industrial combinations, and hence was not designed to apply to the railroads, for whose governance the Interstate Commerce Act had been enacted three years prior. Justice Peckham answered the argument by saying that "to exclude agreements as to rates by competing railroads * * * would leave [very] little for the act to take effect upon," referring in this connection to the decision in the Sugar Trust Case, 166 U.S. at 313.
Alluding in his opinion for the Court in Mandeville Island Farms v. American C.S. Co., 334 U.S. 219 (1948) to the Sugar Trust Case, Justice Rutledge said: "Like this one, that case involved the refining and interstate distribution of sugar. But because the refining was done wholly within a single state, the case was held to be one involving 'primarily' only 'production' or 'manufacturing,' although the vast part of the sugar produced was sold and shipped interstate, and this was the main end of the enterprise. The interstate distributing phase, however, was regarded as being only 'incidentally,' 'indirectly,' or 'remotely' involved; and to be 'incidental,' 'indirect,' or 'remote' was to be, under the prevailing climate, beyond Congress' power to regulate, and hence outside the scope of the Sherman Act. See Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. at 119 et seq. (1942).
"The Knight decision made the statute a dead letter for more than a decade and, had its full force remained unmodified, the Act today would be a weak instrument, as would also the power of Congress, to reach evils in all the vast operations of our gigantic national industrial system antecedent to interstate sale and transportation of manufactured products. Indeed, it and succeeding decisions, embracing the same artificially drawn lines, produced a series of consequences for the exercise of national power over industry conducted on a national scale which the evolving nature of our industrialism foredoomed to reversal." Ibid. 229-230.
[425] Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U.S. 375, 396 (1905).
[426] 196 U.S. at 398-399.
[427] Ibid. 399-401.
[428] Ibid. 400.
[429] Loewe v. Lawlor, 208 U.S. 274 (1908); Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U.S. 443 (1921); Coronado Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers of America, 268 U.S. 295 (1925); United States v. Brime, 272 U.S. 549 (1926); Bedford Co. v. Stone Cutters Assn., 274 U.S. 37 (1927); Local 167 v. United States, 291 U.S. 293 (1934); Allen Bradley Co. v. Union, 325 U.S. 797 (1945).
[430] 42 Stat. 159.
[431] Ibid. 998 (1922).