Opinion of the Court. its jurisdiction. It must not be understood from this that we dissent from the conclusions of that court in reference to the scope of the act, but simply that we prefer to rest our judgment on the broader ground which has been discussed in this opinion, believing it of importance that the principles underlying it should be fully stated and affirmed." And in the opinion, Mr. Justice Brewer, among other things, said (p. 581): "It is curious to note the fact that in a large proportion of the cases in respect to interstate commerce brought to this court the question presented was of the validity of state legislation in its bearings upon interstate commerce, and the uniform course of decision has been to declare that it is not within [304] the competency of a State to legislate in such a manner as to obstruct interstate commerce. If a State, with its recognized powers of sovereignty, is impotent to obstruct interstate commerce, can it be that any mere voluntary association of individuals within the limits of that State has a power which the State itself does not possess? The question answers itself, and in the light of the authorities the only inquiry is as to the sufficiency of the averments of fact. We have given the declaration in full in the margin, and it appears therefrom that it is charged that the defendants formed a combination to directly restrain plaintiffs' trade; that the trade to be restrained was interstate; that certain means to attain such restraint were contrived to be used and employed to that end; that those means were so used and employed by defendants, and that thereby they injured plaintiffs' property and business. At the risk of tediousness, we repeat that the complaint averred that plaintiffs were manufacturers of hats in Danbury, Connecticut, having a factory there, and were then and there engaged in an interstate trade in some twenty States other than the State of Connecticut; that they were practically dependent upon such interstate trade to consume the product of their factory, only a small percentage of their entire output being consumed in the State of Connecticut; that at the time the alleged combination was formed they were in the process of manufacturing a large number of hats for the purpose of fulfilling engagements then actually made with consignees and wholesale dealers in States other than Connecticut, and that if prevented from carrying on the work of manufacturing these hats they would be unable to complete their engagements. That defendants were members of a vast combination called The United Hatters of North America, comprising about 9,000 members and including a large number of subordinate unions, and that they were combined with some 1,400,000 others into another association known as The American Federation of [305] Labor, of which they were members, whose members resided in all the places in the several Opinion of the Court. States where the wholesale dealers in hats and their customers resided and did business; that defendants were “engaged in a combined scheme and effort to force all manufacturers of fur hats in the United States, including the plaintiffs, against their will and their previous policy of carrying on their business, to organize their workmen in the departments of making and finishing, in each of their factories, into an organization, to be part and parcel of the said combination known as The United Hatters of North America, or as the defendants and their confederates term it, to unionize their shops, with the intent thereby to control the employment of labor in and the operation of said factories, and to subject the same to the direction and control of persons, other than the owners of the same, in a manner extremely onerous and distasteful to such owners, and to carry out such scheme, effort and purpose, by restraining and destroying the interstate trade and commerce of such manufacturers, by means of intimidation of and threats made to such manufacturers and their customers in the several States, of boycotting them, their product and their customers, using therefor all the powerful means at their command, as aforesaid, until such time as, from the damage and loss of business resulting therefrom, the said manufacturers should yield to the said demand to unionize their factories." That the conspiracy or combination was so far progressed that out of eighty-two manufacturers of this country engaged in the production of fur hats seventy had accepted the terms and acceded to the demand that the shop should be conducted in accordance, so far as conditions of employment were concerned, with the will of the American Federation of Labor; that the local union demanded of plaintiffs that they should unionize their shop under peril of being boycotted by this combination, which demand defendants declined to comply with; that thereupon the American Federation of Labor, acting through its official organ and through its organizers, declared a boycott. [306] The complaint then thus continued: "20. On or about July 25, 1902, the defendants individually and collectively, and as members of said combinations and associations, and with other persons whose names are unknown to the plaintiffs. associated with them, in pursuance of the general scheme and purpose aforesaid, to force all manufacturers of fur hats, and particularly the plaintiffs, to so unionize their factories, wantonly, wrongfully, maliciously, unlawfully and in violation of the provisions of the 'Act of Congress, approved July 2, 1890,' and entitled 'An Act to Protect Trade and Commerce Against Unlawful Restraints and Monopolies,' and with intent to injure the property and business of the Opinion of the Court. plaintiffs by means of acts done which are forbidden and declared to be unlawful, by said act of Congress, entered into a combination and conspiracy to restrain the plaintiffs and their customers in States other than Connecticut, in carrying on said trade and commerce among the several States, and to wholly prevent them from engaging in and carrying on said trade and commerce between them and to prevent the plaintiffs from selling their hats to wholesale dealers and purchasers in said States other than Connecticut, and to prevent said dealers and customers in said other States from buying the same, and to prevent the plaintiffs from obtaining orders for their hats from such customers, and filling the same, and shipping said hats to said customers in said States as aforesaid, and thereby injure the plaintiffs in their property and business and to render unsalable the product and output of their said factory, so the subject of interstate commerce, in whosoever's hands the same might be or come, through said interstate trade and commerce, and to employ as means to carry out said combination and conspiracy and the purposes thereof, and accomplish the same, the following measures and acts, viz: "To cause, by means of threats and coercion, and without warning or information to the plaintiffs, the concerted and simultaneous withdrawal of all the makers and finishers of hats then working for them, who were not members of their said [307] combination, The United Hatters of North America, as well as those who were such members, and thereby cripple the operation of the plaintiffs' factory, and prevent the plaintiffs from filling a large number of orders then on hand, from such wholesale dealers in States other than Connecticut, which they had engaged to fill and were then in the act of filling, as was well known to the defendants; in connection therewith to declare a boycott against all hats made for sale and sold and delivered, or to be so sold or delivered, by the plaintiffs to said wholesale dealers in States other than Connecticut, and to actively boycott the same and the business of those who should deal in them, and thereby prevent the sale of the same by those in whose hands they might be or come through said interstate trade in said several States; to procure and cause others of said combinations united with them in said American Federation of Labor, in like manner to declare a boycott against and to actively boycott the same and the business of such wholesale dealers as should buy or sell them, and of those who should purchase them from such wholesale dealers; to intimidate such wholesale dealers from purchasing or dealing in the hats of the plaintiffs by informing them that the American Federation of Labor had declared a boycott against the product of the plaintiffs and against any dealer who should handle it, and that the same was to be actively pressed against them, and by distributing circulars containing notices that such dealers and their customers were to be boycotted; to threaten with a boycott those customers who should buy any goods whatever, even though union made, of such boycotted dealers, and at the same time Opinion of the Court. to notify such whoelsale dealers that they were at liberty to deal in the hats of any other non-union manufacturer of similar quality to those made by the plaintiffs, but must not deal in the hats made by the plaintiffs under threats of such boycotting; to falsely represent to said wholesale dealers and their customers, that the plaintiffs had discriminated against the union men in their employ, had thrown them out of employment because they refused to give up their union cards and [308] teach boys, who were intended to take their places after seven months' instruction, and had driven their employees to extreme measures by their persistent, unfair and un-American policy of antagonizing union labor, forcing wages to a starvation scale, and given boys and cheap, unskilled foreign labor preference over experienced and capable union workmen,' in order to intimidate said dealers from purchasing said hats by reason of the prejudice thereby created against the plaintiffs and the hats made by them among those who might otherwise purchase them; to use the said union label of said The United Hatters of North America as an instrument to aid them in carrying out said conspiracy and combination against the plaintiffs' and their customers' interstate trade aforesaid, and in connection with the boycotting above mentioned, for the purpose of Cescribing and identifying the hats of the plaintiffs and singling them out to be so boycotted; to employ a large number of agents to visit said wholesale dealers and their customers, at their several places of business, and threaten them with loss of business if they should buy or handle the hats of the plaintiffs, and thereby prevent them from buying said hats, and in connection therewith to cause said dealers to be waited upon by committees representing large combinations of persons in their several localities to make similar threats to them; to use the daily press in the localities where such wholesale dealers reside, and do business, to announce and advertise the said boycotts against the hats of the plaintiffs and said wholesale dealers, and thereby make the same more effective and oppressive, and to use the columns of their said paper, The Journal of the United Hatters of North America, for that purpose, and to describe the acts of their said agents in prosecuting the same." And then followed the averments that the defendants proceeded to carry out their combination to restrain and destroy interstate trade and commerce between plaintiffs and their customers in other States by employing the identical means contrived for that purpose; and that by reason of those acts [309] plaintiffs were damaged in their business and property in some $80,000. We think a case within the statute was set up and that the demurrer should have been overruled. Judgment reversed and cause remanded with a direction to proceed accordingly. Statement of the Case. [423] SHAWNEE COMPRESS COMPANY. ANDER SON. (Appeal from the Supreme Court of the Territory of Oklahoma.) [209 U. S. 423.] No. 140. Argued March 2, 3, 1908.-Decided April 13, 1908. Where the Supreme Court of the Territory of Oklahoma reverses the judgment of the trial court, the reviewing power of this court is limited to determining whether there was evidence supporting the findings and whether the facts found were adequate to sustain the legal conclusions. In this case, the Supreme Court of the Territory having found that a lease, being made to further an unlawful enterprise, was void as an unreasonable restraint of trade and as against public policy, this court sustains the judgment, there being proof supporting the conclusions to the effect that the lessor company agreed to go out of the field of competition, not to enter that field again, and to render every assistance to prevent others from entering it—other acts in aid of a scheme of monopoly also being proved. It is not necessary to determine whether the Supreme Court of the Territory based its judgment declaring such a lease void on the common law, the Sherman law, or the statutes of the Territory; the restraint placed upon the lessor was greater than the protection of the lessee required. 17 Oklahoma, 231, affirmed. This suit was brought in the District Court of the county of Lincoln, Territory of Oklahoma, by appellees as stockholders of the Shawnee Compress Company against appellants, to cancel a lease made by the Shawnee Compress Company to the Gulf Compress Company. The original petition alleged that the compress companies were respectively corporations of Oklahoma and the State of Alabama; that the plaintiffs, appellees here, were minority stockholders of the Shawnee Company; that certain of the stockholders of the Shawnee Company, claiming to be its officers, "conceived the idea of leasing the entire property and business of said company, together with its good will • For opinion of Supreme Court of Arizona (87 Pac. Rep. 315) see, ante, p. 122. Syllabus and statements of arguments copyrighted, 1908, by The Banks Law Publishing Co. |