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"Members upon learning of any instance of persons soliciting, quoting, or selling direct to consumers, should at once report same, and in so doing should, if possible, supply the following information:

"The number and initials of car.

"The name of consumer to whom the car is consigned. "The initials or name of shipper.

"The date of arrival of car.

"The place of delivery.

"The point of origin";

and the defendants were enjoined from combining, conspiring or agreeing together to distribute and from distributing to members of the associations named or any other person or persons any information showing soliciting, quotations, or sales and shipments of lumber and lumber products from manufacturers and wholesalers to consumers of or dealers in lumber, and from the preparation and distribution of the lists above described as the "Official Report" or the use of a similar device.

The record discloses that the defendant associations are constituted largely of retail lumber dealers, each of whom has the natural desire to control his local trade, which the retailers contend has been unduly interfered with by the wholesalers in selling to consumers within the local territory in such wise as to conflict with what they regard as a strictly local trade, and it appears that the defendant associations have for their object, among other things, the adoption of ways and means to protect such trade and to prevent the wholesale dealers from intruding therein. The particular thing which this case concerns in the retailers' efforts to promote the end in view is the attempt in the manner shown, by the circulation of the reports in question, to keep the wholesalers from selling directly to the local trade. The trade of the wholesalers involved covers a number of states, and there is no question but that the supplying of lumber to the large num

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bers of retailers in these associations in different States is interstate trade and that if the practices are illegal within the Sherman Act they may be reached by this proceeding. Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S. 375; Loewe v. Lawlor, 208 U. S. 274, 300.

The record discloses a systematic circulation among the members of the defendant associations of the official report above quoted. The method of operation as stated by the learned counsel for the appellants is thus summarized in his brief:

"The names on this list are obtained and placed thereon as the result of complaints made by individual retailers. When an individual member of a retail association learns of a sale by a wholesaler to one of the customers of the retailer he may complain in writing to the secretary of his association, whose duty it is thereupon to ascertain the facts by correspondence with the wholesaler in question and such other means as may seem proper. Should the report or complaint be without proper foundation or should the secretary become satisfied that the matter is a trifling one or the result of inadvertence, the incident usually terminates at this point; but should the complaint appear to be serious and well founded the case is submitted to the board of directors of the retail association at its next meeting and should the board be satisfied that the wholesaler is generally making a practice of selling to consumers or customers of the retail trade, the secretary is directed to report the name of such wholesaler for the official list. Thereupon the secretary sends the name to Mr. Crary of New York who adds it upon the next report to the names of those already thereupon. Each report contains the names of all wholesalers who have been reported from the very beginning as selling to consumers and whose names have not been removed for cause. The reports or lists after being printed in New York are distributed amongst the secretaries of the defendant associa

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tions; those for each association being marked with its name and in that way only being distinguished from those sent to the other associations. The secretary of each association then distributes the lists to his members. Should any wholesaler desire to have his name removed from the list he can have it done upon satisfactory assurance to the local secretary that he is no longer selling in competition with the retailers. In practice the greatest care is taken to make the list accurate, and as a matter of fact, it only contains the names of such wholesalers as are absolutely committed to the practice of competing with retailers for the custom of builders and contractors."

The reading of the official report shows that it is intended to give confidential information to the members of the associations of the names of wholesalers reported as soliciting or selling directly to consumers, members upon learning of any such instances being called upon to promptly report the same, supplying detailed information as to the particulars of the transaction. When viewed in the light of the history of these associations and the conflict in which they were engaged to keep the retail trade to themselves and to prevent wholesalers from interfering with what they regarded as their rights in such trade there can be but one purpose in giving the information in this form to the members of the retail associations of the names of all wholesalers who by their attempt to invade the exclusive territory of the retailers, as they regard it, have been guilty of unfair competitive trade. These lists were quite commonly spoken of as blacklists, and when the attention of a retailer was brought to the name of a wholesaler who had acted in this wise it was with the evident purpose that he should know of such conduct and act accordingly. True it is that there is no agreement among the retailers to refrain from dealing with listed wholesalers, nor is there any penalty annexed for the failure so to do, but he is blind indeed who does not see the

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purpose in the predetermined and periodical circulation of this report to put the ban upon wholesale dealers whose names appear in the list of unfair dealers trying by methods obnoxious to the retail dealers to supply the trade which they regard as their own. Indeed this purpose is practically conceded in the brief of the learned counsel for the appellants:

“It was and is conceded by defendants and the Court below found that the circulation of this information would have a natural tendency to cause retailers receiving these reports to withhold patronage from listed concerns. That was of course the very object of the defendants in circulating them."

In other words, the circulation of such information among the hundreds of retailers as to the alleged delinquency of a wholesaler with one of their number had and was intended to have the natural effect of causing such retailers to withhold their patronage from the concern listed.

The Sherman Act has been so frequently and recently before this court as to require no extended discussion now. Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1; United States v. American Tobacco Co., 221 U. S. 106; United States v. St. Louis Terminal, 224 U. S. 383; Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co. v. United States, 226 U. S. 20; United States v. Union Pacific R. R. Co., 226 U. S. 61; United States v. Reading Co., 226 U. S. 324; United States v. Patten, 226 U. S. 525; Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373; Straus v. American Publishers' Ass'n, 231 U. S. 22. It broadly condemns all combinations and conspiracies which restrain the free and natural flow of trade in the channels of interstate commerce. It is true that this court held in the Standard Oil and Tobacco Cases, supra, and in the subsequent cases following them, that in its proper construction the act was not intended to reach normal and usual contracts incident to lawful purposes and intended to VOL. CCXXXIV-39

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further legitimate trade, and summarizing the meaning of the act in the Tobacco Case, this court said (221 U. S. 179):

"Applying the rule of reason to the construction of the statute, it was held in the Standard Oil Case that as the words 'restraint of trade' at common law and in the law of this country at the time of the adoption of the Antitrust Act only embraced acts or contracts or agreements or combinations which operated to the prejudice of the public interests by unduly restricting competition or unduly obstructing the due course of trade or which, either because of their inherent nature or effect or because of the evident purpose of the acts, etc., injuriously restrained trade, that the words as used in the statute were designed to have and did have but a like significance."

The same principle was affirmed in Nash v. United States, supra. The court in the Standard Oil Case construed the act as intended to reach only combinations unduly restrictive of the flow of commerce or unduly restrictive of competition, and, illustrating what were such undue or unreasonable combinations, it classed as illegal (p. 58) "all contracts or acts which were unreasonably restrictive of competitive conditions, either from the nature or character of the contract or act or where the surrounding circumstances were such as to justify the conclusion that they had not been entered into or performed with the legitimate purpose of reasonably forwarding personal interest and developing trade, but on the contrary were of such a character as to give rise to the inference or presumption that they had been entered into or done with the intent to do wrong to the general public and to limit the right of individuals, thus restraining the free flow of commerce and tending to bring about the evils, such as enhancement of prices, which were considered to be against public policy." And in Loewe v. Lawlor, supra, this court held that a combination to boy

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