The averments here are that there was an existing interstate traffic between plaintiffs and citizens of other States, and that for the direct purpose of destroying such interstate traffic defendants combined not merely to prevent plaintiffs from manufacturing articles then and there intended for transportation beyond the State, but also to prevent the vendees from reselling the hats which they had imported from Connecticut, or from further negotiating with plaintiffs for the purchase and intertransportation of such hats from Connecticut to the various places of destination. So that, although some of the means whereby the interstate traffic was to be destroyed were acts. within a State, and some of them were in themselves as a part of their obvious purpose and effect beyond the scope of Federal authority, still, as we have seen, the acts must be considered as a whole, and the plan is open to condemnation, notwithstanding a negligible amount of intrastate business might be affected in carrying it out. (If the purposes of the combination were, as alleged, to prevent any interstate transportation at all, the fact that the means operated at one end before physical transportation commenced and at the other end after the physical transportation ended was immaterial.

Nor can the act in question be held inapplicable because defendants were not themselves engaged in interstate commerce. The act made no distinction between classes. It provided that "every" contract, combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade was illegal. The records of Congress show that several efforts were made to exempt, by legislation, organizations of farmers and laborers from the operation of the act and that all these efforts failed, so that the act remained as we have it before us.

In an early case, United States v. Workingmen's Amalgamated Council, 54 Fed. Rep. 994, the United States filed a bill under the Sherman Act in the circuit court for the eastern district of Louisiana, averring the existence of "a gigantic and widespread combination of the members of a multitude of separate organizations for the purpose of restraining the commerce among the several States and with foreign countries," and it was contended that the statute did not refer to combinations of laborers. But the court, granting the injunction, said:

"I think the Congressional debates show that the statute had its origin in the evils of massed capital; but, when the Congress came to formulating the prohibition, which is the yardstick for measuring the complainant's right to the injunction, it expressed it in these words: Every contract or combination in the form of trust, or otherwise in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal.' The subject had so broadened in the minds of the legislators that the source of the evil was not regarded as material, and the evil in its entirety is dealt with. They made the interdiction include combinations of labor, as well as of capital; in fact, all combinations in restraint of commerce, without reference to the character of the persons who entered into them. It is true this statute has not been much expounded by judges, but, as it seems to me, its meaning, as far as relates to the sort of combinations to which it is to apply, is manifest, and that it includes combinations which are composed of laborers acting in the interest of laborers."

"It is the successful effort of the combination of the defendants to intimidate and overawe others who were at work in conducting or carrying on the commerce of the country, in which the court finds their error and their violation of the statute. One of the intended results of their combined action was the forced stagnation of all the commerce which flowed through New Orleans. This intent and combined action are none the less unlawful because they included in their scope the paralysis of all other business within the city as well."

The case was affirmed on appeal by the circuit court of appeals for the fifth circuit. (57 Fed. Rep. 85.)

Subsequently came the litigation over the Pullman strike and the decisions In re Debs, 64 Fed. Rep. 724, 745, 755; 158 U. S. 564. The bill in that case was filed by the United States against the officers of the American Railway Union, which alleged that a labor dispute existed between the Pullman Palace Car Company and its employees; that thereafter the four officers of the railway union combined together and with others to compel an adjustment of such dispute by creating a boycott against the cars of the car company; that to make such boycott effective they had already prevented certain of the railroads running out of Chicago from operating their trains; that they asserted that they could and would tie up, paralyze and break down any and every railroad which did not accede to their demands, and that the purpose and intention of the combination was "to secure unto themselves the entire control of the interstate, industrial and commercial business in which the population of the city of Chicago and of other communities along the lines of road of said railways are engaged with each other, and to restrain any and all other persons from any independent control or management of such interstate, industrial or commercial enterprises, save according to the will and with the consent of the defendants."

The circuit court proceeded principally upon the Sherman antitrust law, and granted an injunction. In this court the case was rested upon the broader ground that the Federal Government had full power over interstate commerce and over the transmission of the mails, and in the exercise of those powers could remove everything put upon highways, natural or artificial, to obstruct the passage of interstate commerce, or the carrying of the mails. But in reference to the antitrust act the court expressly stated:

"We enter into no examination of the act of July 2, 1890, c. 647, 26 Stat. 209, upon which the circuit court relied mainly to sustain 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: "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 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 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 Conneeticut; 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 Labor, of which they were members, whose members resided in all the places in the several 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 ' uld 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.

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 plaintiff's, 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 plaintiff's 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 plaintiff's 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 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 to notify such wholesale dealers that they were at liberty to deal in the hats of any other nonunion 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 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' intertrade aforesaid, and in connection with the boycotting above mentioned, for the purpose of describing and identifying the hats of the plaintiff's 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 plaintiff's 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.