National Cotton Oil Co. v. Texas

Citations

• 197 U.S. 115
• 25 S. Ct. 379
• 49 L. Ed. 689
• 1905 U.S. LEXIS 1222

Syllabus

<p>The Anti-Trust Acts of Texas of 1889,1895 and 1899, are all directed to the prohibitions of combinations to restrict trade, to in any way limit competition in the production or sale of articles, or to increase or reduce prices in order to preclude free and unrestricted competition; and, as the, legislature of a State may ordain that competition and not combination1 shall be the law of trade, and may prohibit combinations to control prices, the statutes as they now stand are not in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment and do ript, as against corporations dealing in cotton oil and combining to regulate the price of cotton.seed, work a deprivation of property without due process of law, or impair their liberty of contract.</p> <p>The idea of monopoly is not now confined to a grant o£ privileges but is understood to include a condition produced by the acts of individuals and the suppression of competition by unification of interest or management or through agreement and concert of action. It is the power to control prices which makes' both the inducement to inake such combinations and the concern of the law to prohibit them.</p> <p>The Supreme Court of Texas having construed the act of 1895 as invalid, so far as it was discriminatory by excepting from its operation combinations of agriculturists and organized laborers and fell within the terms of Conolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S. 540, and sustained the act in other respects, and having also held that the act of 1899 although cumulative did not continue the invalid discriminatory provisions of the act of 1895, this court follows the state court in holding that under the laws of Texas, as they now exist, combinations described in the AntiTrust Laws are forbidden and penalized whether by agriculturists, organized laborers or others, and there is therefore no discrimination against oil companies, and the latter are not deprived of the equal protection of the laws.</p>