Interstate Commerce. Restraint of Trade. Professional Baseball May Constitute Interstate Commerce within Antitrust Laws

The attempt by the United States government to preserve competition and its benefits has produced a succession of legislation, popularly known as the antitrust laws, which began with the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. This law prohibits combinations in restraint of trade and monopolization of trade. The Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 established a federal agency to enforce antitrust and outlawed “unfair” competition. The Clayton Act, passed in the same year and amended by the Robinson–Patman Act in 1936, forbids price discrimination, mergers, and other actions when judged destructive of competition.These statutes have generated an enormous quantity of litigation and have stimulated a plethora of literature. The following article, written by an expert who teaches and writes in the. field of antitrust, describes the more important works on the subject which, taken together, could constitute a basic collection of antitrust literature for law libraries inside and outside the United Slates.

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Mr. Justice White and the Rule of Reason

The Review of Politics ◽

10.1017/s0034670500047446 ◽

1951 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 229-243 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Robert B. Dishman

Keyword(s):

The United States ◽

Department Of Justice ◽

Basic Assumptions ◽

Rule Of Reason ◽

Sherman Act ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

Antitrust Laws ◽

The Common ◽

Obiter Dictum ◽

Restraint Of Trade

The “rule of reason” remains after almost forty years the most curious obiter dictum ever indulged in by the Supreme Court of the United States. Mistaken though it was in its basic assumptions, the rule nevertheless persists as the Court's standard for construing the Sherman Act. This is not to say, as some critics have said, that the rule has seriously hampered the Department of Justice in enforcing the antitrust laws. We have it on the authority of Thurman Arnold that without the rule die Sherman Act would be “unworkable … because every combination between two men in business is in some measure a restraint of trade.” The rule, he has said, “has the effect of preventing the antitrust laws from destroying the efficiency of diose combinations that are actually serving, instead of exploiting, the consumer.” The fact remains, however, that in adopting the rule the Court erred in at least two respects: first, in applying a test of reasonableness where in the early cases at least none was called for and, second, in basing that rule on a misunderstanding of the common law. For the first of its sins the Court has been scolded many times; for the second, it has received surprisingly litde criticism.

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