60 SALMON GEAR LIMITATION 



there was no need to make this price differentiation similarly avail- 

 able to newcomers. 



Later cases have, in general, sustained the much more liberal 

 or tolerant attitude of Mr. Justice Cardozo, allowing very great 

 latitude for the exercise of legislative judgment. Typical of these is 

 Tigner v. Texas,^ a 1940 case in which the court sustained a Texas 

 anti-trust statute even though it excepted from its operation economic 

 activities with respect to "agricultural products or livestock in the 

 hands of the producer or raiser." The appellant was accused of con- 

 spiring to fix the retail price of beer. The court, unanimous except 

 for Mr. Justice McReynolds, speaking through Mr. Justice Frank- 

 furter, said: 



'in these circumstances, legislators may well have thought combina- 

 tions of farmers and stockmen presented no threat to the community, or, 

 at least, the threat was of a different order from that arising from indus- 

 trialists and middlemen . . . The Constitution does not require things which 

 are different in fact or opinion to be treated in law as though they were 

 the same."^ 



Two cases decided in the late 1940's will illustrate the extreme 

 length to which the court has gone to sustain state legislation as 

 against a challenge based on equal protection: In Kotch v. Board 

 of River Pilot Commissioners,^ the complaining person showed that, 

 over a period of years, the Board had admitted to pilotage only 

 those who were relatives or close friends of the presently-licensed 

 river pilots, and further claimed that he, too, was qualified to be a 

 ri\cr pilot. Nevertheless, the court, by a 5-4 margin, refused to strike 

 down the statute and these administrative practices, despite the 

 fairly obvious favoritism. Consider what the court cites as its basis 

 for decision: 



"A pilot does not require a formalized technical education so much as 

 a detailed and extremely intimate, almost intuitive, knowledge of the 

 weather, waterways and conformation of the harbor or river which he 

 serves. This seems to be particularly true of the approaches to New Orleans 

 ... in these communities [pilot towns largely peopled by pilots and their 

 families] young men have an opportunity to acquire special knowledge of 

 the weather and water hazards of the locality and seem to grow up with 

 ambitions to become pilots in the traditions of their fathers, relatives, and 

 neighbors. "9 



6. 310 U. S. 141 (1940). 



7. id. at 145, 147. 



X. 330 U.S. 552 (1947). 

 9. /(J. at 558, 559. 



