90 BULLETIN 110 6, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
that act could be said to violate. Cases like the Connolly case 80 
have no bearing on the constitutionality of the Capper -Volstead Act 
because all such cases are based on the equal protection clause of the 
Federal Constitution, which clause by its own terms is restricted to 
State action only and has no bearing on Federal legislation as the 
Supreme Court of the United States has held. 81 It is true that two 
Federal district courts without referring to any provision of the 
Constitution held that the exemption of farmers contained in the 
war measure known as the food control act 82 was unconstitutional, 83 
but a circuit court of appeals held the exemption valid. 84 
State legislation which provides specifically for the peculiar needs 
of farmers or producers under the decisions of the Supreme Court of 
the United States is founded on a reasonable basis of classification, 
and on this theory the Bingham Cooperative Marketing Act of Ken- 
tucky, 85 which by its terms was restricted to producers, was upheld 
by the Supreme Court. 86 A statute of Louisiana which imposed a 
license tax upon persons and corporations carrying on the business 
of refining sugar and molasses was upheld although " planters and 
farmers grinding and refining their own sugar and molasses " were 
excepted therefrom. 87 
A case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on 
February 18, 1929, draws a distinction between the cooperative type 
of business and the commercial type of business. 88 In this case a 
statute of Oklahoma, declaring all cotton gins in that State public 
utilities and providing that no cotton gin for the public ginning of 
cotton could be established unless the corporation commission of the 
State finds that public necessity therefor exists, was involved. This 
statute contains an exception providing that if 100 citizens and tax- 
payers in the community where it is proposed to establish a cotton gin 
present a petition showing that the gin is to be run cooperatively, the 
corporation commission " shall issue a license for said gin without any 
further showing." The operator of a commercial gin that would 
have been adversely affected by the establishment of a cooperative gin 
brought suit against the corporation commission and the Durant 
Cooperative Ginning Company, to enjoin the commmission from 
issuing a license to that company. The court referred to two coopera- 
tive acts of Oklahoma, one enacted in 1917 and the other enacted in 
1919, and with reference to these two acts said : 
It is important to bear in mind that the Durant company was not organized 
under the act of 1917, but under that of 1919. The former authorizes the 
formation of an association for mutual help, without capital stock, not con- 
ducted for profit, and restricted to the business of its own members, except 
that it may act as agent to sell farm products and buy farm supplies for a 
nonmember, but as a condition may impose upon him a liability, not exceeding 
that of a member, for the contracts, debts and engagements of the association, 
such services to be performed at the actual cost thereof including a pro rata 
80 Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S. 540, 22 S. Ct. 431, 46 L. Ed. 679 ; In re 
Grice, 79 F. 627 ; Beatrice Creamery Co. v. Cline, 9 F. (2d) 176. 
si Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U. S. 312, 340, 42 S. Ct. 124. 
8 2 40 Stat. 276. 
83 United States v. Armstrong et al., 265 F. 683 ; United States v. Yount et al., 267 
F. 861. 
« C A. Weed & Co. v. Lockwood, 266 F. 785. 
85 Set forth on p. 118 of appendix. 
86 Liberty Warehouse Co. v. Burley Tobacco Growers' Co-op. Marketing Ass'n, 276 U. S. 
71, 48 S. Ct. 291. 
87 American Sugar Refining Co. v. Louisiana, 179 U. S. 89. 
88 Frost v. Corporation Commission of Oklahoma et al., 278 U. S. 515, 49 S. Ct. 235, 
reversing decision of trial court, 26 F. (2d) 508. 
