40 BULLETIN 1106, U. S. DEPAETAIEXT OE AGRICULTURE. 
Court involving the legality of a secondary boycott by a labor organi- 
zation it was said : 
As to section 6, it seems to us its principal importance in this discussion is 
for what it does not authorize and for the limit it sets to the immunity con- 
ferred. The section assumes the normal objects of a labor organization to be 
legitimate, and declares that nothing in the antitrust laws shall be construed 
to forbid the existence and operation of such organizations or to forbid their 
members from lawfully carrying out their legitimate objects; and that such an 
organization shall not be held in itself — merely because of its existence and 
operation — to be an illegal combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade. 
But there is nothing in the section to exempt such an organization or its mem- 
bers from accountability where it or they depart from its normal and legitimate 
objects and engage in an actual combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade. 
And by no fair or permissible construction can it be taken as authorizing any 
activity otherwise unlawful, or enabling a normally lawful organization to be- 
come a cloak for an illegal combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade as 
defined by the antitrust laws. 
In a certain case 3: the Aroostook Potato Shippers' Association, 
acting through a committee, blacklisted certain buyers of potatoes. 
Members of the association under penalty were forbidden to deal 
with such buyers. Persons outside the association who dealt with 
persons so blacklisted were also blacklisted and boycotted. The de- 
fendants, members of the association, were indicted for a conspiracy 
in restraint of trade and fined. The court said with reference to the 
contention that section 6 relieved the defendants : 
I do not think that the coercion of outsiders by a secondary boycott, which 
was discussed in my opinion on the former indictment, can be held to be a 
lawful carrying out of the legitimate objects of such an association. That 
act means, as I understand it, that organizations such as it describes are not 
to be dissolved and broken up as illegal, nor held to be combinations or con- 
spiracies in restraint of trade ; but they are not privileged to adopt methods 
of carrying on their business which are not permitted to other lawful associa- 
tions. 
Section 6 of the Clayton Act is still in effect and is not repealed 
by the Capper-Yolstead Act. 
RIGHT TO SELECT CUSTOMERS. 
It is undoubtedly settled that at common law and in the absence 
of a statute requiring him to do so a trader or dealer can refuse 
to enter into business relations with any person whomsoever, and 
his reason or lack of reason for so doing is immaterial. In a certain 
case it was said: "We hud supposed that it was elementary law 
that a trader could buy from whom he pleased and sell to whom he 
pleased, and that his selection of seller and buyer was wholly his 
own concern." 3S This principle applies just as fully to cooperative 
« United States v. King, 229 Fed. 275, 250 Fed. 90S. 
-"Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Cream of Wheat Co., 227 Fed. 46; see also 
United States v. Colgate Co., 2-50 U. S. 300; Leech v. Farmers' Tobacco Co., 171 Ky. 
791, 188 S. W. 8S6. 
