LEGAL PHASES OF COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATIONS. 37 
its breach. The courts are practically unanimous in holding unlaw- 
ful all agreements and combinations by and between independent 
and separate dealers for the purpose of controlling or fixing the 
prices of commodities.2° A combination to fix the price of an 
article of prime necessity was a criminal conspiracy at common 
law.?* Many of the cases which have come before the courts involv- 
ing the propositions discussed under this heading are difficult to 
reconcile, and many of them are undoubtedly in conflict. The whole 
subject of monoplies and restraint of trade and allied matters is 
now more or less comprehensively dealt with by statutes. 
SHERMAN AND CLAYTON ACTS. 
In 1890 Congress passed the Sherman Act, the first section of 
which reads as follows: 
Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy 
in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign 
nations, is hereby declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any 
such contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy shall be deemed 
guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by fine 
not exceeding $5,000 or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both 
said punishments, in the discretion of the court. 
The Clayton Act, which supplements the Sherman Act, was passed 
by Congress in 1914. The Sherman Act was construed in the Stand- 
ard Oil case in 1910, and it was held that it prohibited all contracts 
and combinations which amount to an unreasonable or undue re- 
straint of trade in interstate commerce.?* This conclusion was reached 
on the theory that the term restraint of trade had a settled meaning 
at the time this statute was passed and that Congress used the ex- 
pression in the same sense as that in which it was then commonly 
employed. Under the antitrust acts referred to, the Supreme Court 
of the United States in determining whether a defendant is engaged 
in illegally restraining trade will look largely to how it employs its 
power and strength. 
It was upon this theory that the Supreme Court refused to order 
the dissolution of the United States Steel Corporation,?® although it 
controlled approximately 50 per cent of the steel business of the 
country. In the opinion in this case the court enumerates some of 
the practices which had been employed by other combinations and 
which operated to bring them within the condemnation of the stat- 
ute. The offending combinations referred to include the American 
gary. t. 17, oS, 
716 R. C. L. 40; State v. Erickson, (Wash.) 103 Pac. 796. 
#% Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S., 1. 
” United States v. U. S. Steel Corp., 251 U. S. 417. 
