LEGAL PHASES OF COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATIONS, 4] 
In a certain case ** the Aroostook Potato Shippers’ Association, act- 
ing through a committee, blacklisted certain buyers of potatoes. 
Members of the association under penalty were forbidden to deai 
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 
lawiul 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 associ- 
ations. 
Section 6 of the Clayton Act is still in effect and is not repealed 
by the Capper-Volstead Act. 
RIGHT TO SELECT CUSTOMERS. 
It is undoubtedly settled that at common Jaw 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 had 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.” ** This principle applies just as fully to cooperative 
associations or other corporations as it does to individuals. How- 
ever, the courts have never held that two or more independent deal- 
ers may agree without a legal cause not to do business with another. 
Again, when an individual, firm, or corporation does not rest con- 
tent with refusing to have business relations with a certain person, 
but endeavors to compel third persons to refrain from having busi- 
ness relations with such person, the law is violated. This was the 
situation in the case involving the Aroostook Potato Shippers’ As- 
sociation referred to above. Had the association and its members 
simply refused to deal with the buyers in question there is little 
doubt but that the law would not have been violated, but when 
efforts were made to compel third persons to refrain from dealing 
with such buyers the law was violated. 
#7 United States v. King, 229 Fed. 275, 250 Fed. 908. 
#Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Cream of Wheat Co., 227 Fed. 46; see also 
United States r. Colgate Co., 250 U. S. 300; Leech v. Farmers’ Tobacco Co., 171 Ky. 
791, 188 S. W. 886. 
