758 
Beechnut  Packing  Co.  Case. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
*•  November,  19 19. 
and  Aubrey  H.  Weightman  were  elected  as  Trustees  for  the  ensuing 
three  years.  ♦ 
The  President  reappointed  the  Committee  on  Membership,  as 
follows :  Freeman  P.  Stroup,  Frank  R.  Rohrman  and  O.  W.  Oster- 
lund,  with  the  Secretary  and  Treasurer,  exofficio. 
C.  A.  Weidemann,  M.  D., 
Recording  Secretary. 
THE  BEECHNUT  PACKING  COMPANY  CASE  AND  ITS 
RELATION  TO  THE  "  COLGATE  PLAN." 
By  J.  E.  Walsh, 
NEW  YORK,  N.  Y. 
The  drug  trade  is  probably  very  much  interested  in  the  general 
question  of  price  maintenance  and  price  cutting  and  more  particu- 
larly in  the  Beechnut  Packing  Company  case  which  will  come  up 
before  the  Circuit  Court  of  Appeals  probably  at  its  next  session. 
It  was  generally  supposed  that  the  decision  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court  in  the  Colgate  case  determined  once  and  for  all  the 
right  of  any  manufacturer  to  refuse  to  sell  his  goods  to  a  price- 
cutter  which  has  come  to  be  known  as  the  "  Colgate  Plan  "  for  the 
protection  of  resale  prices.  But  this  policy  is  once  more  the  subject 
of  litigation. 
The  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  was  that  this  policy  did  not 
violate  the  Sherman  Law.  Since  it  was  rendered,  the  United  States 
Circuit  Court  of  Appeals  has  decided,  in  the  case  of  Frey  vs.  Cudahy 
&  Company,  that  that  sales  method  does  not  violate  the  Clayton 
Act.  The  Federal  Trade  Commission,  however,  claims  that  it  does 
violate  the  provision  of  the  Federal  Trade  Commission  Act  which 
prohibits  "all  unfair  methods  of  competition."  They  assert  that 
the  maintenance  of  prices  by  the  withholding  of  supplies  from  price- 
cutters  is  such  an  unfair  method  of  competition. 
The  Commission  accordingly  entered  an  order  against  the 
Beechnut  Packing  Company,  requiring  it  to  desist  from  this  sales 
policy.  From  that  order  the  Company  has  appealed  to  the  United 
States  Circuit  Court  of  Appeals,  where  the  case  is  now  pending. 
It  will  be  argued  on  behalf  of  the  Beechnut  Packing  Company  by 
