Charles Evans Whittaker

“ Orderly and effective policy would be impossible if thirteen States, each with their distinctive interests, and often conflicting, one with another, were allowed to exercise their own initiative in the regulation of foreign economic affairs. And so the States were prohibited from such regulation-they were forbidden, except by leave of Congress, to lay any duties on imports or on exports. Second only to this goal in importance, was the need to secure to the National Government an important source of revenue. ”

“ Youngstown does not deny that so much of the ores as have been conveyed from the 'piles' in the 'ore yards' to the 'stock bins' or 'stock houses' have lost their distinctive character as imports. Is there any real basis of distinction? The only possible differences are in the sizes of the piles and their distances from the furnaces. Surely the size of the pile is not material. Just as surely the short distance between the smaller piles in the 'stock bins' or 'stock houses' and the larger piles in the ore yards is not a real distinction. ”

“ Even though the inventory of raw material required to be kept on hand to meet the current operational needs of a manufacturing business could be thought to have then entered the manufacturing process, the decision of the Ohio Supreme Court did not rest on that ground, and the record affords no basis for saying that any part of petitioner's fibers, stored in its warehouse, were required to meet such immediate current needs. ”

“ It is sufficient for the present to say, generally, that when the importer has so acted upon the thing imported, that it has become incorporated and mixed up with the mass of property in the country, it has, perhaps, lost its distinctive character as an import, and has become subject to the taxing power of the State. ”

“ In all prior considerations of the Import-Export Clause the immunity of imported goods has been terminated only by physical handling or alteration, not by reference to their assumed prospective role in the importer's use of them. The imported hemp in Hooven & Allison was similarly 'needed.' It too was 'irrevocably committed to supply,' and clearly it was 'actually being used to supply, the day-to-day manufacturing requirements of the plant.' To that end the hemp was imported. ”

“ Thus, the considerations governing its interpretation marked out for it a special path in the stream of constitutional adjudication-a course which diverged in many respects from the history of the Commerce Clause: that broad grant of power designed primarily to assure national control over commercial trade among the States. ”

“ The often difficult, and continually delicate, considerations of the economic impact of a challenged tax, of the directness of its burden upon commerce, of its potential or actual discrimination against interstate trade, which have been of controlling importance to the proper evaluation of state taxes challenged under the Commerce Clause, are not the pertinent factors in assessing the constitutional validity of a tax charged with being in violation of the bar of Art. ”

“ But personal property held by a manufacturer for use in manufacturing is valued for tax purposes 'by taking the value of all (such) property * * * owned by such manufacturer on the last business day of each month (that) the manufacturer was engaged in business during the year, adding the monthly values together, and dividing the result by the number of months the manufacturer was engaged in such business during the year.' Title 57, Page's Ohio Rev.Code Ann.1953, § 5711.16.↑ Chief Justice Taney, while still at the bar, had argued that case for the State of Maryland. ”

“ When a shipment of bulk ore of a particular grade is received it is placed in the stock pile designated for that grade, i.e., all imports of Brazilian ore are placed in the Brazilian pile, etc. Hence a stock pile of a particular grade may be diminished by a particular day's need, and augmented the next by subsequently imported ore of the same grade.
Appellant conceded that the imported ores had lost their immunity from taxation once they were removed from storage piles and placed in stock bins. ”

“ Most of the Canadian lumber was received green and, as a matter of good business practice, it is customary to air dry such lumber before running it through dry kilns to further remove moisture.
In No. 9, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Bowers, appellant challenges the application of a personal property tax to its stocks of imported iron ore stored at its plant in Youngstown, Ohio. The facts were stipulated. Appellant purchases and imports five grades of iron ore: Brazilian ore, Cuban ore, Mexican ore, Liberian ore, and Seine River ore. ”

“ Goods lying in a manufacturer's warehouse in their original form or container are no more a part of the general mass of property of a State, than are goods which are displayed by a commission merchant, in their original crates, for purposes of sale; nor is a tax on goods stored for manufacture any less of an 'interception' of those goods while they are still imports than is a tax on goods immediately prior to their first sale. Clearly Hooven & Allison did not represent an extension of the principles of Brown v. ”

“ As one follows the tortuous and anguished endeavors to establish a free trade area within Western Europe, unhampered by interior barriers, against the opposition of inert and narrow conceptions of self-interest by the component nations, admiration for the farsighted statecraft of the Framers of the Constitution is intensified. ”

“ If the larger piles stood on higher ground adjoining the 'stock bins' and 'stock houses' so that the ores might feed by gravity from the former to the latter there would be no practical difference from the actual facts involved, but it could not be argued that the ores in the one are any less certainly being used in the processes of manufacture than the ores in the other. ”

“ This method does not so completely dry the lumber as to make kiln-drying unnecessary, but it does materially reduce the time and expense of that process. From time to time, so much of the lumber as is about to be put into veneered products is taken from the stacks and placed in a kiln where the drying is completed and the lumber readied for use. The veneers are imported from three countries. They are received in bundles and are kept in that form in piles, separated as to specie, in petitioner's plant for use as needed in the day-to-day operations of the plant. ”

“ State of Maryland, supra, laid down a rule applicable only to imports for the purpose of sale, and that imports for use became, upon storage, even if still in the original package, so intermingled with the common mass of property within the state as to be subject to the state power of taxation' (324 U.S. at page 655, 65 S.Ct. at page 872) , and upon that ground upheld the tax. ”

“ Twenty years later, sitting as Chief Justice, Taney acknowledged that 'further and more mature reflection' had made clear to him the wisdom of the principles laid down by his predecessor. 'Indeed,' said Mr. ”