Harlan F. Stone

“ A nondiscriminatory tax upon the business of storing and compressing the cotton, which is not itself the subject of a movement in interstate commerce, is not forbidden. Most articles, before their shipment in interstate commerce, have had work done upon them which adapts them to the needs of commerce and prepares them for sale and convenient transportation, but that fact has never been thought to immunize from local taxation either the articles themselves or those who have manufactured or otherwise prepared them for interstate transportation. ”

“ The fact that the license is used also as a means of government control of appellant's business does not call for a different conclusion. The national government has not assumed to tax the business or to exercise any control over the taxation of it by the state. The state does not tax the license itself, and the tax upon petitioner's business, applied without discrimination to all similar businesses whether licensed or not, does not impair the control which the federal authority has chosen to exert. ”

“ The fact that appellant's contract with the interstate rail carrier has designated appellant as the carrier's agent and appellant's warehouse as the carrier's depot cannot alter the legal consequences of what is actually done with the cotton by its owners or of their power of control over it, or of the actual course of dealing with it by appellant. It is not within the power of the parties, by the descriptive terms of their contract, to convert a local business into an interstate commerce business protected by the interstate commerce clause. ”