Hugo Black

“ The opinion accompanying the decree stated, however, that the three judges were of the view that a district judge alone had exclusive jurisdiction to pass upon the case; and that the decree should therefore be considered 'not as the decree of a three-judge court but as his decree, from which appeal lies to the Circuit Court of Appeals and not to the Supreme Court.' Nevertheless, all three judges signed the decree 'so that in the event that it should hereafter be determined that the case was one for three judges under the statute, an appropriate decree will have been entered.' 37 F.Supp. ”

“ The bill alleged that post exchanges are instrumentalities of the United States, operating as voluntary unincorporated organizations under the direction and supervision of the United States Army and in accordance with rules and regulations promulgated by the Secretary of War; that the respondents had ordered that the tax be applied to the purchase and sale of commodities by the exchanges; that enforcement would inflict immediate and irreparable damage for which the complainants were without any plain, speedy, and efficient remedy in the courts of South Carolina ”

“ And this is not, like Phillips v. United States, 312 U.S. 246, 61 S.Ct. 480, 85 L.Ed. 800, a case in which the state officials threatened to engage in conduct which state law could not reasonably be construed to authorize. ”