Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ In other words, it is argued, the companies have made themselves masters of their respective fields by the constraint of the sale of the oil of other owners to them upon terms more or less dicated by them by availing themselves of their 'monopoly of the means of transportation.' This is the charge. The facts of the case do not sustain it except as they exhibit the advantages of the possession of property which others do not possess. Must it be shared by those others for that reason? The conception of property is exclusiveness, the rights of exclusive possession, enjoyment, and disposition. ”

“ May a jobber of merchandise in Washington who conducts a trade in Baltimore and other places, and owns special facilities for the transportation of his merchandise, be compelled to share them with competitors who may not be able to afford as ample ones, and in consequence be forced to sell their property to him at a disadvantage? ”

“ So the objection is narrowed to the fact that it applies to lines already engaged in transportation. But, as we already have intimated, those lines that we are considering are common carriers now in everything but form. They carry everybody's oil to a market, although they compel outsiders to sell it before taking it into their pipes. The answer to their objection is not that they may give up the business, but that, as applied to them, the statute practically means no more than they must give up requiring a sale to themselves before carrying the oil that they now receive. ”

“ What duress is employed that is not employed when terms are exacted as a condition of the use of property? Or, rather, and more accurately, what duress is used except the exclusion of others from the use of property which they do not own? ”

“ There remains to be considered only the Uncle Sam Oil Company. This company has a refinery in Kansas and oil wells in Oklahoma, with a pipe line connecting the two which it has used for the sole purpose of conducting oil from its own wells to its own refinery. It would be a perversion of language, considering the sense in which it is used in the statute, to say that a man was engaged in the transportation of water whenever he pumped a pail of water from his well to his house. ”

“ The employment of one's wealth to construct or purchase facilities for one's business greater than others possess constitutes no monopoly that does not appertain to all property. Such facilities may give advantages, and, it may be, power; so does all property and in proportion to its extent. ”

“ The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey is made prominent, and the exemplar of all of the other companies, and its stock ownership in some of them is assumed to destroy their individuality and unite them all in operation, character, and effect. ”

“ The control of Congress over commerce among the states cannot be made a means of exercising powers not intrusted to it by the Constitution, but it may require those who are common carriers in substance to become so in form. So far as the statute contemplates future pipe lines and prescribes the conditions upon which they may be established there can be no doubt that it is valid. ”

“ It is not held to be within the act. It seems to be minimized and considered not big enough for the application of the law, and yet it owns and operates a pipe line from the oil fields of Oklahoma to its refineries in Kansas. The extent to which it purchases oil from producers, if it does so at all, does not appear from the record. It may be supposed that if it venture to make purchases of oil it will lose its immunity. But why its exemption? Why is the fact of purchases of oil important? It is not the concern of the small oil owners to get to market? ”

“ Its evident purpose was to bring within its scope pipe lines that, although not technically common carriers, yet were carrying all oil offered, if only the offerers would sell at their price.
The only matter requiring much consideration is the constitutionality of the act. That the transportation is commerce among the states we think clear. That conception cannot be made wholly dependent upon technical questions of title, and the fact that the oils transported belonged to the owner of the pipe line is not conclusive against the transportation being such commerce. ”

“ None of them has ever held itself out as a common carrier, or in fact ever carried oil for others, but they have carried only such oil as they produced from their own wells or purchased from other producers, and which they owned when the transportation took place. ”

“ The circumstances in which the amendment was passed are known to everyone. The Standard Oil Company, a New Jersey corporation, owned the stock of the New York Transit Company, a pipe line made a common carrier by the laws of New York, and of the National Transit Company, a Pennsylvania corporation of like character, and by these it connected the Appalachian oil field with its refineries in the east. It owned nearly all the stock of the Ohio Oil Company, which connected the Lima-Indiana field with its system ”

“ The state court, passing on these and other regulations, said that there were many provisions in the act which applied only to warehouses and elevators in which grain was stored for others or for the public, and which could not apply to such warehouses as the one in question, and there were perhaps provisions in the act which it would be unconstitutional to apply to such warehouses. ”

“ The companies do not possess the right of eminent domain, and their lines are laid over private rights of way, except some of them for short distances have laid their lines along the rights of way of certain railroads under some contract arrangement with the railroads, one of them for a distance of about 300 miles. ”