Rufus Wheeler Peckham

“ If while enforcing the rules those members who use improper methods or who fail to conduct their business transactions fairly and honestly are disciplined and expelled, and thereby the number of members is reduced, and to that extent the number of competitors limited, yet all this is done, not with the intent or purpose of affecting in the slightest degree interstate trade or commerce, and such trade or commerce can be affected thereby only most remotely and indirectly ”

“ This association does not meddle with prices and itself does no business. In refusing to recognize any yard trader who is not a member of the exchange, we see no purpose of thereby affecting or in any manner restraining interstate commerce, which, if affected at all, can only be in a very indirect and remote manner. ”

“ From very early times it has been the custom for men engaged in the occupation of buying and selling articles of a similar nature at any particular place to associate themselves together. The object of the association has in many cases been to provide for the ready transaction of the business of the associates by obtaining a general headquarters for its conduct, and thus to insure a quick and certain market for the sale or purchase of the article dealt in. ”

“ It has no tendency, so far as can be gathered from its object or from the language of its rules and regulations, to limit the extent of the demand for cattle, or to limit the number of cattle marketed, or to limit or reduce their price, or to place any impediment or obstacle in the course of the commercial stream which flows into the Kansas City cattle market. ”

“ A claim that such refusal may thereby lessen the number of active traders on the market, and thus possibly reduce the demand for, and the prices of, the cattle there set up for sale, and so affect interstate trade, is entirely too remote and fanciful to be accepted as valid. ”