William Howard Taft

“ The distinction that the exchange of the Chicago Board of Trade building is not within the same inclosure as the railroad yards and warehouses in which the grain is received and stored on its way from the West to the East as it is being sold on the exchange, while the stockyards exchange and the actual receipt and shipment of cattle are within the same fense, surely can make no difference in the application of the principle. ”

“ Manipulations of grain futures for speculative profit, though not carried to the extent of a corner or complete monopoly, exert a vicious influence and produce abnormal and disturbing temporary fluctuations of prices that are not responsive to actual supply and demand and discourage, not only this justifiable hedging, but disturb the normal flow of actual consignments. ”

“ The railroads of the country accommodate themselves to the interstate function of the Chicago market by giving shippers from Western states bills of lading through Chicago to points in Eastern states with the right to remove the grain at Chicago for temporary purposes of storing, inspecting, weighing, grading, or mixing, and changing the ownership, consignee or destination and then to continue the shipment under the same contract and at a through rate. ”

“ If a corner and the enhancement of prices produced by buying futures directly burden interstate commerce in the article whose price is enhanced, it would seem to follow that manipulations of futures which unduly depress prices of grain in interstate commerce and directly influence consignment in that commerce are equally direct. ”

“ In the act we are considering, Congress has expressly declared that transactions and prices of grain in dealing in futures are susceptible to speculation, manipulation, and control which are detrimental to the producer and consumer and persons handling grain in interstate commerce and render regulation imperative for the protection of such commerce and the national public interest therein. ”

“ More than this, prices of grain futures are those upon which an owner and intending seller of cash grain is influenced to sell or not to sell as they offer a good opportunity to him to hedge comfortably against future fluctuations. ”

“ As to the power of Congress to provide in section 9 for the punishment of any one who shall knowingly or carelessly deliver through the mail or interstate means of communication false or misleading crop or market reports, it will be time enough for us to consider its existence when some one is charged with the offense and is brought to trial therefor. ”

“ Paragraph (b) of section 6 which gives to the Commission the power on complaint after investigation by the Secretary of Agriculture, and after a hearing, to exclude from all contract markets any person violating any of the provisions of the act or attempting to manipulate the market price of any grain in violation of the provisions of section 5 of the act or of any of the rules or regulations made in pursuance to its requirements, is attacked as invalid because a jury trial is not afforded. ”

“ Such transactions cannot be separated from the movement to which they contribute and necessarily take on its character. The commission men are essential in making the sales without which the flow of the current would be obstructed, and this, whether they are made to packers or dealers. The dealers are essential to the sales of the stock farmers and feeders. The sales are not in this aspect merely local transactions. They create a local change of title, it is true, but they do not stop the flow ”

“ It was contended that, even if the necessary result of this was an obstruction of interstate trade, it was so indirect as not to constitute a restraint of it within the federal Anti-Trust Law under which the indictment was drawn. ”