William O. Douglas

“ Whether an exclusive territorial franchise in a vertical arrangement is per se unreasonable under the antitrust laws is a much mooted question. A fixing of prices for resale is conspicuously unreasonable because of the great leverage that price has over the market. United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U.S. 150, 221, 60 S.Ct. 811, 843, 84 L.Ed. 1129. The Court quite properly refuses to say whether in the newspaper distribution business an exclusive territorial franchise is illegal.
The traditional distributing agency is the neighborhood newspaper boy. ”

“ Whether he would have the time, acumen, experience, or financial resources to wage competitive warfare without the protection of a territorial franchise is at least doubtful. Here, however, we have a distribution system which has the characteristics of a large retail enterprise. Petitioner's business requires practically full time. ”