William O. Douglas

“ What the Court holds is that if Congress has touched a subject matter it becomes untouchable by the State, though there is neither paper nor operating conflict between federal and State spheres of authority. Thus, while Congress has not given to the Secretary of Agriculture rate-fixing power, Congress, it is said, has inferentially deprived Illinois of the power she has exercised for seventy years to fix grain warehouse rates.
I cannot agree. As to rates, for example, Congress has merely given the Secretary power to revoke a license if its holder charges 'unreasonable or exorbitant' rates. ”

“ On the merits of the controversy our problem is to determine what freedom to regulate its grain warehouses has been left to Illinois, after Congress exercised its constitutional power over such warehouses by adopting a licensing system to be administered by the Secretary of Agriculture under closely defined authority. Underlying the problem is the important fact that we are concerned with an economic enterprise which, while it has important radiations beyond State bounds, does not thereby lose special relations to the State in which it is conducted. ”

“ But surely one does not draw on idle fears in suggesting that as a result of today's decision the gates of escape from deeply rooted State requirements will be open, although Congress itself has not authorized federal authority to take over the regulation of such activities and though their State enforcement does not at all conflict with, but rather promotes, the limited oversight of warehouses thus far assumed by the Federal Government The Court displaces settled and fruitful State authority though it cannot replace it with federal authority. ”

“ Suffice it to say that due regard for our federalism, in its practical operation, favors survival of the reserved authority of a State over matters that are the intimate concern of the State unless Congress has clearly swept the boards of all State authority, or the State's claim is in unmistakable conflict with what Congress has ordered. ”