William R. Day

“ It was intended to protect the importer in the right to sell the imported goods which was the real object and purpose of importation. To determine the time when an article passes out of the interstate into state jurisdiction for the purpose of taxation is entirely different from deciding when an article which has violated a Federal prohibition becomes immune. The doctrine was not intended to limit the right of Congress, now asserted, to keep the channels of interstate commerce free from the carriage of injurious or fraudulently branded articles, and to choose appropriate means to that end. ”

“ For, as we have said, keeping within its Constitutional limitations of authority, Congress may determine for itself the character of the means necessary to make its purpose effectual, in preventing the shipment in interstate commerce of articles of a harmful character, and to this end may provide the means of inspection, examination, and seizure necessary to enforce the prohibitions of the act, and when § 2 has been violated, the Federal authority, in enforcing either § 2 or § 10, may follow the adulterated or misbranded article at least to the shelf of the importer. ”

“ Conceding to the state the authority to make regulations consistent with the Federal law for the further protection of its citizens against impure and misbranded food and drugs, we think to permit such regulation as is embodied in this statute is to permit a state to discredit and burden legitimate Federal regulations of interstate commerce, to destroy rights arising out of the Federal statute which have accrued both to the government and the shipper, and to impair the effect of a Federal law which has been enacted under the Constitutional power of Congress over the subject. ”