by George Howard Earle, Jr.

“ It is a striking fact that in no such case has the Supreme Court ever denied a citizen redress for an invasion of his constitutional right and election to engage in national trade!
The acquirement of power by unlawful means, or the unlawful use of it in such manner as possibly to affect the Nation's rights in its trade, never overcomes the prima facie presumption of illegality always arising in such cases. Good purposes are not legally to be deduced from bad purposes or evil acts. ”

“ The doctrine of "indirectness," resting upon the lawfulness of what is done, can have no relevancy whatever to that which is in any way unlawfully done—to any tort or conspiracy! When people begin to do unlawful things that may injure national trade, there is always enough "dangerous probability" for the law to interfere at once. ”

“ A conspiracy, to be sure, consists in an agreement to do something, but in the sense of the law and therefore in the sense of this statute, it must be an agreement between two or more to do by concerted action something criminal or unlawful, or, it may be, to do something lawful by criminal or unlawful means. A conspiracy, therefore, is in itself unlawful, and, in so far as this statute is directed against conspiracies in restraint of trade among the several States, it is not necessary to look for the illegality of the offence in the kind of restraint proposed ”