194 U. S. 486, 495. And this has been extended to include explanatory statements in the nature of a supplemental report made by the committee member in charge of a bill in course of passage. Binns v. United States, supra; Pennsylvania R. R. Co. v. International Coal Co., 230 U. S. 184, 198-199; United States v. Coca Cola Co., 241 U. S. 265, 281; United States v. St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Ry. Co., 247 U. S. 310, 318.

In the case of the Clayton Act, the printed committee reports are not explicit with respect to the meaning of the "ceasing to patronize" clause of what is now § 20. (See House Rept. No. 627, 63d Cong., 2nd sess., pp. 3336; Senate Rept. No. 698, 63d Cong., 2nd sess., pp. 29-31; the latter being a reproduction of the former.) But they contain extracts from judicial opinions and a then recent text-book sustaining the "primary boycott," and expressing an adverse view as to the secondary or coercive boycott; and, on the whole, are far from manifesting a purpose to relax the prohibition against restraints of trade in favor of the secondary boycott.

Moreover, the report was supplemented in this regard by the spokesman of the House committee (Mr. Webb) who had the bill in charge when it was under consideration by the House. The question whether the bill legalized the secondary boycott having been raised, it was emphatically and unequivocally answered by him in the negative.1 The subject-he declared in substance or

1 Extracts from Congressional Record, vol. 51, Part 10, 63d Cong., 2d sess.

(Page 9652.)

MR. VOLSTEAD. Would not this also legalize the secondary boycott?

MR. WEBB. Mr. Chairman, I do not think it legalizes a secondary boycott.

MR. VOLSTEAD. Let me read the lines, if the gentleman will permit. And no such restraining order or injunction shall prohibit anyone— "from ceasing to patronize those who [or to] employ any party to

Opinion of the Court.

254 U.S.

effect was under consideration when the bill was framed, and the section as reported was carefully prepared with the settled purpose of excluding the secondary boycott and confining boycotting to the parties to the dispute, allowing parties to cease to patronize and to ask others to cease

such dispute, or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful means so to do."

Now, does not the word "others" in that instance refer to others than parties to the dispute?

MR. WEBB. No; because it says in line 15:

"From ceasing to patronize or employ any parties to such dispute." MR. VOLSTEAD. Can there be any doubt this is intended

or does, in fact, legalize the secondary boycott?

MR. WEBB. I will say frankly to my friend when this section was drawn it was drawn with the careful purpose not to legalize the secondary boycott, and we do not think it does. There may be a difference of opinion about it, but it is the opinion of the committee that it does not legalize the secondary boycott and is not intended to do so. It does legalize the primary boycott; it does legalize the strike; it does legalize persuading others to strike, to quit work, and the other acts mentioned in section 18 [now section 20], but we did not intend, I will say frankly, to legalize the secondary boycott.

(Page 9653.)

MR. WEBB. I will say this section was drawn two years or more ago and was drawn carefully, and those who drew this section drew it with the idea of excluding the secondary boycott. It passed the House, I think, by about 243 to 16, and the question of the secondary boycott was not raised then, because we understood so clearly it did not refer to or authorize the secondary boycott.

(Page 9658.)

MR. WEBB. Mr. Chairman, I should vote for the amendment offered by the gentlemen from Minnesota [Mr. Volstead] if I were not perfectly satisfied that it is taken care of in this section. The language the gentlemen reads does not authorize the secondary boycott, and he could not torture it into any such meaning. While it does authorize persons to cease to patronize the party to the dispute and to recommend to others to cease to patronize that same party to the dispute, that is not a secondary boycott, and you can not possibly make it mean a secondary boycott. Therefore this section does not authorize the secondary boycott.

I say again and I speak for, I believe, practically every member

to patronize a party to the dispute; it was the opinion of the committee that it did not legalize the secondary boycott, it was not their purpose to authorize such a boycott, not a member of the committee would vote to do so; clarifying amendment was unnecessary; the section as reported expressed the real purpose so well that it could not be tortured into a meaning authorizing the secondary boycott. This was the final word of the House committee on the subject, and was uttered under such circumstances and with such impressive emphasis that it is not going too far to say that except for this exposition of the meaning of the section it would not have been enacted in the form in which it was reported. In substantially that form it became law; and since in our opinion its proper construction is entirely in accord with its purpose as thus declared, little need be added.

The extreme and harmful consequences of the construction adopted in the court below are not to be ignored. The present case furnishes an apt and convincing example. An ordinary controversy in a manufacturing establishment, said to concern the terms or conditions of employment there, has been held a sufficient occasion for imposing a general embargo upon the products of the establishment and a nation-wide blockade of the channels of interstate commerce against them, carried out by inciting sympathetic strikes and a secondary boycott against complainant's customers, to the great and incalculable damage of many innocent people far remote from any connection with or control over the original and actual dispute people constituting, indeed, the general public

of the Judiciary Committee-that if this section did legalize the secondary boycott there would not be a man vote for it. It is not the purpose of the committee to authorize it, and I do not think any person in this House wants to do it. We confine the boycotting to the parties to the dispute, allowing parties to cease to patronize that party and to ask others to cease to patronize the party to the dispute.

upon whom the cost must ultimately fall, and whose vital interest in unobstructed commerce constituted the prime and paramount concern of Congress in enacting the antitrust laws, of which the section under consideration forms after all a part.

Reaching the conclusion, as we do, that complainant has a clear right to an injunction under the Sherman Act as amended by the Clayton Act, it becomes unnecessary to consider whether a like result would follow under the common law or local statutes; there being no suggestion that relief thereunder could be broader than that to which complainant is entitled under the acts of Congress.

There should be an injunction against defendants and the associations represented by them, and all members of those associations, restraining them, according to the prayer of the bill, from interfering or attempting to interfere with the sale, transportation, or delivery in interstate commerce of any printing press or presses manufactured by complainant, or the transportation, carting, installation, use, operation, exhibition, display, or repairing of any such press or presses, or the performance of any contract or contracts made by complainant respecting the sale, transportation, delivery, or installation of any such press or presses, by causing or threatening to cause loss, damage, trouble, or inconvenience to any person, firm, or corporation concerned in the purchase, transportation, carting, installation, use, operation, exhibition, display, or repairing of any such press or presses, or the performance of any such contract or contracts; and also and especially from using any force, threats, command, direction, or even persuasion with the object or having the effect of causing any person or persons to decline employment, cease employment, or not seek employment, or to refrain from work or cease working under any person, firm, or corporation being a purchaser or prospective purchaser of any printing press or presses from complainant,

443.

BRANDEIS, HOLMES and CLARKE, JJ., dissenting.

or engaged in hauling, carting, delivering, installing, handling, using, operating, or repairing any such press or presses for any customer of complainant. Other threatened conduct by defendants or the associations they represent, or the members of such associations, in furtherance of the secondary boycott should be included in the injunction according to the proofs.

Complainant is entitled to its costs in this court and in both courts below.

Decree reversed, and the cause remanded to the District Court for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.

MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS, dissenting, with whom MR. JUSTICE HOLMES and MR. JUSTICE CLARKE concur.

The Duplex Company, a manufacturer of newspaper printing presses, seeks to enjoin officials of the machinists' and affiliated unions from interfering with its business by inducing their members not to work for plaintiff or its customers in connection with the setting up of presses made by it. Unlike Hitchman Coal & Coke Co. v. Mitchell, 245 U. S. 229, there is here no charge that defendants are inducing employees to break their contracts. Nor is it now urged that defendants threaten acts of violence. But plaintiff insists that the acts complained of violate both the common law of New York and the Sherman Act and that, accordingly, it is entitled to relief by injunction under the state law and under § 16 of the Clayton Act, October 15, 1914, c. 323, 38 Stat. 730, 737.

The defendants admit interference with plaintiff's business but justify on the following ground: There are in the United States only four manufacturers of such presses; and they are in active competition. Between 1909 and 1913 the machinists' union induced three of