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Opinion of the Court.

308 U.S.

Carter, 231 U. S. 492, 493; United States v. Hastings, 296 U. S. 188, 192-194. The appeal as to count three must be dismissed.

Second. After a general description of the averments of the indictment, which was explicitly founded on § 1 of the Sherman Act, the District Court construed counts one, two and four as follows:

"Count 1 charges a conspiracy 'to arbitrarily fix, maintain and control artificial and non-competitive prices to be paid to all producers by all distributors for all fluid milk produced on approved dairy farms located in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin', and shipped to Chicago."

"Count 2 charges a conspiracy 'to fix and maintain by common and concerted action, uniform, arbitrary and non-competitive prices for the sale by the distributors in the city of Chicago of fluid milk shipped into the said city from the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.""

"Count 4 charges a conspiracy 'to restrict, limit and control and to restrain and obstruct the supply of fluid milk moving in the channels of interstate commerce into the city of Chicago from the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.'"

The District Court further summarized the allegations in these counts as to the methods by which the alleged conspiracies were intended to be effected. 28 F. Supp. pp. 179–181. This construction of the indictment is binding upon this Court on this appeal. United States v. Patten, 226 U. S. 525, 535, 540; United States v. Colgate & Co., 250 U. S. 300, 301; United States v. Schrader's Son, 252 U. S. 85, 98; United States v. Yuginovich, 256 U. S. 450, 461; United States v. Hastings, supra, p. 192. Third. The District Court, thus construing counts one, two and four, held as a matter of substance that, because

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Opinion of the Court.

of the effect of the later statutes, these counts did not charge an offense under § 1 of the Sherman Act. This was necessarily a construction of the Sherman Act. United States v. Patten, supra; United States v. Birdsall, 233 U. S. 223, 230; United States v. Kapp, 302 U. S. 214, 217. We are not impressed with the argument that the court simply construed the later statutes. The effect of those statutes was considered in determining whether the Sherman Act has been so modified and limited that it no longer applies to such combinations and conspiracies as are charged in counts one, two and four. Thus the Sherman Act was not the less construed because it was construed in the light of the subsequent legislation.

We have jurisdiction under the Criminal Appeals Act to determine whether the construction thus placed upon the Sherman Act is correct.

Fourth. In reaching its conclusion, the District Court referred to 6 of the Clayton Act, §§ 1 and 2 of the Capper-Volstead Act, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, as amended in 1935, and as reënacted and amended by the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937.

2

With respect to the Clayton Act, the court said in its opinion: "By that act labor, agricultural or horticultural cooperative organizations were excepted from the

*Section 6 of the Clayton Act (38 Stat. 730, 15 U. S. C. 17) provides:

“The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce. Nothing contained in the antitrust laws shall be construed to forbid the existence and operation of labor, agricultural, or horticultural organizations, instituted for the purposes of mutual help, and not having capital stock or conducted for profit, or to forbid or restrain individual members of such organizations from lawfully carrying out the legitimate objects thereof; nor shall such organizations, or the members thereof, be held or construed to be illegal combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade, under the antitrust laws."

Opinion of the Court.

308 U.S.

broad and sweeping terms of the Sherman Act. Such cooperative organizations, in and of themselves, were not to be construed as illegal combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade under the anti-trust laws." 28 F. Supp. 183. But the court did not hold that, by these provisions of the Clayton Act, either the defendants Pure Milk Association and its officers and agents or the defendants Milk Wagon Drivers Union, Local 753, and its officials, (albeit these organizations were not in themselves illegal combinations or conspiracies) were rendered immune from prosecution under the Sherman Act for their alleged participation in the combinations and conspiracies charged in counts one, two and four of the indictment. The Sherman Act was not construed by the District Court as having been limited to that extent by the Clayton Act.

3

The court invoked the Capper-Volstead Act, as its judgment shows, only in relation to certain defendants, that is, the Pure Milk Association, an agricultural cooperative oganization, and its officers and agents. We shall consider later the effect of that statute upon the charge against those defendants.

The court dismissed the indictment as to all defendants, and we think it manifest that this ruling in its bearing upon counts one, two and four was due to the effect upon the Sherman Act which the court attributed to the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act.*

(1). As to that Act, the court said:

"The Court holds that, by the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act the Congress has committed to the Execu

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The District Court referred, in passing, to the Cooperative Marketing Act of July 2, 1926 (44 Stat. 803, 7 U. S. C. 455), and to the provisions of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 (48 Stat. 31), as amended in 1935 (49 Stat. 750), which was followed by the Agricul tural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 (50 Stat. 246).

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tive Department, acting through the Secretary of Agriculture, full, complete and plenary power over the production and marketing, in interstate commerce, of agricultural products, including milk.

"To what extent he should act, the quantum of regulation, is solely one for his judgment and decision. If conditions require, he must act; if they do not require action, then all marketing conditions are deemed satisfactory and the purpose of the act is effectuated. Non-action by the Secretary of Agriculture, in any given marketing area, is equivalent to a declaration that the policy of the act, in that area, is being carried out. If the policy of the act, in any given milk area, is being violated it becomes the duty of the Secretary of Agriculture to intervene and invoke the powers conferred upon him by the act.

"It results, from what has been said, that the power of regulation, supervision and control of the milk industry, in any given milk shed, is, by the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, vested exclusively in the Secretary of Agriculture. It follows further that the Secretary of Agriculture cannot by his own action, or inaction, divest himself of this power so long as the statute remains in force. The marketing of the agricultural products, including milk, covered by the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act, is removed from the purview of the Sherman Act. In other words, so far as the marketing of agricultural commodities, including milk, is concerned, no indictment will lie under section 1 of the Sherman Act." 28 F. Supp. p. 187.

It will be observed that the District Court attributes this effect to the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act per se, that is, to its operation in the absence, and without regard to the scope and particular effect, of any marketing agreements made by the Secretary of Agriculture or of any orders issued by him pursuant to the Act. In the opinion of the court below, the existence of the au

Opinion of the Court.

308 U.S.

thority vested in the Secretary of Agriculture, although unexercised, wholly destroys the operation of § 1 of the Sherman Act with respect to the marketing of agricultural commodities.

We are of the opinion that this conclusion is erroneous. No provision of that purport appears in the Agricultural Act. While effect is expressly given, as we shall see, to agreements and orders which may validly be made by the Secretary of Agriculture, there is no suggestion that in their absence, and apart from such qualified authorization and such requirements as they contain, the commerce in agricultural commodities is stripped of the safeguards set up by the Anti-Trust Act and is left open to the restraints, however unreasonable, which conspiring producers, distributors and their allies may see fit to impose. We are unable to find that such a grant of immunity by virtue of the inaction, or limited action, of the Secretary has any place in the statutory plan. We cannot believe that Congress intended to create "so great a breach in historic remedies and sanctions." "

It is a cardinal principle of construction that repeals by implication are not favored. When there are two acts upon the same subject, the rule is to give effect to both if possible. United States v. Tynen, 11 Wall. 88, 92; Henderson's Tobacco, 11 Wall. 652, 657; General Motors Acceptance Corp. v. United States, 286 U. S. 49, 61, 62. The intention of the legislature to repeal "must be clear and manifest." Red Rock v. Henry, 106 U. S. 596, 601, 602. It is not sufficient, as was said by Mr. Justice Story in Wood v. United States, 16 Pet. 342, 362, 363, "to establish that subsequent laws cover some or even all of the cases provided for by [the prior act]; for they may be merely affirmative, o cumulative, or auxiliary." There

See Generalotors Acceptance Corp v. United States, 286 U. S.

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