them in the use of these rights, it is difficult to perceive how their exercise can constitute any restriction upon competition or any restraint upon interstate trade. The acts of the defendant * * * are nothing more than the lawful exercise of these unquestioned rights which are indispensable to the existence of competition or to the conduct of trade. * * * An attempt by each competitor to monopolize a part of interstate commerce is the very root of all competition therein. Eradicate it, and competition necessarily ceases—dies. Every person engaged in interstate commerce necessarily attempts to draw to himself, and to exclude others from, a part of that trade; and, if he may not do this, he may not compete with his rivals, all other persons and corporations must cease to secure for themselves any part of the commerce among the States, and some single corporation or person must be permitted to receive and control it all in one huge monopoly. The purpose of the Act of July 2nd, 1890, was, however, to prevent the stifling of competition, not to destroy it or to foster monopoly, and any construction of any of its provisions which would give it such an effect is unreasonable and inconsistent with the object and spirit of the law. It is an interpretation which fosters the mischief it was passed to remedy."
The foregoing sound reasoning by the Court as shown in this statement of legal and economic principles, may be applied with peculiar force to the Lever Act, affording a true guidance, not only in seeking its intendment, but also in prescribing a liberal interpretation of its terms necessarily involved in the act of enforcing it.
An important case upon the question of the right of the owner to fix the price of his commodities in his
