Argument for Appellees.

can not be taken away from it by any statute of a State or of the United States.

In the absence of any proof that such sale was upon the part of the Delaware & Hudson Company a portion of an illegal combination to which it was itself intentionally a party, the company is entitled to enforce such contract against the other party thereto, and that right can not be taken away from it without its consent, no question of police power being involved. Tracy v. Talmage, 14 N. Y. 162, 167; Ganson v. Tifft, 71 N. Y. 48, 57; Graves v. Johnson, 179 Massachusetts, 53; National Distilling Co. v. Cream City Importing Co., 86 Wisconsin, 356; Metcalf v. American School Furniture Co., 122 Fed. Rep. 115, 120; Carter-Crume Co. v. Peurrung, 86 Fed. Rep. 439, 442; Adams v. Coulliard, 102 Massachusetts, 167; Connolly v. Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S. 540.

Mr. William W. Green filed a brief for appellee, the Mercantile Trust Company.

Mr. Adelbert Moot and Mr. George F. Brownell filed a brief for the Erie Railroad Company, appellee.

The United States failed to show that the Erie Railroad Company, or the stockholders of the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad Company, or the stockholders of the Pennsylvania Coal Company, or any other person or corporation intended "restraint of trade or commerce," or to "monopolize or attempt to monopolize any part of trade or commerce," and therefore the court below unanimously and properly dismissed the petition upon the merits upon the facts.

[334] The defendants' evidence and exhibits affirmatively disprove the charge of either general or special conspiracies to violate either §§ 1 or 2 of the act, and show, instead, that each purchase of stock in question was made by the Erie Railroad Company for proper and lawful business reasons under authority of its charter and the legislation of the States of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, respectively.

Argument for Appellees.

The full constitutional and exclusive power of the National Government by executive officers, legislative acts, and judicial decrees to regulate interstate commerce is admitted. This does not make the purchase of those stocks interstate commerce or illegal under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. because: The New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad Company was never a parallel and competing line of the Erie Railroad Company, nor was it in such financial or physical position to compete at the mines or elsewhere as to enable the Erie Railroad Company to cause restraint or monopoly of interstate trade contrary to such statute.

The Erie Railroad Company, the Pennsylvania Coal Company, and its railroad, the Erie & Wyoming Railroad, had been duly authorized to enter into contract and traffic relations with each other. They had done so; such contracts were not prohibited by Federal law, nor are they now, and such contract relations, begun over 40 years before the stock purchase, still existed and would continue until at least January 1, 1911; therefore, the acquisition of the stock of such companies by the Erie Railroad Company, to give it further control over a connecting railway in Pennsylvania that was an old and natural connection and feeder, and of the tonnage it was built to serve, more than forty years before, the stock purchase, for the same purpose was lawful. Bosman, 5 R. 1014 R.; Thomas, 5 R. 1121-2; R. R. Co. v. R. R. Co., 171 Pa. St. 284; A. F. &c. R. R. Co. v. Denver &c. R. Co., 110 U. S. 667; Cin. R. R. [335] Co. v. Int. Com. Comm., 162 U. S. 184, 197; L. & N. R. Co. v. West Coast N. S. R. Co., 198 U. S. 483; So. Pac. v. Int. Com. Comm., 200 U. S. 536-554.

The petition, as we have heretofore pointed out, does not allege that the Pennsylvania Coal Company stock purchase was a "step" in the general conspiracy charged, as it does in other cases; nor does it allege any vice in the purchase, except that the stock was purchased at an "exorbitant" price, and thereby a proposed railroad wholly in the State of New York lost its most influential backer and was never built.

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Argument for Appellant.

No relief was asked for under this petition, which failed to even state a case within the statute. The Government evidence wholly failed to establish an "exorbitant" price; but the contrary was the undisputed fact. No interstate, or parallel, or competing railroad was involved, but only a Pennsylvania connection which had been a feeder of over forty years' standing and its tonnage. There was no intent to violate the law, and it was not violated.

Mr. Everett Warren for Temple Iron Company, appellant in No. 206:

The Temple transactions were not for the purpose of preventing the construction of another interstate carrier of anthracite, even if it is assumed that the independents by securing the charter of the New York, Wyoming & Western contemplated reaching tidewater by the utilization of that proposed road as a means, but were for the purpose of retaining to the carriers the tonnage of the socalled Simpson & Watkins collieries they then enjoyed under lawful contracts, beyond any hazard of a threatened, or supposedly threatened, diversion. In other words, it was a measure of defense, not offense, the purposes and intent of which was to fortify and make sure an already impregnable legal position.

[336] The projected road was an intrastate road and nothing else, and if it is assumed that the contemplated purchase of the Simpson & Watkins collieries defeated its construction, and the proofs show the contrary, the purchase did not have any effect upon interstate trade or com

merce.

Simpson & Watkins were not the principal supporters of the projected intrastate road. The road itself was a visionary enterprise, entirely impracticable, and its abandonment was due to other causes than the acquisition by the Temple Iron Company of the Simpson & Watkins collieries.

The charges in the Government's petition, namely, the high price paid for the Simpson & Watkins properties and the little value standing alone of the stock and bonds of the Temple Company, were without foundation of fact to rest upon and were disproven in the Government's own case.

Opinion of the Court.

There never was contemplated any pooling or division of the tonnages moving from the Simpson & Watkins collieries among the railroad stockholders of the Temple Company serving the region where these collieries were situated, much less any pooling and division of such tonnage as a fact.

The history of the management and development of the Temple anthracite operation since February, 1899, as it is undisputed and appears in the Government's own case, discloses a careful business-like conduct of its affairs in line with and following out the plain purpose of its entrance into the anthracite field, namely, to make money out of its mines for its stockholders as independent coal operators. Its transactions are altogether within the State of Pennsylvania and end there.

The Temple transaction had and could have no bearing upon interstate trade or commerce under the actual situation of affairs; are not within the provisions of the Anti[337] Trust Law, nor indeed within the constitutional authority of Congress.

Mr. Justice LURTON delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a petition in equity filed by the United States in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, for the purpose of enforcing the provisions of the act of July 2, 1890, known as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, against an alleged combination of railroad and coal mining companies formed and continued for the purpose of restraining competition in the production, sale, and transportation of anthracite coal in commerce among the States.

The defendants originally made such, and alone referred to hereafter as the defendants, were the following:

T

The Philadelphia & Reading Railway Company; the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company; the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company; the Lehigh Valley Coal Company; the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad Company; the Central Railroad Company of New Jersey; the Erie Railroad Company; the New York, Susquehanna &

Opinion of the Court.

Western Railroad Company; the New York, Susquehanna & Western Coal Company; the Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Company; the Pennsylvania Coal Company; the Hillside Coal Company; the Reading Company; and the Temple Iron Company. By an amendment certain other defendants were brought in, consisting of holders of contracts made by independent operators of coal mines, and trustees holding securities which might be affected by the relief sought against the carrier and coal mining companies, the original defendants. A list of these later defendants is set out in the margin, and when they are referred to herein they will be specifically mentioned.

[338] The bill alleges that anthracite coal is an article of prime necessity as a fuel and finds its market mainly in the New England and Middle Atlantic States. The deposits of the coal, with unimportant exceptions, lie in the State of Pennsylvania, but do not occupy a continuous field, though found in certain counties adjoining in the eastern half of the State, and embrace an area of 484 square miles. This coal region is from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty miles from tidewater. The region itself is broken and mountainous, and the natural conditions and character of the deposits are such that the mining and re

"The Delaware & Hudson Company; Elk Hill Coal & Iron Company; St. Clair Coal Company; Enterprise Coal Company; Buck Run Coal Company; Llewellyn Mining Company; Clear Spring Coal Company; Pancoast Coal Company; Price - Pancoast Coal Company; Mount Lookout Coal Company; Peoples Coal Company; George F. Lee Coal Company; North End Coal Company; Melville Coal Company; Parrish Coal Company; Red Ash Coal Company; Raub Coal Company; Mid Valley Coal Company; Austin Coal Company; Clarence Coal Company; Nay Aug Coal Company; Green Ridge Coal Company; Excelsior Coal Company; Lackawanna Coal Company; Dolph Coal Company, Limited; Mary F. W. Howe, Frank Pardee, and Sarah Drexel Van Rensellaer, constituting A. Pardee & Co.; Lafayette Lentz, William O. Lentz, and Lewis A. Riley, constituting Lentz & Company; William Law and John M. Robertson, constituting Robertson & Law; Richard White, W. R. McTurk, and Robert White, constituting E. White Company; Joseph J. Jermyn, George B. Jermyn, Emma J. Jermyn, constituting John Jermyn Estate; Joseph J. Jermyn, Michael F. Dolphin; The Pennsylvania Company for Insurance on Lives and Granting Annuities; and the Mercantile Trust Company.