to interstate commerce. The effect of this decision naturally was to
cast doubt upon the efficacy of the statute and encourage the trust
builders. Perhaps the case was rightly decided in view of the peculiar
form in which the issues were presented by the pleadings. In the light
of later decisions, however, it is safe to assert that the Court would
now find little difficulty in applying the remedies provided by the
Sherman Act to a similar state of facts, properly presented. While no
prudent lawyer would care to attempt a comprehensive definition of what
constitutes interstate commerce, it may at least be said that the
tendency of the courts has been and is toward a constant broadening of
the term to meet the facts of present-day business.

[Footnote 1: _United States v. E.C. Knight Company_, 156 U.S., 1.]

The other question--Did the Sherman Act change the common-law rule as to
what restraints and monopolies are forbidden?--has been even more
troublesome. The lawyers in Congress who framed the law believed that it
did not. This is the testimony of Senator Hoar in his Autobiography, and
as he was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee which reported the
act in its present form, and claims to have drawn it himself, his
testimony is entitled to belief. The Supreme Court, however, in this
particular went further than was expected. In the Trans-Missouri
Freight Association case,[1] which reached the Supreme Court two years
after the Knight case, that tribunal decided by a five-to-four majority
that the words "_every_ contract ... in restraint of trade" extended the
operation of the law beyond the technical common-law meaning of the
terms employed so as in fact to include all contracts in restraint of
interstate trade without exception or limitation. This theory was
strongly combated by the minority of the court, speaking through Justice
(afterwards Chief Justice) White, and was denounced by many eminent