The Sherman Act v. Labor

Abstract

M R. JUSTICE STONE'S opinion in the Apex case' has not been very instructive. He has made it dear that the Sherman Act was designed to prevent restraints on free competition in national markets, and was not devised to set the federal courts up as policing agencies to prevent those interferences with interstate transportation which local authorities should punish. But he does not say precisely what he means by protection of competition in interstate markets from the restraining activities of labor unions. His attempt to interpret and to reconcile earlier labor decisions of the Court under the Sherman Act, to correlate these with the business decisions and thereby to explain the Court's position in the Apex case is confusing. But lawyers are anxious to understand the Court's attitude toward labor union activities under the act; and this speculation is an endeavor to determine what that position may be. I