Board of Trade of City of Chicago v. Olsen/Opinion of the Court

by William Howard Taft

United States Supreme Court

262 U.S. 1

Board of Trade of City of Chicago  v.  Olsen

 Argued: Feb. 26, 1923. --- Decided: April 16, 1923

Appellants contend that the decision of this court in Hill v. Wallace, 259 U.S. 44, 42 Sup. Ct. 453, 66 L. Ed. 822, is conclusive against the constitutionality of the Grain Futures Act. Indeed in their bill they pleaded the judgment in that case as res adjudicata in this, as to its invalidity. The act whose constitutionality was in question in Hill v. Wallace was the Future Trading Act (chapter 86, 42 Stat. 187). It was an effort by Congress, through taxing at a prohibitive rate sales of grain for future delivery, to regulate such sales on boards of trade by exempting them from the tax if they would comply with the congressional regulations. It was held that sales for future delivery where the parties were present in Chicago, to be settled by offsetting purchases or by delivery, to take place there, were not interstate commerce and that Congress could not use its taxing power in this indirect way to regulate business not within federal control. We said (259 U.S. 68, 42 Sup. Ct. 458, 66 L. Ed. 822):

'Looked at in this aspect and without any limitation of the application of the tax to interstate commerce, or to that which the Congress may deem from evidence before it to be an obstruction to interstate commerce, we do not find it possible to sustain the validity of the regulations as they are set forth in this act. A reading of the act makes it quite clear that Congress sought to use the taxing power to give validity to the act. It did not have the exercise of its power under the commerce clause in ind and so did not introduce into the act the limitations which certainly would accompany and mark an exercise of the power under the latter clause.'

Again, on page 69 of 259 U.S., on page 458 of 42 Sup. Ct. (66 L. Ed. 822), we said:

'It follows that sales for future delivery on the Board of Trade are not in and of themselves interstate commerce. They can not come within the regulatory power of Congress as such, unless they are regarded by Congress, from the evidence before it, as directly interfering with interstate commerce so as to be an obstruction or a burden thereon.'

The Grain Futures Act which is now before us differs from the Future Trading Act in having the very features the absence of which we held in the somewhat carefully framed language of the foregoing prevented our sustaining the Future Trading Act. As we have seen in the statement of the case, the act only purports to regulate interstate commerce and sales of grain for future delivery on boards of trade because it finds that by manipulation they have become a constantly recurring burden and obstruction to that commerce. Instead, therefore, of being an authority against the validity of the Grain Futures Act, it is an authority in its favor.

The Chicago Board of Trade is the greatest grain market in the world. Chicago Board of Trade v. United States, 246 U.S. 231, 235, 38 Sup. Ct. 242, 62 L. Ed. 683. Its report for 1922 shows that on that market in that year were made cash sales for some 350,000,000 bushels of grain, most of which was shipped from states west and north of Illinois into Chicago, and was either stored temporarily in Chicago or was retained in cars and after sale was shipped in large part to Eastern states and foreign countries. This great annual flow is made up of the cash grain sold on the exchange, the cash sales to arrive (Chicago Board of Trade v. United States, 246 U.S. 231, 38 Sup. Ct. 242, 62 L. Ed. 683), and the comparatively small percentage of grain contracted to be sold in the futures market not settled by offsetting. Chicago Board of Trade v. Christie Grain Co., 198 U.S. 236, 248, 25 Sup. Ct. 637, 49 L. Ed. 1031. The railroads of the country accommodate themselves to the interstate function of the Chicago market by giving shippers from Western states bills of lading through Chicago to points in Eastern states with the right to remove the grain at Chicago for temporary purposes of storing, inspecting, weighing, grading, or mixing, and changing the ownership, consignee or destination and then to continue the shipment under the same contract and at a through rate. Bacon v. Illinois, 227 U.S. 504, 33 Sup. Ct. 299, 57 L. Ed. 615. Such a contract does not prevent the local taxing of the grain while in Chicago; but it does not take it out of interstate commerce in such a way as to deprive Congress of the power to regulate it, as is plainly intimated in the authority cited (227 U.S. 516, 33 Sup. Ct. 299, 57 L. Ed. 615) and expressly recognized in Stafford v. Wallace, 258 U.S. 495, 525, 526, 42 Sup. Ct. 397, 66 L. Ed. 735. The fact that the grain shipped from the West and taken from cars may have been stored in warehouses and mixed with other grain, so that the owner receives other grain when presenting his receipt for continuing the shipment, does not take away from the interstate character of the through shipment any more than a mixture of the oil or gas in the pipe lines of the oil and gas companies in West Virginia, with the right in the owners to withdraw their shares before crossing state lines, prevented the great bulk of the oil and gas which did thereafter cross state lines from being a stream or current of interstate commerce. Eureka Pipe Line v. Hallanan, 257 U.S. 265, 272, 42 Sup. Ct. 101, 66 L. Ed. 227; United Fuel Gas Co. v. Hallanan, 257 U.S. 277, 281, 42 Sup. Ct. 105, 66 L. Ed. 234.

It is impossible to distinguish the case at bar, so far as it concerns the cash grain, the sales to arrive, and the grain actually delivered in fulfi lment of future contracts, from the current of stock shipments declared to be interstate commerce in Stafford v. Wallace, 258 U.S. 495, 42 Sup. Ct. 397, 66 L. Ed. 735. That case presented the question whether sales and purchases of cattle made in Chicago at the stockyards by commission men and dealers and traders under the rules of the stockyards corporation could be brought by Congress under the supervision of the Secretary of Agriculture to prevent abuses of the commission men and dealers in exorbitant charges and other ways, and in their relations with packers prone to monopolize trade and depress and increase prices thereby. It was held that this could be done, even though the sales and purchases by commission men and by dealers were in and of themselves intrastate commerce, the parties to sales and purchases and the cattle all being at the time within the city of Chicago.

We said (258 U.S. 515, 42 Sup. Ct. 402, 66 L. Ed. 735):

'The stockyards are not a place of rest or final destination. Thousands of head of live stock arrive daily by carload and trainload lots, and must be promptly sold and disposed of and moved out to give place to the constantly flowing traffic that presses behind. The stockyards are but a throat through which the current flows and the transactions which occur therein are only incident to this current from the West to the East, and from one state to another. Such transactions cannot be separated from the movement to which they contribute and necessarily take on its character. The commission men are essential in making the sales without which the flow of the current would be obstructed, and this, whether they are made to packers or dealers. The dealers are essential to the sales of the stock farmers and feeders. The sales are not in this aspect merely local transactions. They create a local change of title, it is true, but they do not stop the flow; they merely change the private interests in the subject of the current, not interfering with, but, on the contrary, being indispensable to, its continuity. The origin of the live stock is in the West, its ultimate destination known to, and intended by, all engaged in the business is in the Middle West and East, either as meat products or stock for feeding and fattening. This is the definite and well-understood course of business. The stockyards and the sales are necessary factors in the middle of this current of commerce.'

This case was but the necessary consequence of the conclusions reached in the case of Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U.S. 375, 25 Sup. Ct. 276, 49 L. Ed. 518. That case was a milestone in the interpretation of the commerce clause of the Constitution. It recognized the great changes and development in the business of this vast country and drew again the dividing line between interstate and intrastate commerce where the Constitution intended it to be. It refused to permit local incidents of great interstate movement, which taken alone were intrastate, to characterize the movement as such. The Swift Case merely fitted the commerce clause to the real and practical essence of modern business growth. It applies to the case before us just as it did in Stafford v. Wallace.

The distinction that the exchange of the Chicago Board of Trade building is not within the same inclosure as the railroad yards and warehouses in which the grain is received and stored on its way from the West to the East as it is being sold on the exchange, while the stockyards exchange and the actual receipt and shipment of cattle are within the same fense, surely can make no difference in the application of the principle. The sales on the Chicago Board of Trade are just as indispensable to the continuity of the flow of wheat from the West to the mills and distributing points of the East and Europe, as are the Chicago sales of cattle to the flow of stock toward the feeding places and slaughter and packing houses of the East.

The question under this act is somewhat different in form and detail from that in the Stafford Case, but the result must be the same. It is not the sales and deliveries of the actual grain which are the chief subject of the supervision of federal agency by Congress in the Grain Futures Act, although a record of cash sales is required, and a corner in cash sales would be a violation of it, and there are other provisions equally regulatory of them. It is the contracts of sales of grain for future delivery, most of which do not result in actual delivery but are settled by offsetting them with other contracts of the same kind, or by what is called 'ringing.' Board of Trade v. Christie Co., 198 U.S. 236, 246-247, 25 Sup. Ct. 637, 49 L. Ed. 1031. The question is whether the conduct of such sales is subject to constantly recurring abuses which are a burden and obstruction to interstate commerce in grain? And further, are they such an incident of that commerce and so intermingled with it that the burden and obstruction caused therein by them can be said to be direct?

In United States v. Ferger, 250 U.S. 199, 39 Sup. Ct. 445, 63 L. Ed. 936, the question was of the validity of a statute of Congress punishing the forging of bills of lading used in interstate commerce, and altering them. The lower court had dismissed an indictment charging the offense denounced in the statute, on the ground that Congress could only deal with real bills of lading where there was an actual shipment in interstate commerce, and had no power to punish a fraud and fiction where there was no such commerce, and where the bills of lading whose fabrication was the subject of complaint were mere pieces of papers fraudulently inscribed, and did not relate to any actual interstate commerce. This court, speaking through Chief Justice White, rejected the view of the lower court, on the ground that interstate commerce would be directly impaired and weakened by the unrestrained right to fabricate and circulate spurious bills of lading apparently connected with such commerce. The court, in Stafford v. Wallace, supra, adopted and applied this principle and said (258 U.S. 521, 42 Sup. Ct. 403, 66 L. Ed. 735):

'Whatever amounts to more or less constant practice, and threatens to obstruct or unduly to burden the freedom of interstate commerce is within the regulatory power of Congress under the commerce clause, and it is primarily for Congress to consider and decide the fact of the danger and to meet it. This court will certainly not substitute its judgment for that of Congress in such a matter unless the relation of the subject to interstate commerce and its effect upon it are clearly nonexistent.'

In the act we are considering, Congress has expressly declared that transactions and prices of grain in dealing in futures are susceptible to speculation, manipulation, and control which are detrimental to the producer and consumer and persons handling grain in interstate commerce and render regulation imperative for the protection of such commerce and the national public interest therein.

It is clear from the citations, in the statement of the case, of evidence before committees of investigation as to manipulations of the futures market and their effect, that we would be unwarranted in rejecting the finding of Congress as unreasonable, and that in our inquiry as to the validity of this legislation we must accept the view that such manipulation does work to the detriment of producers, consumers, shippers and legitimate dealers in interstate commerce in grain and that it is a real abuse.

But it is contended that it is too remote in its effect on interstate commerce, and that it is not like the direct additions to the cost to the producer of marketing cattle by exorbitant charges and discrimination of commission men and dealers, as in Stafford v. Wallace. It is said there is no relation between prices on the futures market and in the cash sales. This is hardly consistent with the affidavits the plaintiffs present from the leading economists, already referred to, who say that dealing in futures stabilizes cash prices. It is true that the curves of prices in the futures and in the cash sales are not parallel and that sometimes one is higher and sometimes the other. This is to be expected because futures prices are dependent normally on judgment of the parties as to the future, and the cash prices depend on present conditions, but it is very reasonable to suppose that the one influences the other as the time of actual delivery of the futures approaches, when the prospect of heavy actual transactions at a certain fixed price must have a direct effect upon the cash prices in unfettered sales. The effect of such a 'deal' as that of May, 1922, as explained by Mr. J. H. Barnes, shows this clearly and illustrates in a striking way the direct effect of such manipulation in disturbing the actual normal flow of grain in interstate commerce most injuriously. Mr. Barnes also points out the effect of the operation of the rule limiting deliveries to warehouse receipts from warehouses selected by the directors of the Board, whose unregulated power to suspend or modify the rule pending settlement adds to the speculative character of the market and frightens consignors.

More than this, prices of grain futures are those upon which an owner and intending seller of cash grain is influenced to sell or not to sell as they offer a good opportunity to him to hedge comfortably against future fluctuations. Manipulations of grain futures for speculative profit, though not carried to the extent of a corner or complete monopoly, exert a vicious influence and produce abnormal and disturbing temporary fluctuations of prices that are not responsive to actual supply and demand and discourage, not only this justifiable hedging, but disturb the normal flow of actual consignments. A futures market lends itself to such manipulation much more readily than a cash market.

In the case of United States v. Patten, 226 U.S. 525, 33 Sup. Ct. 141, 57 L. Ed. 333, 44 L. R. A. (N. S.) 325, an indictment charged a conspiracy to run a corner by making purchases of quantities of cotton for future delivery, by means of which the conspirators were to secure control of the available supply of cotton in the country and enhance the price of cotton at will. It was contended that, even if the necessary result of this was an obstruction of interstate trade, it was so indirect as not to constitute a restraint of it within the federal Anti-Trust Law under which the indictment was drawn. This court held otherwise and sustained the indictment.

Corners in grain through trading in futures have not been so frequent as they were before 1900, due, as the plaintiffs aver, to the stricter rules of the Board of Trade as to futures and to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (Comp. St. §§ 8820-8823, 8827-8830), though they do seem to have since occurred infrequently. The fact that a corner in grain is brought about by trading in futures shows the direct relation between cash prices and actual commerce on the one hand, and dealing in futures on the other, because a corner is not a monopoly of contracts only, it is a monopoly of the actual supply of grain in commerce. It was this direct relation that led to the decision in the Patten Case. If a corner and the enhancement of prices produced by buying futures directly burden interstate commerce in the article whose price is enhanced, it would seem to follow that manipulations of futures which unduly depress prices of grain in interstate commerce and directly influence consignment in that commerce are equally direct. The question of price dominates trade between the states. Sales of an article which affect the country-wide price of the article directly affect the country-wide commerce in it. By reason and authority, therefore, in determining the validity of this act, we are prevented from questioning the conclusion of Congress that manipulation of the market for futures on the Chicago Board of Trade may, and from time to time does, directly burden a d obstruct commerce between the states in grain, and that it recurs and is a constantly possible danger. For this reason, Congress has the power to provide the appropriate means adopted in this act by which this abuse may be restrained and avoided.

The next provision of the act which is attacked as invalid is that which forbids a board, designated as a contract market, from excluding from membership in, and all privileges on, its exchanges any duly authorized representative of a lawfully formed and conducted association of producers having adequate financial responsibility, engaged in the cash grain business, and complying or agreeing to comply with the terms and conditions lawfully imposed on the other members, and which bars any rule forbidding the return by such association of the commissions of its representative, less expenses, to the bona fide members of the co-operative association in proportion to their consignments of grain to the exchange. It is said that this will impair the value of memberships in the Board and will take the property of the members without due process of law.

The Board of Trade conducts a business which is affected with a public interest and is, therefore, subject to reasonable regulation in the public interest. The Supreme Court of Illinois has so decided in respect to its publication of market quotations. New York & Chicago Grain Exchange v. Chicago Board of Trade, 127 Ill. 153, 19 N. E. 855, 2 L. R. A. 411, 11 Am. St. Rep. 107. In view of the actual interstate dealings in cash sales of grain on the exchange, and the effect of the conduct of the sales of futures upon interstate commerce, we find no difficulty under Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113, 133, 24 L. Ed. 77, and Stafford v. Wallace, supra, in concluding that the Chicago Board of Trade is engaged in a business affected with a public national interest and is subject to national regulation as such. Congress may therefore reasonably limit the rules governing its conduct with a view to preventing abuses and securing freedom from undue discrimination in its operations. The incidental effect which such reasonable rules may have, if any, in lowering the value of memberships does not constitute a taking, but is only a reasonable regulation in the exercise of the police power of the national government. Congress evidently deems it helpful in the preservation of the vital function which such a board of trade exercises in interstate commerce in grain that producers and shippers should be given an opportunity to take part in the transactions in this world market through a chosen representative. Nor do we see why the requirement that the relation between them and this representative, lookikng to economy of participation on their part by a return of patronage dividends, should not be permissible because facilitating closer participation by the great body of producers in transactions of the Board which are of vital importance to them. It would seem to make for more careful supervision of those transactions in the national public interest in the free flow of interstate commerce. Under the present rules of the Board, corporations are permitted to enjoy the benefit of membership by reason of the membership of two of their executive officers who are bona fide stockholders, and all their stockholders are thus given a chance to enjoy the commissions earned and the benefits to the corporation of other membership privileges to the extent of their stock ownership. The provisions of the act objected to are to be sustained on the principles laid down in House v. Mayes, 219 U.S. 270, 31 Sup. Ct. 234, 55 L. Ed. 213. Broadnax v. Missouri, 219 U.S. 285, 31 Sup. Ct. 238, 55 L. Ed. 219, and Grisim v. South St. Paul Live Stock Exchange, 152 Minn. 271, 188 N. W. 729. We think the objection to this feature of the act untenable.

We do not find it necessary to our decree in this case to consider the constitutional objections made in the bill to that part of the fourth section which forbids he use of the mails and interstate facilities of communication to offer or accept sales for future deliveries or to send quotations of prices thereof except through members of a board of trade, because the plaintiffs are not affected thereby. Section 10 of the act reads as follows:

'If any provision of this act or the application thereof to any person or circumstances is held invalid, the validity of the remainder of the act and of the application of such provision to other persons and circumstances shall not be affected thereby.'

The unconstitutionality of these provisions, if they be unconstitutional, would, therefore, not invalidate the rest of the act.

Section 9 declares it to be a misdemeanor for a member of a designated board of trade to fail to evidence any contract mentioned in section 4 by a record in writing as therein required. This is only a legitimate means of enforcing the statutory regulations of the Board of Trade which we have found to be within the power of Congress.

As to the power of Congress to provide in section 9 for the punishment of any one who shall knowingly or carelessly deliver through the mail or interstate means of communication false or misleading crop or market reports, it will be time enough for us to consider its existence when some one is charged with the offense and is brought to trial therefor. The plaintiffs present no such case.

Paragraph (b) of section 6 which gives to the Commission the power on complaint after investigation by the Secretary of Agriculture, and after a hearing, to exclude from all contract markets any person violating any of the provisions of the act or attempting to manipulate the market price of any grain in violation of the provisions of section 5 of the act or of any of the rules or regulations made in pursuance to its requirements, is attacked as invalid because a jury trial is not afforded. The plaintiffs do not aver that they are committing acts which will subject them to such exclusion, or that charges have been made and proceedings have been begun or are about to be begun against them by the Secretary of Agriculture. Until they are thus in danger of suffering prejudice from the operation of the paragraph, they cannot invoke our decision as to its validity.

For the reasons given the decree of the District Court is

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS and Mr. Justice SUTHERLAND dissent.

Notes