Holmes, as just quoted, was all that was necessary, and would have led to the same results. Indeed, he makes it the differentiating factor between the Knight and Swift cases, saying, at page 397 of the latter: "Moreover, it is a direct object, it is that for the sake of which the specific acts and courses of conduct are done and adopted. Therefore the case is not like The United States vs. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1." No more illuminating or better exposition of those cases could be found!
One thing is certain, and that is that this unhappy word is intended to enunciate no new doctrine in controversion of the maxim: "Dolus circuitu non purgatur," and one of the chief objections to the word "direct," in this connection, is that in other connections it is used as an equivalent of "proximate," and so suggests an inquiry along that line. But this cannot be correct, as a power may be "inevitable," at least in some sense, certainly "foreseeable" in its results, and not be "direct" at all (see the Knight case), and yet be one that may never be reached, or if reached, be so by the most circuitous path possible, and be "direct." In the Knight case a complete control of manufactories, in every respect and as to every discretion, was secured; and yet the restraint was held to be "indirect," "remote;" while in the Addyston case but a limited amount of discretion was yielded, and yet, because that yielding might, through many possible steps, end ultimately in a decrease of national trade, the restraint was held to be "direct" and unlawful. But the court found conduct evincing intent and consequent dangerous probability in the later case, and thought it lacking, on the evidence, in the former!
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