and space, that something of the same impossibility applies to them. The law has been upheld, and therefore we are bound to enforce it notwithstanding these difficulties. On the other hand, we equally are bound by the first principles of justice not to sanction a decree so vague as to put the whole conduct of the defendants' business at the peril of a summons for contempt. We cannot issue a general injunction against all possible breaches of the law. We must steer between these opposite difficulties as best we can.

The scheme as a whole seems to us to be within reach of the law. The constituent elements, as we have stated them, are enough to give to the scheme a body and, for all that we can say, to accomplish it. Moreover, whatever we may think of them separately when we take them up as distinct charges, they are alleged sufficiently as elements of the scheme. It is suggested that the several acts charged are lawful and that intent can make no difference. But they are bound together as the parts of a single plan. The plan may make the parts unlawful. Aikens v. Wisconsin, 195 U. S. 194, 206. The statute gives this proceeding against combinations in restraint of commerce among the States and against attempts to monopolize the same. Intent is almost essential to such a combination and is essential to such an attempt. Where acts are not sufficient in themselves to produce a result which the law seeks to prevent-for instance, the monopoly—but require further acts in addition to the mere forces of nature to bring that result to pass, an intent to bring it to pass is necessary in order to produce a dangerous probability that it will happen. Commonwealth v. Peaslee, 177 Massachusetts, 267, 272. But when that intent and the consequent dangerous probability exist, this statute, like many others and like the common law in some cases, directs itself against that dangerous probability as well as against the completed result. What we have said disposes incidentally of the objection to the bill as multifarious. The unity of the plan embraces all the parts.

One further observation should be made. Although the

combination alleged embraces restraint and monopoly of trade within a single State, its effect upon commerce among the States is not accidental, secondary, remote or merely probable. On the allegations of the bill the latter commerce no less, perhaps even more, than commerce within a single State is an object of attack. See Leloup v. Port of Mobile, 127 U. S. 640, 647; Crutcher v. Kentucky, 141 U. S. 47, 59; Allen v. Pullman Co., 191 U. S. 171, 179, 180. Moreover, it is a direct object, it is that for the sake of which the several specific acts and courses of conduct are done and adopted. Therefore the case is not like United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1, where the subject matter of the combination was manufacture and the direct object monopoly of manufacture within a State. However likely monopoly of commerce among the States in the article manufactured was to follow from the agreement it was not a necessary consequence nor a primary end. Here the subject matter is sales and the very point of the combination is to restrain and monopolize commerce among the States in respect of such sales. The two cases are near to each other, as sooner or later always must happen where lines are to be drawn, but the line between them is distinct. Montague & Co. v. Lowry, 193 U. S. 38.

So, again, the line is distinct between this case and Hopkins v. United States, 171 U. S. 578. All that was decided there was that the local business of commission merchants was not commerce among the States, even if what the brokers were employed to sell was an object of such commerce. The brokers were not like the defendants before us, themselves the buyers and sellers. They only furnished certain facilities for the sales. Therefore, there again the effects of the combination of brokers upon the commerce was only indirect and not within the act. Whether the case would have been different if the combination had resulted in exorbitant charges, was left open. In Anderson v. United States, 171 U. S. 604, the defendants were buyers and sellers at the stock yards, but their agreement was merely not to employ brokers, or to

Argument for the United States.

196 U. S.

The cattle are not dealt with in a commercial way from the time of their arrival until their sale to the defendants and others, but are simply fed and cared for. No act is done with reference to them that would cause them to become mixed with the general mass of local property. Now, it may be that a distinction should be made between what may be called an interstate sale proper and in the full sense of the term—that is, a sale between persons negotiating and dealing from two or more different States, and a sale, at its destination and while it still remains in the original state or package, of an article of commerce sent from another State. But so far as the result in this instance is concerned it is a distinction without a difference. If the sales of live stock set forth in the petition do not fall within the first of these classes they certainly fall within the second, and that brings them within the protection of the Federal power over commerce and therefore within the protection of the Anti Trust Act; for the right to transport articles of commerce from one State to another includes the right of the owner or consignee to sell them in the latter free from any burden or restraint that the States might attempt to impose. Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419; Bowman v. Chicago and Northwestern Railway Co., 125 U. S. 465; Leisy v..Hardin, 135 U. S. 100; Rhodes v. Iowa, 170 U. S. 412, and, a fortiori, free from any burden or restraint that a combination of individuals might attempt to impose. In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564, 581; Hopkins v. United States, 171 U. S. 578, 590.

Paragraph 2 of the bill contains matter of description and inducement, and must be read in conjunction with the stating part of the petition, which alleges, inter alia, that“in order to restrain and destroy competition among themselves” the defendants have engaged in a “combination and conspiracy to arbitrarily from time to time raise, lower, and fix prices, and to maintain uniform prices at which they will sell, directly or through their respective agents, such fresh meats to dealers and consumers throughout the said States and Territories and the District of Columbia and foreign countries.”

a

196 U.S.

Argument for the United States.

a

As the sales made directly by the defendants to dealers and consumers throughout the United States are interstate sales, and as decisions of this court have settled that a combination to control and suppress competition in such sales is a combination in restraint of interstate commerce, the petition in this case, having shown that much, cannot in any event be dismissed, even should it be held to have failed in all other respects.

Paragraph 3 of the petition states that the defendants are engaged in shipping fresh meats from their plants in certain States to their respective agents at and near the principal markets in other States and Territories for sale by such agents to dealers and consumers in those States and Territories. Upon the question whether or not the sales made by these agents under the circumstances set forth are within the body of interstate commerce, there is nothing to add to the cogent argument in the opinion of the circuit judge.

The bill is not multifarious and does not disclose a misjoinder of parties. 14 Ency. of Pl. and Pr. 198; 1 Bates Fed. Eq. Pro. $$ 135, 195. The Circuit Court did not err in sustaining the demurrers to the bill in its aspect as a bill of discovery. The demurrers are demurrers to the whole bill. Livingston v. Story, 9 Pet. 632, 654.

The well-settled rule of equity pleading is that a demurrer to a whole bill cannot be sustained as to part of the bill and overruled as to part, but must be overruled as to the whole if any part of the bill is good and entitles the complainant to any relief. Fletcher, Eq. Pl. 88 203, 204; Story, Eq. Pl., 10th ed., $$ 443, 444; Parker v. Simpson, 62 N. E. Rep. (Mass.)

Metler's Admn's. v. Metler, 18 N. J. Eq. 270, 273. When the defendants leveled their demurrers at the relief as well as the discovery, instead of answering as to the relief and demurring as to the discovery they did so at their peril. Daniell's Chan. Prac., 3d Am. ed., 568-608; see also Acts of Congress of February 25, 1903, 32 Stat. 903; of February 11, 1893, 27 Stat. 443, and Interstate Comm. Com. v. Baird, 194 U.S. 25, 44,

.

401;

recognize yard-traders, who were not members of their association. Any yard-trader could become a member of the association on complying with the conditions, and there was said to be no feature of monopoly in the case. It was held that the combination did not directly regulate commerce between the States, and, being formed with a different intent, was not within the act. The present case is more like Montaque & Co. v. Lowry, 193 U. S. 38.

For the foregoing reasons we are of opinion that the carrying out of the scheme alleged, by the means set forth, properly may be enjoined, and that the bill cannot be dismissed.

So far it has not been necessary to consider whether the facts charged in any single paragraph constitute commerce among the States or show an interference with it. There can be no doubt, we apprehend, as to the collective effect of all the facts, if true, and if the defendants entertain the intent alleged. We pass now to the particulars, and will consider the corresponding parts of the injunction at the same time. The first question arises on the sixth section. That charges a combination of independent dealers to restrict the competition of their agents when purchasing stock for them in the stock yards. The purchasers and their slaughtering establishments are largely in different States from those of the stock yards, and the sellers of the cattle, perhaps it is not too much to assume, largely in different States from either. The intent of the combination is not merely to restrict competition among the parties, but, as we have said, by force of the general allegation at the end of the bill, to aid in an attempt to monopolize commerce among the States.

It is said that this charge is too vague and that it does not set forth a case of commerce among the States. Taking up the latter objection first, commerce among the States is not a technical legal conception, but a practical one, drawn from the course of business. When cattle are sent for sale from a place in one State, with the expectation that they will end their transit, after purchase, in another, and when in effect