In Re Greene,28 a case involving the status of the Distilling and Cattle Feeding Company, which controlled 95 per cent. of distilled liquors in the United States, the court held that the mere magnitude of an interstate business did not bring it within the prohibition of the Anti-Trust Act29

28 52 Fed. Rep. 104.

29 "It is very certain that Congress could not, and did not, by this enactment, attempt to prescribe limits to the acquisition, either by the private citizen or state corporation, of property which might become the subject of interstate commerce, or declare that when the accumulation or control of property by legitimate means and lawful methods reached such magnitude or proportions as enabled the owner or owners to control the traffic therein, or any part thereof, among the States, a criminal offense was committed by such owner or owners. All persons, individually or in corporate organizations, carrying on business avocations and enterprises involving the purchase, sale or exchange of articles, or the production and manufacture of commodities which form the subjects of commerce will, in a popular sense, 'monopolize' both state and interstate traffic in such articles or commodities just in proportion as the owner's business is increased, enlarged, and developed. But the magnitude of a party's business production, or manufacture, with the incidental and indirect powers thereby acquired and with the purpose of regulating prices and controlling interstate traffic in the articles or commodities forming the subject of such business, production or manufacture, is not the 'monopoly' or attempt to 'monopolize,' which the statute condemns." And later: "Congress certainly has not the power or authority under the Commerce Clause, or any other provision of the Constitution to limit and restrict the right of corporations created by the States or the citizens of the States, in the acquisition, control and disposition of property. Neither can Congress regulate the price or prices at which such property or the products thereof, shall be sold by the owner or owners, whether corporations or individuals."

"The Supreme Court of the United States has not defined what a monopoly under this section of the Anti-Trust Law is. I conceive that it is not sufficiently defined by saying that it is the combination of a large part of the plants in the country engaged in the manufacture of a particular product in one corporation. There must be something more than the mere union of Capital and plant before the law is violated. There must be some use by the company of the comparatively great size of its capital and plant and extent of its output, either to coerce persons to buy of it rather than of some competitor, or to coerce those who would compete with it to give up their business. There must, in other words, be an element of duress in the conduct of its business toward the customers of the trade and its competitors before mere aggregation of plant becomes an unlawful monopoly." Speech by W. H. Taft. Aug. 19, 1907. at Columbus, Ohio.