The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 188: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and Circuit and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1911. Page: 150

                                
188 FEDERAL REPORTER

strengthens the idea that every other kind of labor'and service was intended
to be reached by the first section. While there is great force to this reason-
ing, we cannot think Congress intended to denounce with penalties a trans-
action like that' in the present case. It is a familiar rule that a thing may
be within the letter of the statute, and yet not within the statute, because not
within its spirit, nor within the intention of its makers. This has been often
asserted, and the reports are full of cases illustrating its application. This
is not the substitution of the will of the judge for that of the legislator, tor
frequently words of general meaning are used in a statute, words broad
enough to include an act in question, and yet a consideration of the whole
legislation, or of the circumstances surrounding its enactment, or of the
absurd results which follow from giving such broad meaning to the words,
makes it unreasonable to believe that the legislator intended to include the
particular act."
A number of bills were introduced in the Fiftieth Congress (in Au-
gust and September, 1888), designed to make unlawful every combina-
tion "to prevent competition" and "to prevent full and free competi-
tion" in the sales of articles transported from one state to another.'
None of them was enacted into law. On December 4, 1889, Mr. Sher-
man introduced into the Senate of the Fifty-First Congress a bill
which declared unlawful every combination "to prevent full and free
competition" in such sales. After much debate the bill was, on March
27, 1890, referred to the committee on judiciary, and on April 2, 1890,
that committee reported it back to the Senate with an amendment strik-
ing out all after its enacting clause and substituting therefor the act as
we now have it. As enacted, it does not condemn every combination "to
prevent competition." What it condemns is every combination in re-
straint of trade or commerce among the several states, etc. When the
bill went from the Senate to the House, the latter body amended it by
inserting a provision extending the scope of the act to all agreements
entered into for the purpose of "preventing competition" either in the
purchase or sale of commodities; but the amendment was disagreed to.
While there is a "general acquiescence in the doctrine that debates in
Congress are not appropriate sources of information from which to dis-
cover the meaning of the language of a statute passed by that body"
(United States v. Freight Association, 166 U. S. 318, 17 Sup. Ct.
540, 41 L. Ed. 1007), that rule "in the nature of things is not violated
by resorting to debates as a means of ascertaining the environment at
the time of the enactment of a particular law; that is, the history of
the period when it was adopted" (Standard Oil Co. v. United States,
221 U. S. 50, 31 Sup. Ct. 512, 55 L. Ed. -, decided May 15, 1911).
There is a distinction between restraint of competition and restraint
of trade. The latter expression had, when the anti-trust act was
passed, a definite legal signification. Not every combination in re-
straint of competition was, in a legal sense, in restraint of trade. Two
men in the same town engaged in the same business as competitors
may unite in a copartnership, and thereafter, as between themselves,
substitute co-operation for competition. Their combination restrains
competition, and if their town is located near the line between two
states, and each has been trading in both states, their combination re-
strains competifion in interstate trade. But it does not necessarily
follow that such restraint of competition is a restraint of interstate