which may be the subject of barter and exchange like the goods and chattels of the employer. And, if he is to have the protection of the statute against a combination of employers, his labor, as he offers it in exchange for what it may earn, must be held trade within the meaning of the statute. If this be not so, then the employe is without the protection of the statute. It would shield and protect the employers only-a conclusion not justified by the general scheme and purpose of the law or the construction given it by the Supreme Court. It would be unfair to attribute to the legislature an intent to exclude the laborer from the protection of the statute. We do not concur in the contention that the business of exhibiting motion pictures is not trade within the meaning of the statute.. The judgment of the district court went no farther than was justified by the facts and the law and it is accordingly affirmed. QUESTIONS 1. Would the Minnesota Court apply the statute in question to an agreement among the officers of a bricklayers' union to call a strike of the members thereof? 2. Would the court apply it to an agreement among the employees (nonunion) of a baker to go on strike? 3. Would the court apply it to an agreement among employers to lock out their employees? 4. Would the contract considered in Hoban v. Dempsey (p. 156 supra) be a violation of the Minnesota act? 5. Would the act cover the agreement described in question 9 on p. 158? 6. If there had been a law of Minnesota, passed after the anti-trust act, declaring that labor is not a commodity or article of commerce, would it have affected the decision in the principal case? 7. A state statute declares trusts illegal and defines a trust as "A combination of capital, skill or acts by two or more persons, firms, corporations or associations of persons, or either two or more of them for either, any or all of the following purposes: To create, or which may tend to create, or carry out restrictions in trade or commerce or aids to commerce or in the preparation of any product for market or transportation, or to create or carry out restrictions in the free pursuit of any business authorized or permitted by the laws of this State or to increase or reduce the price of commodities, provided that labor is not a commodity within the meaning of this act." Would a boycott and picketing system established by a labor union to compel a restaurant owner to unionize his business be a trust within this definition? 8. Compare the statute quoted in the preceding question and that of the principal case with respect to their applicability to the activities of labor unions. 9. Under the statute quoted in question 7 would an agreement be illegal by which members of a plumbers' association agreed to employ none but members of a local union and the union members agreed to work only for members of the association? 10. A state statute declares illegal and indictable as a trust any agreement between two or more persons etc., which precludes a free and unrestricted competition in the sale of any article or commodity, by pooling or selling at a fixed price, or in any other manner in which the price may be affected. The act defines commodity as including natural products, manufactured products, and goods, wares and merchandise. Is a closed-shop agreement within the statute? II. Is an anti-trust act, applied indiscriminately to employers and employees, harmful or beneficial on the whole to labor unions? 12. If the anti-trust laws of your state do not mention labor unions specifically, have they been applied to them by the courts? 2. EXEMPTION OF LABOR UNIONS FROM ANTI-TRUST LAWS (a) Federal [The special position of labor unions under the federal anti-trust laws and the application of those laws to acts done in connection with labor disputes are matters dealt with in sections 6 and 20 of the Clayton Act of 1914, the consideration of which is deferred to the section on injunctions. See pp. 228-250, infra.] (b) State INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER CO. v. MISSOURI [This was a quo warranto proceeding against the plaintiff in error based on alleged violation of the anti-trust laws of Missouri. A special commissioner, appointed to take evidence and report his conclusions, found that the statute had been violated.] MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA delivered the opinion of the court. . . . . In exceptions to the report of the special commissioner plaintiff in error urged that the statute of Missouri violated the equality clause and due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, "(1) Because said statute arbitrarily discriminates between persons making or selling products and commodities and persons selling labor and service of all kinds: In that each section of said statute applies only to articles of merchandise, and not to labor or services and the like, the prices of which are equally and similarly de termined by competition, and may be equally and similarly the subject of combination and conspiracy to the detriment of the public. [The other exceptions are omitted and only that portion of the opinion is given which deals with the discrimination in favor of labor.] Section 10,301 provides that "all arrangements, contracts, agreements, combinations, or understandings made or entered into between two or more persons, designed or made with a view to lessen, or which tend to lessen, lawful trade, or full and free competition in the importation, transportation, manufacture, or sale" in the state "of any product, commodity, or article, or thing bought and sold," and all such arrangements, etc., "which are designed or made with a view to increase, or which tend to increase, the market price of any product, commodity, or article, or thing, of any class or kind whatsoever, bought and sold," are declared to be against public policy, unlawful and void, and those offending "shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of a conspiracy in restraint of trade, and punished" as provided. Section 8,966 provides that arrangements, etc., such as described in section 10,301, having like purpose, and all such arrangements, etc., "whereby or under the terms of which it is proposed, stipulated, provided, agreed, or understood that any person, association of persons, or corporations doing business in" the state, "shall deal in, sell, or offer for sale" in the state "any particular or specific article, product, or commodity, and shall not, during the continuance or existence of any such arrangement, deal in, sell, or offer for sale," in the state, "any competing article, product, or commodity," are declared to be against public policy, unlawful and void; and any person offending "shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of a conspiracy to defraud, and be subject to the penalties" provided. . . .... In State ex rel. Hadley v. Standard Oil Co. 218 Mo. I, the supreme court held that the anti-trust statutes of the state "are limited in their scope and operation to persons and corporations dealing in commodities, and do not include combinations of persons engaged in labor pursuits." And, justifying the statutes against a charge of illegal discrimination, the court further said that "it must be borne in mind that the differentiation between labor and property is so great that they do not belong to the same general or natural classification of rights or things, and have never been so recognized by the common law or by leglislative enactments." Accepting the construction put upon the statute, but contesting its legality as thus construed, plaintiff in error makes three contentions: (1) The statutes, as so construed, unreasonably and arbitrarily limit the right of contract; (2) discriminate between the vendors of commodities and the vendors of labor and services; and (3) between vendors and purchasers of commodities. . . . . (2) and (3). These contentions may be considered together, both involving a charge of discrimination,-the one because the law does not embrace vendors of labor; the other because it does not cover purchasers of commodities as well as vendors of them. Both, therefore, invoke a consideration of the power of classification which may be exerted in the legislation of the state. And we shall presently see that power has very broad range. A classification is not invalid because of simple inequality. We said in Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Matthews, 174 U. S. 96, by Mr. Justice Brewer: "The very idea of classification is that of inequality, so that it goes without saying that the fact of inequality in no manner determines the matter of constitutionality." Therefore, it may be there is restraint of competition in a combination of laborers and in a combination of purchasers, but that does not demonstrate that legislation which does not include either combination is illegal. Whether it would have been better policy to have made such comprehensive classification it is not our province to decide. In other words, whether a combination of wage earners or purchasers of commodities called for repression by law under the conditions in the state was for the legislature of the state to determine. In Carroll v. Greenwich Ins. Co., 199 U. S. 401, a statute of Iowa was considered which made it unlawful for two or more fire insurance companies doing business in the state, or their officers or agents, to make or enter into combinations or agreements in relation to the rates to be charged for insurance, and certain other matters. The provision was held invalid by the circuit court of the United States for the district of Iowa on the ground of depriving of liberty of contract secured by the 14th Amendment and of the equal protection of the laws. This court reversed the decision. . . . . [The case] is especially apposite. It contains the elements of the case at bar and a decision upon them. It will be observed that the statute, which it was said declared the general policy of Iowa, was a prohibition against a combination of producers and sellers. There was the same distinction, therefore, between vendors and purchasers of commodities as in the Missouri statute, and the same omission of prohibition of combinations of vendors of labor and services as in the Missouri law. The distinction and omission were continued when the policy of the state was extended to insurance companies. The law was not condemned because it went no farther, because it did not prohibit the combination of all trades, businesses, and persons. We held that the omission was not for judicial cognizance, and that a court could not say that fire insurance might not present so conspicuous an example of what the legislature might think an evil "as to justify special treatment." We might leave the discussion with that and the other cases. They decide that we are helped little in determining the legality of a legislative classification by making broad generalizations and it is for a broad generalization that plaintiff in error contends, indeed, a generalization which includes all the activities and occupations of life; and there is an enumeration of wage earners in emphasis of the discrimination in which manufacturers and sellers are singled out from all others. The contention is deceptive, and yet it is earnestly urged in various ways which it would extend this opinion too much to detail. "In dealing with restraints of trade," it is said, "The proper basis of classification is obviously neither in commodities nor services, nor in persons, but in restraints." A law, to be valid, therefore, is the inflexible deduction, cannot distinguish between "restraints," but must apply to all restraints, whatever their degree or effect or purpose; and that because the Missouri statute has not this universal operation it offends against the equality required by the 14th Amendment. This court has decided many times that a legislative classification does not have to possess such comprehensive extent. Classification must be accommodated to the problems of legislation; and we decided in Ozan Lumber Co. v. Union County Nat. Bank, 207 U. S. 251, that it may depend upon degrees of evil without being arbitrary or unreasonable. .. We have said that it must be palpably arbitrary to authorize a judicial review of it, and that it cannot be disturbed by the courts "unless they can see clearly that there is no fair reason for the law that would not require with equal force its extension to others whom it leaves untouched." Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. May, 194 U. S. 267; Williams v. Arkansas, 217 U. S. 79; Watson v. Maryland, 218 U. S. 173. .... Other cases might be cited whose instances illustrate the same principle, in which this court has refused to accept the higher generalizations urged as necessary to the fulfilment of the constitutional guaranty of the equal protection of the law, and in which we, in effect, held that it is competent for a legislature to determine upon what differences a |