Argument for the United States. 196 U.S. bination of conspiracy are inseparable parts of the combination or conspiracy itself, and along with it fall within the condemnation of the law. The combination or conspiracy in controversy operates upon interstate or foreign commerce, and its operations are not confined to commerce carried on wholly within state lines. The sales of live stock to the defendants and the sales by them of the prepared meats are interstate and not intrastate transactions. As to what is interstate commerce, see Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 194; Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U. S. 197, 337. If interstate commerce is commerce which concerns more States than one, and if a combination of independent producers to suppress competition between its members is a restraint upon commerce, it must follow that a combination of independent producers to fix and control prices and suppress competition between each other in an area covering more States than one is in restraint of interstate commerce and the petition in this case discloses such a combination. It is impossible to say with even a color of reason that the facts stated in the bill, which cannot be denied, do not show a combination between the defendants to suppress competition between themselves in an area embracing more States than one and it is immaterial to inquire whether the particular purchases and sales made by the defendants are, technically, interstate or intrastate transactions. There is nothing unreasonable or novel in the conclusion that a combination may restrain interstate commerce, although the individual transactions of its members might, standing alone and viewed separate and apart from the purpose and necessary effect of the whole combination, be intrastate in character. Montague & Co. v. Lowry, 193 U. S. 38. The character of a combination —that is, whether or not it is interstate in its operation-is decided, not by the nature of the particular transactions of its individual members, but by the extent of the territory in which it operates-in which it controls prices and sales and 196 U. S. Argument for the United States. suppresses competition. If that territory embraces more States than one the combination restrains interstate commerce. Addyston Pipe & Steel Co. v. United States, 175 U. S. 211, 240. Whether a combination in restraint of trade operates upon interstate or only intrastate commerce does not depend upon whether the individual transactions of its members, standing alone and viewed separate and apart from the purpose and necessary effect of the whole combination, are interstate or intrastate in character, and the petition here discloses a combination which operates upon interstate commerce; for whatever may be the character of the individual transactions of its several members, it is also true in this case that the individual transactions of the members of the combination do fall within the jurisdiction conferred upon Congress by the commerce clause of the Constitution. These transactions consist of the defendants' purchases of live stock; the sales and shipments of fresh meats made directly by the defendants to dealers and consumers in the several States, and the sales of fresh meats to dealers and consumers in the several States by agents of the defendants located in those States. From all over the stock-raising section, embracing many different States, cattle, sheep and hogs are habitually shipped to the great live-stock markets at Chicago, Omaha, Sioux City, St. Joseph, Kansas City, East St. Louis and St. Paul for sale, to those, the defendants chief among them, engaged in the business of converting live stock into fresh meats for human consumption. The shipments are made with the express and sole purpose of sale as soon as market conditions will permit, and the sales are made while the cattle yet remain in first hands, that is, in the hands of the owners or their agents, and in the ordinary form or condition in which cattle are shipped from one country or State to another, which is analogous to the form or condition of the original package in the case of merchandise. Austin v. Tennessee, 179 U. S. 343, 359. 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. 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. §§ 203, 204; Story, Eq. Pl., 10th ed., §§ 443, 444; Parker v. Simpson, 62 N. E. Rep. (Mass.) 401; 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, citing Brown v. Walker, 161 U. S. 591; Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616. Judges have differed as to the validity of aggregations of capital effected by some form of organic union between several smaller and competing corporations, and economists are far from agreeing that such aggregations, within limitations, are hurtful. So too, associations of manufacturers to regulate competition within a restricted area have not always been condemned by courts and have sometimes been approved by publicists. But as yet no responsible voice has been heard to justify, legally or economically, a conspiracy or agreement between nearly all the producers of a commodity necessary to life by which the confederates acquire absolute control and dominion over the production, sale and distribution of that commodity throughout the entire territory of a nation, with the power, at will, to raise prices to the consumer of the finished product and lower prices to the producer of the raw material. Yet such is that now at the bar of this court. That there is a conspiracy to control the market of the nation for fresh meats, that it does control it, and that its control is merciless and oppressive, are facts known of all men. The broad question here is, Does the Government's petition, with its statements of fact standing unchallenged, discover that conspiracy to the court? We submit that it does and that the decree of the Circuit Court should in all things be affirmed. MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the court. This is an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court, on demurrer, granting an injunction against the appellants' commission of alleged violations of the act of July 2, 1890, c. 647, 26 Stat. 209, "to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies." It will be necessary to consider both the bill and the decree. The bill is brought against a number of corporations, firms and individuals of different States and makes the following allegations: 1. The defend |