Opinion of the Court. topic is the result of development along reasonable lines, and hand in hand with modern commercial advance. We are now in position to explain in detail the facts so far as they are concerned with the two principal points which we have to consider, namely, the fundamental nature of the original combination and the alleged abnormal and oppressive nature of the leases referred to. The facts as to the combination are alleged in the first count, indictment 114, to have been as follows, namely, the defendants— "continuously and at all times during the period of time from the 7th day of February in the year of 1899 to the 19th day of September in the year 1911, and therefore continuously, and at all times during the three years next preceding the finding and presentation of this indictment, at said Boston, in the manner and by the means hereinafter described, unlawfully and knowingly have monopolized part of the trade and commerce among the several States of the United States-that is to say, the trade and commerce hereinafter mentioned and described, and that continuously for many years prior to and throughout said period of time there has been carried on an extensive industry, consisting of the manufacture and sale of certain articles of merchandise, to wit, boots and shoes, in the following cities and towns in the several States of the United States, to wit." * * * Then follows a long list of the cities and towns referred to. The indictment then continues: "Which said articles of merchandise, prior to and throughout said period of time, have been manufactured almost entirely by the aid and use of various kinds of essential machinery, which for the purposes of this indictment are grouped as follows: "(Group I)-Lasting Machines-The machines included in this group are designed and used for the purpose of lasting the uppers of shoes. 66 (Group II)-Welt Sewing Machines and Outsole Stitching Machines-The machines included in this group are designed and used for the purpose of sewing the seam which attaches the upper to the outsole of a turn shoe, and the seam which attaches the upper and welt to the insole of a welt shoe, and for sewing the welt of a welt shoe to its outsole. "(Group III)-Heeling Machines-The machines included in this group are designed and used for preparing and attaching the heels of shoes. "(Group IV)-Metallic Fastening Machines-The machines included in this group are designed and used for the purpose of preparing and inserting metallic fastenings in shoes." 95825°-VOL 5-17—13 Opinion of the Court. The indictment then further states facts as follows: "And the grand jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present that for many years prior and down to said seventh day of February, [590] in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, several separate corporations, operating independently and in competition with each other, were engaged in trade and commerce among the several States of the United States in the sale and lease of the machines included in said groups of shoe machinery, and that among the said corporations engaged in said industry were the following, to wit: "Goodyear Shoe Machinery Company, corporation of the State of Maine, with its principal factory at said Boston, was engaged in interstate trade and commerce in the sale and lease of machines designed and used for the purpose of sewing the uppers to the soles of shoes, and machines designed and used for the purpose of lasting the uppers of shoes. The said machines are included in groups I and II, aforesaid. "Consolidated & McKay Lasting Machine Company, corporation of the State of Maine, with its principal factory at Beverly, in said district of Massachusetts, was engaged in interstate trade and commerce in the sale and lease of machines designed and used for the purpose of lasting the uppers of shoes. The said machines are inIcluded in group I, aforesaid. 64 McKay Shoe Machinery Company, corporation of the State of Maine, with its principal factory at Winchester, in said district of Massachusetts, was engaged in interstate trade and commerce in the sale and lease of machines designed and used for preparing the heels and for attaching them to shoes, and in the sale and lease of machines designed and used for the purpose of metallic fastenings. The said machines are included in groups III and IV, aforesaid. "Eppler Welt Machine Company, corporation of the State of Maine, with its principal place of business at said Boston, was engaged in interstate trade and commerce in the sale and lease of machines designed and used for the purpose of sewing the uppers to the soles of shoes, which said machines were particularly adapted to the manufacture of welt and turn shoes. The said machines are included in group II aforesaid, "And the grand jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present that prior to and until said seventh day of February, in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, the several companies hereinbefore mentioned and described, sold and leased in the aggregate eighty-five per cent of all the machines included in all of said groups of shoe machinery so sold and leased to manufacturers of shoes engaged in business in the several States of the United States, but no one of said companies sold and leased or controlled the sale and lease of a majority of all the machines included in all of said groups.” Opinion of the Court. Then follow allegations that prior to the 7th of February the several respondents were severally engaged in promoting the groups already referred to, and which are concerned. Then the indictment proceeds as follows: "And the grand jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present that on said seventh day of February, in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, said defendants Sidney W. Winslow, William Barbour, Edward P. Hurd, Elmer P. Howe, George W. Brown, and James J. Storrow, in pursuance of agreements among them to eliminate all competition, which, for a number of years prior to said date, had existed among said Consolidated and McKay Lasting Machine Company, Goodyear Shoe Machinery Company, McKay Shoe Machinery Company, and Eppler Welt Machine Company, and as a device and means for monopolizing, and whereby they have monopolized the trade and commerce among the several States of the United States in the sale and lease of the machines included in each and all of said groups of shoe machinery, caused to be organized and took an active part in the organization of United Shoe Machinery Company, a corporation, under the laws of the State of New Jersey, hereinafter in this count of this indictment referred to as United Company, with broad powers under its charter to manufacture, buy, sell, lease, operate, and deal in and with all kinds of machinery, tools, and implements, and especially in everything in any way connected with or useful in the manufacture of shoes, which said United Company, either imme[591]diately or soon after its organization, acquired and took over (the exact date of such acquisition being to the grand jurors unknown) substantially all of the capital stock and the business and assets of each said Consolidated and McKay Lasting Machine Company, Goodyear Shoe Machinery Company, McKay Shoe Machinery Company, and Eppler Welt Machine Company, by means of the issue and exchange of the capital stock of said United Company. "And the grand jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present, that said defendants, through said United Company, after its organization, to wit, on or about said seventh day of February, in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, and upon the acquisition by said United Company of substantially all of the capital stock and of the business and assets of each said Consolidated and McKay Lasting Machine Company, Goodyear Shoe Machinery Company, McKay Shoe Machinery Company, and Eppler Welt Machine Company, then acquired control of eighty-five per cent of the trade and commerce among the several States of the United States in the sale and lease of each and every machine included in each and all of the said groups of shoe machinery." Opinion of the Court. The indictment further alleges: "And the grand jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present that said defendants have, throughout said period of time, carried on, directed, and controlled, and caused to be carried on, directed, and controlled their said trade and commerce in the sale and lease of the machines included in said groups of shoe machinery, by the device and means of and through and in the names of said United Company, corporation as aforesaid, and United Shoe Machinery Corporation, a corporation of the State of New Jersey, and through certain other corporations which said defendants dominate and control." Then follows a list of minor companies of which the United Shoe Machinery Company is said to have obtained control. The foregoing completes the picture of the combination sought to be penalized under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. It is to be noted that this count of indictment 114 claims that the combination of the four groups of machinery which we have described was intended to suppress competition; but the detailed facts therein overrule this alleged purpose, and shut out suggestions of an intention in the way of suppressing competition, as we will show. [10] The alleged agreement was the combination of several interests controlling the various groups I, II, III, and IV. Admitting that each was controlled by a separate organization without any cross-holding, it would have been clear that the result would have been simply a union of four different industries, not competing, but supplementing each other. A careful examination of the record shows, however, that, although the Goodyear Company, the McKay Shoe Machinery Company, the McKay Lasting Company, and the Eppler Welt Company nominally controlled independently of each other shares in the business to which groups I and II were related, yet the cross-holdings of the respondents in these corporations prevented any competition prior to February, 1899, so that the status was the same as though groups I and II formed one group, and only groups III and IV were separate and independent groups. No complaint whatever is made in the indictment of the grouping in the way stated; and, more by way of illustrating our line of reasoning than for anything else, we will add here that in indictment 113, which seems to [592] assume that the various Opinion of the Court. machines to which these indictments relate were covered by patents, it is expressly admitted that the original groups I, II, III, and IV controlled monopolies, and that yet those monopolies were not of an illegal character. Taking up again the second count in indictment 114, which refers back for all details to the first count, it plainly alleges only a conspiracy. It states that the respondents" unlawfully and knowingly conspired to monopolize." This expression is plainly adapted to a combination only. Therefore we accept this count as such, leaving the first count of indictment 114, which we will approach later, as alleging a completed monopoly under the second section of the act. Coming back, therefore, to the proposition that the second count alleges only a conspiracy, the rules of pleading confine it to one conspiracy. As said in United States v. Kissel, 218 U. S. 601, 31 Sup. Ct. 124, 54 L. Ed. 1168, ubi supra, and according to the clear rules of law, it may well be regarded as a continuous conspiracy. Nevertheless, as was said in 218 U. S. on page 608, 31 Sup. Ct. on page 126, 54 L. Ed. 1168," the contract is instantaneous," though "the partnership may endure as one and the same partnership for years"; adding, "a conspiracy is a partnership in criminal purposes." Therefore it follows that the whole offense under the second count of indictment 114 is a combination formed on the 7th day of February, 1899, with the purposes and intentions then existing which we have described, and nothing This combination, then formed, was purely an economic arrangement, not in violation of any rule in restraint of trade at common law, or which has been announced by the Supreme Court, as is shown by an examination of all the cases decided by that tribunal. It seems to be impossible to deny that the combination of various elements of machinery, all relating to the same art and the same school of manufactures, for the purpose of constructing economically and systematically, and of furnishing any customer, the whole or any part of an entire system, is in strict and normal compliance with modern trade progress; as also it might be in strict compliance with modern progress to limit the manufacture and supply to |