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Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914

This act was a supplement to the Sherman Antitrust Act with provisions aimed at restricting corporate methods not previously designated as illegal. In addition, it sought to prevent application of the Sherman Act to labor organizations. Some of the prohibited practices included price discriminations substantially tending to create a monopoly; tying contracts, which prohibited purchasers from buying or handling products of the sellers’ competition; interlocking directorates in industrial aggregations capitalized at $1 million or more; and acquisition of stockholdings tending to lessen competition.

Corporate officials who violated the statutes could be held individually responsible. Remedies available to injured parties included court injunctions, Federal Trade Commission cease-and-desist orders, and civil suits for treble damages when price discrimination and tying contracts were established.

In addition, the act specified that “the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce; nothing contained in the antitrust laws shall be construed to forbid the existence and operation of labor organizations... nor shall such organizations or the members thereof be held or construed to be illegal combinations In restraint of trade under the antitrust laws.” Other provisions ostensibly beneficial to labor were prohibition of the injunction in labor disputes unless a court deemed it necessary to prevent irreparable injury to property “for which there is no adequate remedy at law,. . .” and the legalization of strikes, peaceful picketing and boycotts under federal jurisdiction.

Although Samuel Gompers labeled the Clayton Act “labor’s Magna Carta,” judicial interpretations later weakened or negated many of its prolabor provisions.