1900's Law and Justice | Swift & Co. v. U.S

Supreme Court decision

By: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Date: January 30, 1905

Source: Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr. Swift & Co. v. United States. 196 U.S. 375 (1905). Available online at http://www.caselaw.lp.findlaw.com (accessed November 22, 2002).

About the Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) served for three years in the Union Army during the Civil War (1861–1865). He joined the Massachusetts Supreme Court as an associate justice in 1883, and sixteen years later he became chief justice of that court. In 1902, when Holmes was sixty-one, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him associate justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he served for 30 years.

Introduction

During the rapid growth of the U.S. economy in the late 1800s, companies became more national in scope. In the process, companies...