Opinion of the Court. If, as is claimed, the commission men sometimes own the cattle they sell, then the rules do not apply, for they relate to charges made for selling cattle upon commission and not at all to sales of cattle by their owners. Definitions as to what constitutes interstate commerce are not easily given so that they shall clearly define the full meaning of the term. We know from the cases decided in this court that it is a term of very large significance. It comprehends, as it is said, intercourse for the purposes of trade in any and all its forms, including transportation, purchase, sale and exchange of commodities between the citizens of different States, and the power to regulate it embraces all the instruments by which such commerce may be conducted. Welton v. Missouri, 91 U. S. 275; Mobile County v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 691; Gloucester Ferry Company v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S. 196; Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 653; United States v. E. C. Knight Company, 156 U. S. 1. But in all the cases which have come to this court there is not one which has denied the distinction between a regulation which directly affects and embarrasses interstate trade or commerce, and one which is nothing more than a charge for a local facility provided for the transaction of such commerce. On the contrary, the cases already cited show the existence of the distinction and the validity of a charge for the use of the facility. The services of members of the different stock and produce exchanges throughout the country in effecting sales of the articles they deal in are of a similar nature. Members of the New York Stock Exchange buy and sell shares of stock of railroads and other corporations, and the property represented by such shares of stock is situated all over the country. Is a broker whose principal lives outside of New York State, and who sends him the shares of stock or the bonds of a corporation created and doing business in another State, for sale, engaged in interstate commerce? If he is employed to purchase stock or bonds in a like corporation under the same circumstances, is he then engaged in the business of interstate commerce? It may, perhaps, be answered that stocks or Opinion of the Court. bonds are not commodities, and that dealers therein are not engaged in commerce. Whether it is an answer to the question need not be considered, for we will take the case of the New York Produce Exchange. Is a member of that body to whom a cargo of grain is consigned from a western State to be sold engaged in interstate commerce when he performs the service of selling the article upon its arrival in New York and transmitting the proceeds of the sale less his commissions? Is a New Orleans cotton broker who is a member of the Cotton Exchange of that city, and who receives consignments of cotton from different States and sells them on 'change in New Orleans and accounts to his consignors for the proceeds of such sales less his commission, engaged in interstate commerce? Is the character of the business altered in either case by the fact that the broker has advanced moneys to the owner of the article and taken a mortgage thereon as his security? We understand we are in these queries assuming substantially the same facts as those which are contained in the case before us, and if these defendants are engaged in interstate commerce because of their services in the sale of cattle which may come from other States, then the same must be said in regard to the members of the other exchanges above referred to. We think it would be an entirely novel view of the situation if all the members of these different exchanges throughout the country were to be regarded as engaged in interstate commerce, because they sell things for their principals which come from States different from the one in which the exchange is situated and the sale made. The theory upon which we think the by-law or agreement regarding commissions is not a violation of the statute operates also in the case of the other provisions of the bylaws. The answer in regard to all objections is, the defendants are not engaged in interstate commerce. But special weight is attached to the objection raised to section 11 of rule 9 of the by-laws, which provides against sending prepaid telegrams as set forth in the statement of facts herein. It is urged that the purpose of this section is to prevent the sending of prepaid telegrams by the defendants Opinion of the Court. to their various customers in the different States tributary to the Kansas City market, and that the section is a part of the contract between the members of the exchange, and is clearly an attempt to regulate and restrict the sending of messages by telegraph and telephone between citizens of the various States and Territories, and operates upon and directly affects the interstate business of communicating between points in different States by telegraph or telephone. An agreement among the defendants to abstain from telegraphing in certain circumstances and for certain purposes is so clearly not an attempt to regulate or restrain the general sending of telegrams that it would seem unnecessary to argue the question. An agreement among business men not to send telegrams in regard to their business in certain contingencies, when the agreement is entered into only for the purpose of regulating the business of the individuals, is not a direct attempt to affect the business of the telegraph company, and has no direct effect thereon. Although communication by telegraph may be commerce, and if carried on between different States may be commerce among the several States, yet an agreement or by-law of the nature of the one under consideration is not a burden or a regulation of or a duty laid upon the telegraph company, and was clearly not entered into for the purpose of affecting in the slightest degree the company itself or its transaction of interstate commerce. The argument of counsel in behalf of the United States, that because none of the States or Territories could enact any law interfering with or abridging the right of persons in Kansas or Missouri to send prepaid telegrams of the nat ure in question, therefore an agreement to that effect entered into between business men as a means towards the proper transaction of their legitimate business would be void, is, as we think, entirely unsound. The conclusion does not follow from the facts stated. The statute might be illegal as an improper attempt to interfere with the liberty of transacting legitimate business enjoyed by the citizen, while the agreement among business men for the better conduct of their own Opinion of the Court. business, as they think, to refrain from using the telegraph for certain purposes, is a matter purely for their own consideration. There is no similarity between the two cases, and the principle existing in the one is wholly absent in the other. The private agreement does not, as we have said, regulate commerce or impose any impediment upon it or tax it. Communication by telegraph is free from any burden so far as this agreement is concerned, and no restrictions are placed on the commerce itself. The act of Congress must have a reasonable construction or else there would scarcely be an agreement or contract among business men that could not be said to have, indirectly or remotely, some bearing upon interstate commerce, and possibly to restrain it. We have no idea that the act covers or was intended to cover such kinds of agreements. The next by-law which complainants object to is section 10 of the same rule 9, which prohibits the hiring of a solicitor except upon a stipulated salary not contingent upon commissions earned, and which provides that no more than three solicitors shall be employed at one time by a commission firm or corporation. The claim is that these solicitors are engaged in interstate commerce, and that such commerce must be free from any state legislation and free from the control or restraint by any person or combination of persons. They also object that the rule is an unlawful inhibition upon the privilege possessed by each person under the Constitution to make lawful contracts in the furtherance of his business, and they allege that in this respect these members have surrendered their dominion over their own business and permitted the exchange to establish a species of regency, and that the by-law in regard to the employment of solicitors is one which directly affects interstate commerce. McCall v. California, 136 U. S. 104, is cited for the proposition that the solicitors employed by these defendants are engaged in interstate commerce. In that case the railroad company was itself engaged in such commerce, and its agent in California was taxed by reason of his business in soliciting Opinion of the Court. The for his company that which was interstate commerce. fact that he did not sell tickets or receive or pay out money on account of it was not regarded as material. His principal was a common carrier, engaged in interstate commerce, and he was engaged in that commerce because he was soliciting for the transportation of passengers by that company through the different States in which the railroad ran from the State of California. In the case before us the defendants are not employed in interstate commerce but are simply engaged in the performance of duties or services relating to stock upon its arrival at Kansas City. We do not think it can be properly said that the agents of the defendants whom they send out to solicit the various owners of stock to consign the cattle to one of the defendants for sale are thereby themselves engaged in interstate commerce. They are simply soliciting the various stock owners to consign the stock owned by them to particular defendants at Kansas City, and until the arrival of the stock at that point and the delivery by the transportation company no duties of an interstate-commerce nature arise to be performed by the defendants. As the business they do is not interstate commerce, the business of their agents in soliciting others to give them such business is not itself interstate commerce. Not being engaged in interstate commerce, the agreement of the defendants through the by-law in question, restricting the number of solicitors to three, does not restrain that commerce, and does not therefore violate the act of Congress under discussion. The position of the solicitors is entirely different from that of drummers who are travelling through the several States for the purpose of getting orders for the purchase of property. It was said in Robbins v. Shelby County Taxing District, 120 U. S. 489, that the negotiation of sales of goods which are in another State for the purpose of introducing them into the State in which the negotiation is made is interstate commerce. But the solicitors for these defendants have no property or goods for sale, and their only duty is to ask or induce those who own the property to agree that when they send it to |