CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - DUE PROCESS - FEDERAL PRICE CONTROL UNDER COMMERCE CLAUSE FOR MILK AND COAL INDUSTRIES

As a natural concomitant of the prevailing laissez-faire economic philosophy, a strong feeling against any governmental regulation of business prevailed in American legislatures until well into the second half of the nineteenth century. Prices were considered to be especially immune to governmental tampering. The first step in the breakdown of the notion that government had no power over prices was the case of Munn v. Illinois. This decision introduced the doctrine that the legislature had the right to regulate prices in any business which the courts should find to be "affected with a public interest." Posed as a deceivingly simple test, subsequent decisions by the Supreme Court revealed that ascertaining whether or not a business was "affected with a public interest" presented many obscurities.

It became extremely difficult, if not impossible, for either legislatures or counsel to predict what businesses would fall within the doctrine.