y and
indirect. An increase in the greatness of the effect adds to its
importance. It does not alter its character."[452] We again see the
influence of the ideology of the Sugar Trust Case.[453]

THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT

The case in which the Court reduced the distinction between "direct" and
"indirect" effects to the vanishing point, and thereby put Congress in
the way of governing productive industry and labor relations in such
industry was National Labor Relations Board _v._ Jones and Laughlin
Steel Corp.,[454] decided April 12, 1937. Here the statute involved was
the National Labor Relations Act of July 5, 1935,[455] which forbids
"any unfair labor practice affecting interstate commerce" and lists
among these "the denial by employers of the right of employees to
organize and the refusal by employers to accept the procedure of
collective bargaining." Ignoring recent holdings, government counsel
appealed to the "current of commerce" concept of the Swift Case. The
scope of respondent's activities, they pointed out, was immense. Besides
its great steel-producing plants, it owned and operated mines,
steamships, and terminal railways scattered through several States, and
altogether it gave employment to many thousands of workers. A vast
industrial commonwealth such as this, whose operations constantly
traversed State lines, comprised, they contended, a species of
territorial enclave which was subject in all its parts to the only
governmental power capable of dealing with it as an entity, that is,
the National Government. Yet even if this were not so, still the
protective power of Congress over interstate commerce must be deemed to
extend to disruptive strikes by employees of such an immense concern,
and hence to include power to remove the causes of such strikes. The
Court, speaking through Chief Justice Hughes, held the corporation to be
subject to the act on the latter ground. "The close and intimate
effect," said he, "which brings the subject within the reach of federal
power may be due to activities in relation to productive industry
although the industry when separately viewed is local." Nor will it do
to say that such effect is "indirect." Considering defendant's
"far-flung activities," the effect of strife between it and its
employees "* * * would be immediate and [it] might be catastrophic. We
are asked to shut our eyes to the plainest facts of our national life
and to deal with the question of direct