Important Supreme court cases
President William Taft nominated Edward Douglass White as Chief Justice for the Supreme Court on December 12, 1910, and the Senate confirmed this appointment the same day! Listed below are some important cases by the White Court:
17th Amendment (each state gets 2 Senators, by popular vote and for six years) ratified on April 8, 1913
18th Amendment (Prohibition, later repealed by 21st Amendment) ratified on January 16, 1919
- Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. United States (1910)- The Supreme Court found Standard Oil guilty of monopolizing the petroleum industry, so they broke up the Standard Oil Company.
- United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola (1916)- Harvey Washington Wiley, first commissioner of the FDA, ordered the confiscation of forty barrels and twenty kegs of Coca-Cola in 1909. The reason being was that Wiley believed the caffeine in Coca-Cola to be harmful to people. The government tried to remove caffeine from the Coca-Cola formula, but Coca-Cola won the case.
- Schenck v United States- The Supreme Court ruled that the Espionage Act of 1917 did not violate the First Amendment's protection of free speech and free press.
17th Amendment (each state gets 2 Senators, by popular vote and for six years) ratified on April 8, 1913
18th Amendment (Prohibition, later repealed by 21st Amendment) ratified on January 16, 1919