Opinion of FRANKFURTER, J. 330 U.S. and, by refusing to sanction foremen's unions, had determined that foremen in enterprises like those before us could not exact union recognition; that therefore New York could not oppose such federal action by a contrary policy of its own, I should concur in the Court's decision, whatever the differences of interpretation to which the course of events before the National Board may lend itself. But the Court's opinion does not, as I read it, have that restricted scope, based on the individual circumstances before us. Apart from the suggestion that the National Board's declination of jurisdiction "in certain types of cases, for budgetary or other reasons" might leave room for the State in those situations, the Court's opinion carries at least overtones of meaning that, regardless of the consent of the National Board, New York is excluded from enforcing rights of collective bargaining in all industries within its borders as to which Congress has granted opportunity to invoke the authority of the National Board: The inability of the National Board to exercise its dormant powers because of lack of funds ought not to furnish a more persuasive reason for finding that concurrent State power may function than a deliberate exercise of judgment by the National Board that industrial relations having both national and state concern can most effectively be promoted by an appropriate division of administrative resources between the National and the State Boards. This states abstractly a very practical situation. Based on the realization that as a practical matter the National Board could not effectuate the policies of the Act committed to it over the whole range of its authority, an arrangement was worked out whereby the National Board leaves to the State Board jurisdiction over so-called local industries covered by the federal Act, while the State 'Board does not entertain matters over which the National Board has consistently taken jurisdiction. This practical Federal-State working arrangement, arrived at by those 767 Opinion of FRANKFURTER, J. carrying the responsibility for breathing life into the bare bones of legislation, is so relevant to the solution of the legal issues arising out of State-Nation industrial interaction, that I have set forth the agreement in full in an Appendix. Particularly when dealing with legal aspects of industrial relations is it important for courts not to isolate legal issues from their workaday context. I cannot join the Court's opinion because I read it to mean that it is beyond the power of the National Board to agree with State agencies enforcing laws like the Wagner Act to divide, with due regard to local interests, the domain over which Congress had given the National Board abstract discretion but which, practically, cannot be covered by it alone. If such cooperative agreements between State and National Boards are barred because the power which Congress has granted to the National Board ousted or superseded State authority, I am unable to see how State authority can revive because Congress has seen fit to put the Board on short rations. Since we are dealing with aspects of commerce between the States that are not legally outside State action by virtue of the Commerce Clause itself, New York has authority to act so long as Congress has not interdicted her action. While what the State does she does on sufferance, in ascertaining whether Congress has allowed State action we are not to consider the matter as though Congress were conferring a mere bounty, the extent of which must be viewed with a thrifty eye. When construing federal legislation that deals with matters that also lie within the authority, because within the proper interests, of the States, we must be mindful that we are part of the delicate process of adjusting the interacting areas of National and State authority over commerce. The inevitable extension of federal authority over economic enterprise has absorbed the authority that was previously left to the States. But in legislating, Congress is not indulging in doctrinaire, Opinion of FRANKFURTER, J. 330 U.S. hard-and-fast curtailment of the State powers reflecting special State interests. Federal legislation of this character must be construed with due regard to accommodation between the assertions of new federal authority and the functions of the individual States, as reflecting the historic and persistent concerns of our dual system of government. Since Congress can, if it chooses, entirely displace the States to the full extent of the far-reaching Commerce Clause, Congress needs no help from generous judicial implications to achieve the supersession of State authority. To construe federal legislation so as not needlessly to forbid preexisting State authority is to respect our federal system. Any indulgence in construction should be in favor of the States, because Congress can speak with drastic clarity whenever it chooses to assure full federal authority, completely displacing the States. This is an old problem and the considerations involved in its solution are commonplace. But results not always harmonious have from time to time been drawn from the same precepts. In law also the emphasis makes the song. It may make a decisive difference what view judges have of the place of the States in our national life when they come to apply the governing principle that for an Act of Congress completely to displace a State law "the repugnance or conflict should be direct and positive, so that the two acts could not be reconciled or consistently stand together." Sinnot v. Davenport, 22 How. 227, 243. Congress can speak so unequivocally as to leave no doubt. But real controversies arise only when Congress has left the matter in doubt, and then the result depends on whether we require that actual conflict between State and federal action be shown, or whether argumentative conflict suffices. Our general problem was only recently canvassed in the three opinions in Hill v. Florida, 325 U. S. 538. But the 767 Opinion of FRANKFURTER, J. frequent recurrence of the problem and the respective legislative and judicial share in its proper solution justify some repetition. It may be helpful to recall the circumspection with which federal absorption of authority previously belonging to the States was observed in the control of railroad rates. In the Minnesota Rate Cases, 230 U. S. 352, this Court, after elaborate argument and extended consideration, held that State rates covering intrastate transportation could not be stricken down judicially even though it may be shown that such rates adversely affect carriers in their interstate aspects. This decision was based largely on the respect to be accorded to the respective functions of State and national authority, as evinced by Congressional and judicial history. But a year later, the Court held that when the Interstate Commerce Commission found that State regulation of local rates was designed to operate discriminatorily against related interstate commerce, the Interstate Commerce Act authorized removal of the discrimination against the interstate rates. Houston, East and West R. Co. v. United States, 234 U. S. 342. Nevertheless, so important did this Court deem respect for State power that it would not allow the Shreveport doctrine to be loosely used as a curtailment of State authority. Accordingly, it insisted on precision and definiteness in the orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission in this interacting area. Illinois Central R. Co. v. State Public Utilities Commission, 245 U. S. 493. Subsequently, by the Transportation Act of 1920, Congress formalized the Shreveport doctrine and extended its scope. The Commission was expressly authorized to correct State rates that were unreasonable with reference to related interstate rates, and was also given control over State rates which adversely affected interstate commerce as such. See § 13, par. 4 of the Interstate Commerce Act, as amended by Opinion of FRANKFURTER, J. 330 U.S. §§ 416 and 422 of the Transportation Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 456, 484, 488; Wisconsin Railroad Commission v. C. B. & Q. R. R. Co., 257 U. S. 563; New York v. United States, 257 U. S. 591. It is not without significance that in exercising this new power Congress associated with the Interstate Commerce Commission the appropriate State agencies in an advisory capacity. Even where foreign commerce is involved, as to which State control is naturally viewed with less favor, this Court has not ruled out State authority derived from a State interest where State regulation was found to be complementary to federal regulation. Union Brokerage Co. v. Jensen, 322 U. S. 202, 208-09. No doubt, as indicated, cases have not always dealt with such scrupulous regard for State action where Congress has not patently terminated it. Metaphor-"occupied the field"-has at times done service for close analysis. But the rules of accommodation that have been most consistently professed as well as the dominant current of decisions make for and not against the modus vivendi achieved by the two agencies in the labor relations field, which the Government, as amicus curiae, here sponsored. Such an arrangement assures the effectuation of the policies which underlie both the National Labor Relations Act and the "Little Wagner Act" of New York in a manner agreed upon by the two Boards for dealing with matters affecting interests of common concern. "Where the Government has provided for collaboration the courts should not find conflict." Union Brokerage Co. v. Jensen, 322 U. S. 202, 209. What is before us is a very real and practical situation. The vast range of jurisdiction which the National Labor Relations Act has conferred upon the Board raises problems of administration wholly apart from available funds. As a result of this Court's decision in National Labor Relations Board v. Fainblatt, 306 U. S. 601, untold |