The forerunners of more recent acts excluding objectionable commodities from interstate commerce are the laws forbidding the importation of like commodities from abroad. This power Congress has exercised since 1842. In that year it forbade the importation of obscene literature or pictures from abroad.[476] Six years later it passed an act "to prevent the importation of spurious and adulterated drugs" and to provide a system of inspection to make the prohibition effective.[477] Such legislation guarding against the importation of noxiously adulterated foods, drugs, or liquor has been on the statute books ever since. In 1887 the importation by Chinese nationals of smoking opium was prohibited,[478] and subsequent statutes passed in 1909 and 1914 made it unlawful for anyone to import it.[479] In 1897 Congress forbade the importation of any tea "inferior in purity, quality, and fitness for consumption" as compared with a legal standard.[480] The act was sustained in 1904, in the leading case of Buttfield _v._ Stranahan.[481] In "The Abby Dodge" case an act excluding sponges taken by means of diving or diving apparatus from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico or Straits of Florida was sustained, but construed as not applying to sponges taken from the territorial waters of a State.[482] In Weber _v._ Freed[483] an act prohibiting the importation and interstate transportation of prize-fight films or of pictorial representation of prize fights was upheld. Speaking for the unanimous Court, Chief Justice White said: "In view of the complete power of Congress over foreign commerce and its authority to prohibit the introduction of foreign articles recognized and enforced by many previous decisions of this court, the contentions are so devoid of merit as to cause them to be frivolous."[484] In Brolan _v._ United States[485] the Court again stressed the absolute nature of Congress's power over foreign commerce, saying: "In the argument reference is made to decisions of this court dealing with the subject of the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, but the very postulate upon which the authority of Congress to absolutely prohibit foreign importations as expounded by the decisions of this court rests is the broad distinction which exists between the two powers and therefore the cases cited and many more which might be cited announcing the principles which they uphold have obviously no relation to the question in hand."[486] INTERSTATE COMMERCE; CONFLICT OF DOCTRINE AND OPINION