mental power, and charged with the governmental duty to secure safe public highways.55

§ 197. Same-Limiting hours of labor in unhealthy employments.-A state statute providing that the period of employment of working men in all underground mines, and in smelters and all other institutions for the reduction or refining of ores or metals, shall be eight hours per day, except in cases of emergency where life or property is in imminent danger, and making a violation of such provisions punishable as a misdemeanor, has been upheld as a valid exercise of the police power, and not in contravention of any provision of the federal constitution; the court placing its decision upon the ground that the state legislature had adjudged, and the experience of mankind shows, that such employments, when too long pursued in consecutive hours of labor, are detrimental to the health of the employees, and that the proprietors of such industries and their operatives do not stand upon an equal footing, the former desiring to obtain as much labor as possible from their employees, while the latter are often induced by the fear of discharge to conform to regulations which their judgment, fairly exercised, would pronounce to be detrimental to their health, and that in such cases the legislature may properly interpose its authority.56

But in a more recent case, the supreme court has rendered a reactionary decision, or one showing a counter judicial tendency, declaring invalid a provision of a New York statute, prohibiting the working of employees in bakeries more than sixty hours a week, or more than ten hours in any one day, unless for the purpose of making a shorter work day on the last day of the week, the justice delivering the opinion of the court placing the decision upon the ground "that there can be no fair doubt that the trade of a baker, in and of itself, is not an unhealthy one to that degree which would authorize the legislature to interfere with the right to labor, and with the right of free contract on the part of the individual, either as employer or employee, and that the statute in question was not intended to meet a case of involuntary labor in any form, but was an interference with the liberty of contract secured by the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States.57 Mr. Jus

56 Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366, 398 (42:780).

57 Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 76 (49:937).

tice Harlan, dissenting from the decision of the court in that case, placed his dissent upon the ground that it is plain that the statute whose validity was involved was enacted to protect the physical well-being of those persons who work in bakeries and confectionery establishments, and the statute must be taken as expressing the belief of the people of New York that, as a general rule, and in the case of the average man, labor in excess of sixty hours during a week in such establishments may endanger the health of those who thus labor, and that whether or not the statute be wise legislation, is not within the province of the supreme court to determine, the courts under our system of government not being concerned with the wisdom or policy of legislation; and that in determining the power of the state of New York to enact the statute, and thereby to interfere with the liberty of contract in the class of cases therein mentioned, and for that purpose inquiring whether the means devised by the statute are germane to the accomplishment of the purpose had in view in its enactment, he found it impossible, in view of common experience, to say that there is no real or substantial relation between the means employed and the end sought to be accomplished by the statute, nor that the statute has no appropriate or direct connection with that protection of health which each state owes to its citizens, nor that it is not promotive of the health of the employees in such establishments, nor that the regulation prescribed by the statute is utterly unreasonable and extravagant or wholly arbitrary, nor that the statute is beyond question a plain, palpable invasion of rights secured by the fundamental law.58

§ 198. Same-State statute requiring company "store orders' to be redeemed in cash.-A state statute requiring all persons, firms, corporations and companies, using coupons, scrip, punchouts, store orders or other evidences of indebtedness to pay their laborers and employees for labor, shall, if demanded, redeem the same at their face value, in the hands of such laborers, or bona fide holders, in lawful money of the United States, when seasonably presented for payment, and providing a legal remedy for the collection of the same, has been upheld. by the supreme court of the United States as a valid exercise

58 Lochner v. New York, supra, dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan.

of the police power, the ratio decedendi being that in such cases the employee is at a disadvantage with the employer in the matter of wages, and the tendency of the statute is to remove that inequality, and to place the employer and employee upon equal ground, and protect the latter from a diminution of the price of his labor by a discount of the "evidence of indebtedness" in which his wages might be paid.59

§ 199. Same-Health regulations.-The authority of the state to establish, maintain and administer health laws and regulations is derived from the police power, a power which the states possessed before the organization of the federal government, and which they did not surrender in becoming members of the union under the constitution; and although the supreme court of the United States has refrained from any attempt to define the limits of that power, yet it has, in numberless judicial judgments, distinctly recognized the authority of the state to enact, and administer by agencies of its own creation, quarantine laws and health laws of every description, and, indeed, all laws that relate to matters completely within its territory and which do not by their necessary operation affect the people of other states. And according to the settled principles of the constitution, and the division of governmental powers under it, as declared by the supreme judicial tribunal, the police power of a state is held to embrace, at least, such reasonable regulations established directly by legislative enactment as will protect the public health and the public safety; and it is equally well-settled that the state may invest local bodies, created and called into existence by it for purposes of local administration, with authority to in some appropriate way safeguard the public health and the public safety. The mode or manner in which these results are to be accomplished is within the discretion of the state, subject, of course, so far as federal power is concerned, only to the condition that no rule prescribed by the state, nor any regulation adopted by a local governmental agency acting under the sanction of state legislation, shall contravene the constitution of the United States, nor infringe any right granted or secured by that instrument. A local enactment or regulation, even if based on the acknowledged police power of a state, must always yield in case of conflict in the

59 Knoxville Iron Co. v. Harbison, 183 U. S. 13 (46:55)

exercise by the general government of any power it possesses under the constitution, or with any right which that instrument gives or secures.0 A state legislature, acting within its competency, when establishing regulations for the arrest and abatement of local epidemics of diseases, and attempting to apply specific remedies for their extirpation, is presumed to be aware of the existence of opposing medical theories applicable to the subject, when such opposing theories do in fact exist, and is compelled, of necessity, to choose between them, and such choice is not subject to judicial review. And a state statute providing that the board of health of any city or town within the state, if, in its opinion, it is necessary for the public health or safety, shall require and enforce the vaccination and revaccination of all the inhabitants thereof, and shall provide them with the means of free vaccination, except children who present a certificate, signed by a registered physician, that they are unfit subjects for vaccination, no such exception being made in favor of adults, and imposing a penalty for any violation of the act, and the adoption pursuant to the act by the local board of health of a city of a regulation reciting the increasing prevalence of smallpox in the city, and that the public health and safety require the speedy vaccination of all the inhabitants of the city, and directing that the same should be speedily accomplished, and appointing a designated physician to enforce the vaccination of all persons within the city, have been upheld as a valid exercise of the police power, and not an infringement of any rights granted or secured by any provision of the federal constitution.61

§ 200. Same-Power of municipal corporations to impose license fee on interstate telegraph lines to pay cost of police supervision. Municipal corporations may, by legislative permission, exercise local governmental supervision over telegraph lines engaged in interstate commerce, and may impose and collect an annual license fee on each pole and each mile of wird wthin its limits, for the purpose of covering the expense incurred in the enforcement of such governmental supervision and the proper and necessary police rules and regulations.

60 Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11-39 (49:643), and authorities cited.

61 Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 196 U. S. 11-39 (49:643).

Such a license fee is not a tax on the property of the company, nor on its transmission of messages, nor on the receipts from such transmission, nor on the privilege of interstate commerce, but is a charge to reimburse the expenses of police supervision of the property and instrumentalities used therein, the municipality not being bound to furnish such supervision at its own cost.

62

§ 201. Same-Power of the state to protect local commerce and local industries from unlawful restraints and monopolies. All contracts, agreements, combinations and conspiracies, whose inevitable tendency is to impose restraints upon, or to prevent or diminish competition or increase or diminish prices, or wages, or to create monopolies, in local commerce, or in mining or manufactures, or in furnishing to the public illuminating gas, or coal, or other articles or commodities of prime necessity, are injurious to the public, and contrary to public policy; and the state may, in the exercise of its police power, repress and extirpate such evils, either by appropriate legislation, or by the application of the principles of the common law, as the case may require.63

62 Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Co. v. City of Philadelphia, 190 U. S. 160, 169 (47:995); Western Union Telegraph Co. v. New Hope, 187 U. S. 419 (47:240).

62 Morris Run Coal Co. v. Barclay Coal Co., 68 Pa. 173; Arnot v. Pillston & E. Coal Co., 68 N. Y. 558, 23 Am. Rep. 190; Craft v. McConoughy, 79 Ill. 346, 22 Am. Rep. 171; People v. Chicago Gas Light Trust Co., 130 Ill. 269, 22 N. E. 798, 8 L. R. A. 497; Richardson v. Buhl, 77 Mich. 632, 6 L. R. A. 457, 43 N. W. 1102; India Boggang v. Kock, 14 La. Ann. 164; Santa Clara Valley Mill & Lumber Co. v. Hayes, 76 Cal. 387, 18 Pac. 391; Gibbs v. Consolidated Gas Co. of Baltimore, 130 U. S. 396, 412 (32:979); Central Ohio Salt Co. v. Guthrie, 35 Ohio St. 666; People v. Sheldon, 139 N. Y. 251, 34 N. E. 785; Judd v. Harrington, 139 N. Y.

105, 34 N. E. 790; Leonard v. Poole, 114 N. Y. 371, 21 N. E. 707; Nester v. Brewing Co., 161 Pa. St. 473, 29 Atl. 102; Emery v. Candle Co., 47 Ohio St. 320, 24 N. E. 660; Chapin v. Brown, 83 Iowa, 156, 48 N. W. 1074; Anderson v. Jett, 89 Ky. 375, 12 S. W. 670; More v. Bennett, 140 111. 69, 29 N. E. 888; Ford v. Association, 155 III. 166, 39 N. E. 651; Bishop v. Preserves Co., 157 Ill. 284, 41 N. E. 765; Association v. Niezerowski, 95 Wis. 129, 70 N. W. 166; Vulcan Powder Co. v. Hercules Powder Co., 96 Cal. 510, 31 Pac. 581; Oil Co. v. Adam, 83 Texas, 650, 19 S. W. 274; State v. Shippers' Compress & Warehouse Co., 95 Texas, 603, 69 S. W. 58; State v. Laredo Ice Co., 96 Tex. 461, 73 S. W. 951; WatersPierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 177 U. S. 28, 47 (44:657); National Cotton Oil Co. v. Texas, 197 U. S. 115, 133