Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 2.djvu/254

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HAR VARD LAW RB VIE W,

a Tigoront dissenting opinion, in which Field and Gray, JJ., concurred. The two last-named justices do not express any dissent from this present decision.

Constitutional Law — Intkkstatb Commerce — Due Process of Law — Prohibitory Liquor Law. — An Iowa statute prohibiting the manufacture or sale within that State of intoxicating liquors, either for domestic use or exportation, except for mechanical, medicinal, culinary, or sacramental purposes, making the sale or manufacture for other purposes a penal offence, providing for the abatement of such other sales or manufactures as a nuisance, and forfeiting the liquor unlawfully kept on hand, is not an unconstitutional attempt to regulate interstate commerce. The regulation of interstate commerce deals with questions of transportation, not of manufacture; the fact that the products of domestic manufacture are intended to become the subjects of interstate com- merce does not bring the regulation of such manufacture within the control of Congress. Kidd v. Pearson^ 9 Sup. Ct Rep. 6, affirming 34 N. W. Rep. I. See Cooley's Principles of Const. Law, pp. 66^ 67, and SiaU ▼. FU^atrick^ 37 Alb. L. J. 290 (R. L), digested 2 Harv. L. Rev. 97, a4xord.

Kidd V. Pearson abo holds that the abatement as a nuisance, under the statute, iupra, of a distillery erected for the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors for other purposes than those specified, does not deprive the citizen of his property without *^ due process of law." MugUr v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, digested i Harv. L. Rev. 304, is followed and cit^ as deciding '* that a State has the right to prohibit or restrict the manufacture of intoxicating liquors within her limits; to prohibit all sale and traffic in them in said State; to inflict penalties for such manufacture and sale, and to provide regulations for the abatement as a common nuisance of the property used for such forbidden purposes."

Constitutional Law — Interstate Commerce — Police Power — Licens- ing Engineers. — An Alabama act, providing that engineers and other rail* road employees shall be examined by a medical board to determine whether or not they are ** color-blind," is a constitutional exercise of State legislation which may be validly applied to a railway company having its lines^ on which an engi- neer runs, reaching into another State. A law passed by a State for the protec- tion of the public safety, which is not directed against interstate commerce, and only affects it incidentally, is a valid exercise of the police power of the State, and remains in force until superseded by congressional legislation upon the subject. Nashville, C. <Sr* St. L. Railway Co. v. Alabama^ 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 28.

Smith V. Alabama^ 124 U. S. 465, digested x Harv. L. Rev. 405, is followed as authority. See Cooley's Principles of Const. Law, pp. 69-74, accord.

Constitutional Law — Interstate Commerce — Tax on Telegraph Companies. — Where a tax levied by a State upon a telegraph company consists of taxes on messages wholly within the Sute, and on messages partly within and partly without the State, and the record discloses the amount assessed on each class* the State can only recover the tax on those messages transmitted wholly within the State, the further tax being an unconstitutional regulation of inter- state commerce. West. Union Tel. Co» v. Com, Penn., 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 6.

This case has an especial interest in being the first reported opinion of Chief Justice Fuller; the judgment is a model of brevity. Rutterman v, Tel. Co., 127 U. S. 411, digested 2 Harv. L. Rev. 143, is followed as authority without discus- sion.

Constitutional Law — Police Power — Civil Rights. — The defendant excluded certain colored persons from his skating-rink. He was indicted under a clause in the Penal Code of New York, which declares that no citizen of the State can, by reason of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, be excluded from places of amusement. It was contended that this clause violates the piovision of the United States Constitution that no one shall *'be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Held^ however, that the clause is within the police power of the State. The argument is that the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United Sutes Constitution show that dis- criminations against colored people are against policy if made by a State. They are as much against policy if made by a private individual in his business, provided his business, like that of the defendant, is of a pubUc nature. The case, therefore, comes within the principle of Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, **that where one devotes his property to a use in which the public have an interest, he in effect grants to the public an interest in that use, and must submit to be controlled by