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the presumption that the legislation is the proper exercise of the police power, and that, in the words of the Supreme Court of the United States, "a large discretion is necessarily vested in the Legislature to determine not only what the interests of the public require, but what measures are necessary for the protection of such interests." (Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366.) People v. Smith, 108 Mich. 527, 66 N. W. 382, 62 Am. St. Rep. 715, is a leading case on this matter. In that case the Court says that "all presumptions should be in favor of the validity of legislative action," and that it is the province of the legislature and not the courts to pass on the reasonableness and necessity of a police regulation, for the legislature may make thorough investigations through committees and commissions which the courts cannot do. Mr. Jus tice Holmes, in the Oklahoma Bank Guarantee case, tersely states the gist of the matter in the following words: "If, then, the legislature of the state thinks that the public welfare requires the measure under consideration, anal ogy and principle are in favor of the power to enact it." He further states that a state's police power "may be put forth . in aid of what is sanctioned by usage, or held by the prevailing morality or strong and preponderant opinion to be greatly and immediately neces sary' to the public welfare." (Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 31 Sup. Ct. Rep. 186, 188.) Mr. Justice Werner, deliv ering the opinion of the Court of Appeals of New York in the Ives case, and Chief Justice Cullen and Justice Bartlett in their concurring opinion, strongly inti
University of Kansas.
mate the possibility that the doctrine as laid down by the Supreme Court of the United States in the Noble State Bank case, just referred to, might jus tify the validity of the New York com pensation law in question. But they dispose of the matter by declining to be bound by that decision in the con struction of their own state constitution. There can be scarcely any doubt that workmen's compensation laws are economically, socially and morally sound. The New York court in the Ives case (94 N. E. 431, 436) admits that. It is so conceded by all modern statesmen, jurists, economists and sociologists. Al most all the enlightened countries of Europe, the principal provinces of the Dominion of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Transvaal, and many other countries, have had such laws in opera tion for some time. The result of such legislation in Germany was the reduc tion of the number of accidents almost sixty-two per cent during the first five years of its operation. "If, therefore," in the words of the Supreme Court of Washington, in its recent decision (State ex rel. v. Clausen, 117 Pac. 1101, 1113), "the act in con troversy has a reasonable relation to the protection of the public health, morals, safety, or welfare, it is not to be set aside because it may incidentally de prive some person of his property with out fault or take the property of one person to pay the obligations of another. To be fatally defective in these respects, the regulation must be so utterly unreas onable and so extravagant in nature and purposes as to capriciously interfere with and destroy private rights."
