156 Pa. 201 | Pa. | 1893
Opinion by
This case belongs to a rapidly growing class that has already become uncomfortably large and troublesome in this state. The profits to be derived from an unlawful traffic are much larger than those that flow from legitimate trade, provided the unlawful traffic may be pursued without serious interference from the officers of the law. Law abiding citizens will not embark in a business that is forbidden by the laws of the state in which they live. Timid men are afraid to do so. This kind of operation is left therefore to those who have no respect for law, no interest in the public welfare, and no fear of public opinion. When such men deliberately determine to put money in their pockets by engaging in a business which the state has declared to be injurious to the public morals, the public health, or the public peace, and has therefore forbidden altogether or placed under strict police regulations, they are morally certain to seek immunity for themselves and their unlawful business by immediate flight to the sanctuary of the national constitution, and there laying hold on the horns of the altar of interstate commerce.
The road to this refuge of lawbreakers is well beaten. There are signboards at every crossing on the route; and the inter
Beginning with the peripatetic swindlers whose worthless wares are transported in tin trunks which they carry in their hands and who hunt their victims in the secluded villages and along the country roads with an instinct that rarely fails ; and running up or down the scale of lawbreakers to the men whose commercial operations extend to the sale of oleomargarine by the pound, and of intoxicating drinks by the pint, there is no man in the procession who is not a conscious and deliberate lawbreaker, and who does not set his possible profits from a forbidden business above his duty to society or the state that protects him. These men seek to pervert a rule of law that has a wide and a beneficial field of operation. They claim to be engaged in interstate commerce, and to be entitled to the protection of the general government as against the police laws of the individual states, for that reason. In support of their claim they will assert that their “ goods,” whether consisting of oleomargarine, beer, whisky, paste diamonds, pinchbeck watches, or the like, were made on the other side of the state line and imported by or for them ; or it may be they will claim to be the agents or factors of the makers; or to have received, and to be engaged in selling “original packages,” consisting of a pound of oleomargarine, or a pocket flask of whisky, put up expressly for their trade at the still or factory just “ over the line.” The mischief done and attempted in this manner, under the guise of interstate commerce, is so great, so open, and so difficult to suppress or punish, that in many states besides this it has become a matter of general and sincere regret that the interstate commerce clause was over held applicable to trade in any article recognized throughout the civilized world as a proper subject for police regulation and control. We are embarrassed by the difficulties in the way of the enforcement of our police legislation, made in good faith, for the protection of our citizens.
The question involved in this case is therefore one of great practical importance. It is nothing less than whether the police power of the states survives at all, or has been absorbed and extinguished by the interstate commerce clause in the national
It is said that the recent case of Leisey v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100, justifies the contention that this state is powerless to interfere with the defendant’s traffic. But Leisey v. Hardin, like all other cases, must be read in the light of its own facts. Leisey was a brewer who made beer in the state of Illinois. Hardin was an officer of the state of Iowa where the law forbade the sale, and the keeping for sale, of any form of intoxicating drink except for sacramental, medical or mechanical purposes. Leisejr shipped from his brewery in Illinois to his agent in Iowa about three hundred casks, and eleven cases of beer, sealed in the ordinary manner. These were sent there for sale, and were in the hands of Leisey’s agent or employer in Iowa for that purpose. While the entire consignment of beer was yet in the possession of the maker, or his agent, with seals unbroken, it was seized by Hardin under the law of Iowa, and taken out of the possession of Leisey’s agent. An action of replevin was then brought to recover the casks and cases so taken. Two questions were thus raised. First, did Leisey own the packages taken from the possession of his agent? Second, if he was the owner had he a right to have them in his possession in the state of Iowa ? The first question was not controverted. He was the maker and owner, of the packages seized. The second question was one of law and was disposed of upon the interstate commerce clause. The goods being in original packages with seals unbroken, no sales having been made therefrom, it was held that they were not liable to seizure under the police laws of the state into which they had been brought.
This is the single question involved in that case, and beyond this it is not binding as a precedent upon the court that rendered the judgment, nor upon us. We shall not question the wisdom of that decision, nor abate one jot from its legal force, though we sincerely regret some of its consequences. Stand
The defendant Schollenberger is a citizen and resident oí this state. For at least two years he has been living under the protection of its laws, and is bound by all the obligations that such residence and protection impose. He is a merchant, with a store in the city of Philadelphia. He sells his goods to customers, as other merchants sell their goods, from his stock in store, open to their examination. The commodity, or one of the commodities, in which he deals is oleomargarine, for the sale of which at his store in Philadelphia he has obtained a license under the internal revenue laws of the United States during the last two years. He sells, not for shipment in original packages to other countries or other states, but to local customers ; and in the case now before us to an eating house keeper near by, for consumption upon his table as an article of food.
Now our statute explicitly forbids the sale, the keeping, and the offering of oleomargarine for sale, as an article of food. The identical acts forbidden by the law-are thus seen to be the acts which he admits he is engaged in, and which he claims the right to do, notwithstanding his residence in, and the statutes of, the state. This right he claims to derive from the interstate commerce clause in two wa3rs. The first of these rests, on the nonresidence of the manufacturer. He asserts that the oleomargarine is made in another state. Because the manufacturer can lawfully make and sell under the laws of the state where the manufactory is located, he contends that the manufacturer can sell his own product anywhere ; and for this purpose can establish stores for its sale all over this state, if he chooses to do so. As the manufacturer may do this in person, it is contended that he can do it by an agent, so that he could have as many stores, conducted b3r as many agents, as there are towns in the commonwealth, and conduct the trade in them all regardless of the police laws of the state. The second line along which he claims to derive immunity is the “ original package ” doctrine. He says he sells in the packages made up a-t the factory. He does not divide a roll, a pail or tub of his “ goods, ” but requires the purchaser to take the entire roll, pail
We do not deny that a nonresident manufacturer may sell his goods and ship them to a buyer in the usual trade packages employed in good faith by manufacturers, without being amenable to the police laws of this state therefor. He may bring them here and hold them in bulk without danger. So much is fairly ruled in Leisey v. Hardin. He may sell them to the trade or for shipment to the states in the same unbroken-trade packages notwithstanding their unlawful character. This clearly results from the rule in Leisey v. Hardin. We might have held, had the question been one for us, that the object of the interstate commerce clause was quite different from what it seems thought to be. We might have thought it intended to prevent the establishment of state customhouses and taxation along state lines, and to make for the general purposes of legitimate trade all the states open to the manufacturer and merchants of the several states. But for this the states might have intercepted all goods reaching their borders, and weighed, valued, and taxed them, before permitting them to proceed to their destination. The destructive effect upon commerce of such restrictions was clearly foreseen and wisely guarded against by our fathers. But the protection of the lives, the health and morals of citizens was the chief of the duties of government left to the states when the Union was formed. The common law rights and remedies are to be sought in the courts of the states. For this reason we would have held that the police regulations of the states stood on impregnable ground and that while no state had the right to tax or to burden interstate commerce, each state had the right to exclude from its territory such articles of food or drink as were injurious in their,character and effects upon the health or the morals of the public. But however this may be, it will not be denied that state commerce, that is business conducted within the lines of a state, was left to state control.
It was the intention of the United States to protect the citizens and the productions of one state against unjust discrimination by the other states; but it was, and is, the duty of the state to protect its citizens against each other.
If then the retail of oleomargarine at the defendant’s store is
Intrenched behind the interstate commerce clause so construed, citizens of other states could prey upon our people, trample upon our laws, and make gain out of a traffic forbidden to our citizens, only to be delivered up absolutely and unconditionally to them. It would require only that such citizen of another state should establish a local store in some of our towns or cities, or in all of them, conduct a local business, to meet a local demand, and, when called upon by the officers of the law, make reply that he made the goods in some other state, and, as a manufacturer, supplied himself, as a local dealer, with wares of a foreign origin. Neither the foreign origin of the goods sold, nor of the seller nor both together, will convert a business that is local and intrastate, into one that is general and interstate within the meaning of the constitution of the United States.
But the defendant’s second position is tliat, admitting the views now stated to be correct, he is nevertheless beyond the reach of the state law for another reason, viz.: that his sales are made in original packages and are therefore interstate commerce. We have examined the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States for a definition of the term “original package.” It does not seem however to have received, and perhaps at this time is not capable of, a precise definition that may be applied to it in all cases. The idea for which it stands is however not difficult of apprehension or statement. The methods adopted by manufacturers and importers for packing and preparing goods for transportation by sea or land, differ with the differences in the character, bulk, and material, of the merchandise itself. The general purpose is to adopt that form
It is also found that he made these sales for a nonresident employer. But the residence or business of the owner, standing alone, is wholly immaterial. Our law deals with the local trade regardless of the nationality or residence of the trader. It is further found that the sales are made in packages put up by the trader at his factory and sent to his store in this city for sale. This as we have said does not amount to an assertion that the sales are made in the “ original packages ” of commerce. If it shows anything upon the subject it shows that they are not so made.
One who plants his feet squarely upon the police laws of this state and defies its officers to suppress or to punish his unlawful trade must show a clear legal right to take and maintain his position as a public enemy, or suffer the penalty of the broken law.
To hold otherwise would make it impossible for the people of any state to protect themselves from evils that by common consent throughout the civilized world need to be restrained and removed by suitable legislation. It would also strike a blow of absolutely crushing weight at the existence of the police power in the several states, and render all attempts at its exercise ineffectual and useless.
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and judgment is now entered on the case stated in favor of the plaintiff for the sum of one hundred dollars, with the costs of suit.c> After judgment is properly entered, let the record be remitted for purposes of execution.