115 Mo. 307 | Mo. | 1893
Lead Opinion
This is an information in two counts, filed by the prosecuting attorney of Macon county against the three defendants engaged in carrying on the business of mining coal in that county. The first count avers that the defendants did unlawfully issue and circulate in payment of wages a certain order, check, etc., payable to P. Daniels otherwise than in money, without being payable at the option of the holder in merchandise or money. The second count states in substance that defendants unlawfully failed tq redeem a certain order, check, etc., issued to P. Daniels in payment for wages, the same having been presented for payment thirty days from the date of the delivery thereof. *
The information is based upon sections 7058 and 7060 of the Revised Statutes of 1889. The first of these sections provides:
“It shall not be'lawful for any corporation, person or firm engaged in manufacturing or mining in this state to issue, pay out or circulate for payment of the wages of labor, any order, check, memorandum, token or evidence of indebtedness, payable in whole or in part otherwise than in lawful money of the United States, unless the same is negotiable and redeemable at its face value, without discount; in cash or in goods, wares or merchandise or supplies, at the option of the holder at the store or other place of business of such firm, person or corporation; * * * and the person who, or corporation, firm or company, which, may issue any such order, check, memorandum, token or other evidence of
Section 7060 makes it a misdemeanor for any person, firm or company engaged in mining or manufacturing to issue or circulate in payment of wages any •order, check, etc., payable otherwise than as provided in section 7058, or to fail to redeem any such order, check, etc., in money when presented for payment.
The circuit court, sitting as a jury, foundthe defendants guilty as charged in the first count of the' information and assessed their punishment at a fine of $10, and they appealed.
The evidence discloses the following facts: The defendants, composing the firm of Loomis & Snively, were the owners of coal mines, and in connection with that business carried on a store. Peter Daniels worked for them as a miner. At the end of January, 1891, he owed them $43.20. On the eighteenth of the following February he had earned as wages during that month $5.50, and on that day he requested and the defendants’clerk gave him a “credit coupon check book” upon their store. The coupons were in sums of five, ten and twenty-five cents, and aggregated $5. It is stated on the back of the book that “the coupons in this book are not good if detached, and are payable only in merchandise when presented by P. Daniels.” Each coupon says, “good for merchandise at our store, not transferable. Loomis & Snively.”
Daniels assigned this check book to Burge, who assigned it to Hughes and he transferred it to Mr.
The contention is, that the two sections of the statute before mentioned are in conflict with several clauses of the constitution of this state, and especially the following:
“1. That all persons have a natural right to life, liberty and the. enjoyment of the gains of their own industry.”
“2. That no person.shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”
“3. And thatthey violate that part of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States, which declares ‘nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person the equal protection of the laws.’ ”
The words, “due process of law,” as used in these clauses of both constitutions mean the same as ‘ ‘the law of the land.” 2 Story on the Constitution [5 Ed.] sec. 1943; Cooley on Constitutional Limitations [6 Ed.] 430.
It was said in Railroad v. Humes, 115 U. S. 512: “In England the requirement of due process of law, in cases where life, liberty and property were affected, was originally designed to secure the subject against the arbitary action of the'crown, and to place him under the protection of the law. The words were held to be
It is now axiomatic that, “everything which may pass under the form of an enactment is not therefore to be considered the law of the land.” Speaking of these words, Mr. Justice Johnson said:- “They were intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government, unrestrained by the established principles of private rights and distributive justice.” Bank of Columbia v. Okely, 4 Wheat. 235. Law of the land is said to mean a law binding upon every member of the community under similar circumstances. Wally’s Heirs v. Kennedy, 2 Yerg. 554. The word “liberty” as used in these constitutional declarations means more than freedom of locomotion. It includes and comprehends among other things, freedom of speech,, the right to self defense against unlawful violence and the right to freely buy and sell as others may. 2 Story on the Constitution [5 Ed.] sec. 1590.
From the foregoing descriptions and definitions of “due process of law” or its equivalent “law of the land” it must be evident that this constitutional safeguard condemns arbitrary, unequal and partial legislation; and it is equally clear that the right to make contracts and have them enforced, as others may, is one of the rights so secured to every citizen. There is no doubt but many of our legislative enactments operate upon classes cf individuals only, and they are not invalid because they so operate, so long as the classification is reasonable and not arbitrary. Thus it is perfectly competent to legislate concerning married women, minors, insane persons, bankers, common carriers and the like; and the power of the legislature to prescribe police regulations applicable to localities and classes is very great, because such laws are designed to protect property *and the
When, speaking upon this subject, Judge CooLEr says:
“The doubt might also arise whether a regulation made for any one class of citizens, entirely arbitrary in its character in restricting their rights, privileges or legal capacity in a manner before unknown to the law, could be sustained, notwithstanding its generality. Distinctions in these respects must rest upon some reason upon which they can be defended — like the want of capacity in infants and insane persons; and, if the legislature should undertake to provide that persons following some specified lawful trade or employment should not have capacity to make contracts, or to receive conveyances, or to build such houses as others were allowed to erect, or in any other way to make such use of their property as was permissible to others, it can scarcely be doubted •that the act would transcend the due bounds of legislative power, even though no express constitutional provision could be pointed out with which it would cometa conflict. To forbid to an individual or a class the right to the acquisition or enjoyment of
There can be no doubt but the legislature may regulate the business of mining and manufacturing so as to secure the health and safety of the employes, but. that is not the scope of the two sections of the statute now in question. They single out those persons who are engaged in carrying on the pursuits of mining and manufacturing, and say to such persons, you cannot contract for laboj’ payable alone in goods, wares and merchandise. The farmer, the merchant, the builder and the numerous contractors employing thousands of men may make such contracts, but you cannot. They say to the mining and manufacturing employes, though of full age and competent to contract, still you shall not have the power to sell your labor for meat and clothing alone as others may.
It will not do to say these sections simply regulate payment of wages, for that is not their purpose. They undertake to deny to the persons engaged in the two designated pursuits the right to make and enforce the' most ordinary every-day contracts — a right accorded to all other persons. This denial of the right to contract is based upon a classification which is purely arbitrary,I because the ground of the classification has no relation/ whatever to the natural capacity of persons to contract.!
Now it may be that instances of oppression have occurred and will occur on the part of some mine-owners and manufacturers, but do they not occur quite as frequently in other fields of labor? Conceding that
Liberty, as we have seen, includes the right to contract as others may, and to take that right away from a class of persons following lawful pursuits is simply depriving such persons of a time-honored right which the constitution undertakes to secure to every citizen. Applying the principles of constitutionallawbefore stated, we can come to no other conclusion than this, that these sections of the statute are utterly void. They attempt to strike down one of the fundamental principles of constitutional government. If they can stand, it is difficult to see an end to such legislation, and the government becomes one of special privileges, instead of a compact “to promote the general welfare of the people.” We place our conclusion on the broad ground that these sections of the statute are not “due process of law” within the meaning of the constitution.
Statutes like or analagous to the one in hand have been enacted in several of the states of this union, and they have been the subject of consideration of several courts of last resort, and it is well to examine those cases with some detail; for it must be obvious that general constitutional declarations are the better understood when seen in the light of the facts of the particular cases in which they have been applied.
The supreme judicial court in Massachusetts had under consideration, in Commonwealth v. Perry, 28 N. E. Rep. 1126, a statute which provides that “no employer shall impose a fine upon or withold the wages, or any part of the wages, of an employe engaged at weaving, for imperfections that may arise during the process of weaving.” It was held that if the act went no further than to forbid the imposition of a fine for
Godcharles v. Wigeman, 113 Pa. St. 431, was an action brought by Wigeman to recover wages as a puddler. Plea of payment, etc. During the time of his employment the plaintiff asked for and received orders from defendants on different parties for coal and other articles, which orders were honored by the parties on whom drawn and the defendants paid them. It seems an act of the legislature made all orders given by employers engaged in the business of manufacturing, to their workmen, payable in goods or anything but money void. Speaking of these sections of the act the court said: They “are utterly unconstitutional and void, inasmuch as by them an attempt has been made by the legislature to do what, in this country, cannot be done; that is, prevent persons who are sni juris from making their own contracts. The act is an infringement alike of the right of the employer and the employe; * * * he may sell his labor for what he thinks best,
In State v. Goodwill, 33 W. Va. 179, a statute of ' that state prohibited persons engaged in mining and manufacturing from issuing orders in payment of labor, except such as should be made payable in money; it made a violation of its provisions a misdemeanor. The ■constitution of that state declares that all men have certain inherent rights; that is to say “the enjoyment of life and liberty with the means of acquiring and possessing property and of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” The statute was held unconstitutional after a full consideration. Says the court: “The right to use, buy and sell property and contract in respect thereto, including contracts for labor — which is,- as we have seen, property — is protected by the constitution.” The scope of the opinion is well summarized in the head note in these words: “It is not competent for the legislature, under the constitution, to’ single out owners and operators of mines and manufacturers of every kind and provide that they shall bear burdens not imposed on other owners of property or employers' of labor, and prohibit them from making contracts which it is competent for other owners of property or employers of labor to make.” And this ruling was. followed and approved in State v. Coal & Coke Co., 33 W. Va. 188.
The. statute brought in question in Millett v. People, 117 Ill. 294, required all coal produced in the state to be weighed on scales to be furnished by the mine owners, and subjected the mine owners to a fine or imprisonment for a failure to comply with its provisions. By another section it was provided “that all contracts
■ Some of the cases just cited cannot be distinguished from this one. In others there is some difference in the facts and in the statutes considered, and in some of them the constitutional provisions use different words from the clauses of our constitution before set out; but the cases just cited are all in point of principle like the one in hand. The differences, such as they are, strengthen rather than weaken the conclusion which we have before expressed; for it must be evident that they all teach this doctrine, that constitutional declarations concerning the liberty of the citizen, though using different words, are not to be reduced to an empty sound. Liberty we have seen includes the right to acquire property and that means and includes the right to make and enforce contracts. We do not say that such rights cannot be regulated by general law, hut we do say that the legislature cannot single out one
It cannot be said that these defendants, in operating their coal mines, are pursuing a public business, or that they have in any way, shape or form devoted their property to a public use; and this being so the cases of Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, and Budd v. New York, 143 U. S. 517, are not in conflict with what we have said. On the contrary the line of argument pursued in those cases goes far to show that a statute like the one in hand cannot stand. ^The many adjudications upholding police regulations need not be noticed, for it cannot be claimed that the law in question is of that character. The case of Hancock v. Yaden, 121 Ind. 366, goes far to support and uphold this law, but we cannot agree to the doctrine of that case. Slow as we are and should be to declare legislative enactments void, we can reach no other conclusion than that before expressed.
The judgment is reversed and the defendants discharged.
SEPARATE OPINION.
Dissenting Opinion
The reasons of my learned,associate, Qhief Justice Black, for holding the statute unconsti
1. There is no issue touching the impairment of obligation of any contract concluded before the passage of the act. The transactions in view occurred long afterwards. The only controversy now is whether or not the statute violates the guaranties of “liberty” and “property,” and of “due process of law,” on which the judgment of the majority of the court is placed.
In the principal opinion it is conceded that the legislature has power to restrict freedom of contract in some directions, and in respect of certain parties; for example, “infants and insane persons.” That concession may be taken as a starting point for the present investigation. For when it is granted that liberty to make contracts is not absolute and unlimited, our difference is narrowed into the inquiry, what is the peculiarity of the subject-matter of the statute under review which exempts it from regulation by the law-making power!
One reason given for condemning the law before us is that the subjection of corporations and other persons operating mines ánd manufacturing establishments to such regulation is a “purely arbitrary” classification; therefore, an infringement of their constitutional liberty.
Although that proposition seems a vital one to support. the conclusion reached, it is said in another part of the opinion that “it is perfectly competent to legislate concerning married women, minors, insane persons, bankers, common carriers, and the like.”
In this connection the supreme court has held (in a case which furnishes an elaborate list of instances of such legislation) that “class legislation is not necessa
The lawmaker necessarily deals with conditions as he finds them. If he observes and wishes to abate some fraudulent practice or abuse of power prevailing only in 'one line of business, the fact that, in legislating to correct it, he does not also include in his remedy all other phases in human affairs, can furnish no reason for stigmatizing his remedy as no law at all. If an act reaching only mining and manufacturing concerns is, on that account, not "due process of law,” what must be held of statutes establishing special rules of liability, or business regulations, applicable to railroads only, to warehousemen, pawnbrokers, auctioneers, millers, and the many other classes of persons whose affairs form topics of treatment in separate laws in Missouri. Are all such statutes void because each relates to persons engaged only in "the particular class of business named in it? Probably they would not be so held. Some of them are acted on and enforced almost daily. Yet if they are valid, what, let me ask, is there so -exceptional about the truck system that precludes legislation applicable to those lines of business in which it prevails.
If laws regulating the contracts of bankers (Revised ¡Statutes, 1889, sec. 706), common carriers (Revised ¡Statutes, 1889, sec. 944), mechanics (Revised Statutes, 1889, sec. 6705), and insurance companies (Revised Statutes, 1889, sec. 5856), as distinct classes of persons are
In Durant v. Mining Co. (1889), 97 Mo. 62, the same learned judge gave full effect to a statute “providing for the health and safety of persons employed in coal mines.” Session Acts, 1881, p. 165.
If a law applicable only to persons engaged in mining is constitutional when dealing with the topics of their health and safety, it is obvious that an act designed to prevent fraud or oppression in the payment of wages in mining and manufacturing enterprises ■ is not objectionable on the ground of the selection or “classification” of those enterprises as subjects for separate legislation.
Touching this particular point, the supreme court of the United States has said:
“Legislation is not open to the charge of depriving one of his rights without due process of law, if it be general in its operation upon the subjects to which it' relates.” Dent v. West Virginia (1889), 129 U. S. 124.
The same court has held that statutes creating a different rule of liability, as applied to one class of persons, from that generally in force, do not infringe the right to “due process of law.” Railroad v. Humes (1885), 115 U. S. 512; Railroad v. Mackey (1888), 127 U. S. 205. And the supreme court of 'this state has determined that “a statute which relates to persons or things as a class is a general law, while a statute which
If the act is invalid, it cannot be because it treats of mining and manufacturing concerns only. In re Oberg (1891), 21 Ore. 406; 14 L. R. A. 577; Youngblood v. Trust & Sav. Co. (Ala. 1892), 12 South. Rep. 579.
2. The foremost ground of the opinion is to be found in the ruling that the constitutional guaranty of “due process” condemns “arbitrary, unequal, and partial legislation;” that the statute in question is of that nature, and is therefore annulled as unconstitutional and void. With due respect for the judgment of my colleagues, that view appears to me erroneous. The act, in part, was passed in 1881. It was amended in 1885, and re-enacted by the revision of 1889. 1't has thus received the sanction of the thirty-first, thirty-third and thirty-fifth General Assemblies of Missouri and of Governors Crittenden, Marmaduke and Francis successively. Its plain purpose is to put some restraint upon that sort .of freedom which would permit the employer to contract for labor, payable in goods, and then place his own prices on the goods delivered in payment.
' The general objects of such a law, as well as the principle upon which it rests,- have been fully stated by English judges, having before them a British law of similar character, commonly called the “Truck Act.” 1 & 2 Wm. IV. (1831) ch. 37.
“In passing the statute referred to, the legislature seems to have considered the artificer as requiring special protection in his dealings with his employers, and to have thought it right, therefore, to make the contracts between these parties one of the exceptions to the general rule, that persons should be allowed to make their own contracts in their own way. The par
“The old truck enactments are very numerous and date from about the year 1464 (4 Edw. IV). They were applied first to one branch of manufacture, and then in succession to others as experience and the progress of manufactures dictated, till they embraced the whole, or nearly the whole, of the manufactures of England. They established the obligation and produced, or at least fortified the custom, of uniformly paying the whole wages of artificers in the current coin of the realm. They were finally collected and consolidated into one Act by the statute now under consideration (1 & 2 Wm. IV. ch. 37). They were in truth part of a system of legislation regulating the relation of master and workman, this part of it being in favor of the workman, who, as an individual, was deemed weaker than his master, and therefore liable to oppression. * * * The truck act when passed was a practical deduction from a principle, still more general, pervading more or less all systems of law founded on experience; that is to say, that where two classes of persons are dealing together and one class is, generally
Some of the bargains referred to by that learned judge, as well as a great variety of other 'agreements, have been nullified by courts in this country as well as in England without the aid of statutes, on the ground that they were contrary to public policy (Greenhood on “Public Policy”), while judges possessing equity jurisdiction have for ages exercised, unquestioned, the power to declare agreements Void between attorney and client, or between other persons occupying confidential relationships, where advantage was taken of the confidence to secure a bargain which the court considered unduly favorable to the dominant party thereto.
In “The Juliana” (1822), 2 Dod. 504, Lord Stowell refused to enforce a covenant between a mariner and
So that at common law, in equity and in admiralty the judiciary exercise the right to annul certain agreements because unfair and unconscionable, the principle of such rulings being that, in some circumstances, real contractual equality, or that entire freedom of action essential to the legal idea of a contract, is wanting.
It seems unreasonable to hold that the courts alone may determine what the public policy of a state shall be respecting the validity of agreements between parties situated so that one may have an undue advantage over' the other. Why has not the legislature power by general law operating on future dealings to declare a similar public policy^
The judgments of the courts above mentioned have never been considered an arbitrary infringement of the liberty of contract, nor should a statute, aimed at a system affording the opportunity for oppression described by the English judges quoted, be so considered.
Liberty “on its positive side denotes the fulness of individual existence; on its negative side it denotes the necessary restraint on all which is needed to promote the greatest possible amount of liberty for each.” (Amos, Science of Law, p. 90).
Rational freedom is not a license to oppress.
“As soon as any part of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it.” Mill on Liberty, ch. 4.
The right to regulate contracts so as to mitigate the oppression of the truck system, without impairing the obligation of any -existing 'agreement, is a part of the police power, “which is but another name for that authority which resides in every sovereignty to' pass all laws for the internal regulation and government of the state, necessary for the public welfare.” People v. Budd (1889), 117 N. Y. 14; the License Cases (1847), 5 How. 583.
By the constitution of Missouri it is declared that “the exercise of the police power of the state,shall never be abridged, or so construed as to permit corporations ■ to conduct their business in such manner as to infringe the equal rights of individuals, or the general well-being of the state.” Constitution, 1875, art. 12, sec. 5.
The police power in recent'years has been applied, in many notable instances, where it was resisted on the ground that the liberty of making contracts was not subject to limitation by the legislative power; but the
In Water Works v. Schottler (1884), 110 U. S. 347, it was said that government had power to regulate the prices at which water should be sold by one enjoying a virtual monopoly of the sale.
These decisions show that the right of self-preservation, which exists in the commonwealth no less than in the individual, may, in some circumstances, justify limitations upon the theoretical freedom of contract; and that when, for any reason (for instance, the existence of a monopoly), real liberty of action is wanting on the side of one of the parties, in dealings forming part of the activities of civilized society, a reasonable check may justly be placed by law upon the power of the other to oppress his fellow-citizen.
Such checks upon liberty of contract have been sustained by the highest courts. Others involving the application of the same police power (though in less exigent circumstances) have been long in force in Missouri in many statutes, among which are especially noteworthy the laws fixing a maximum rate of interest for the ¥.se of money (Revised Statutes, 1889, sec. 5972), giving mechanics a lien in certain circumstances, (Henry & Coatsworth Co. v. Evans (1889), 97 Mo. 47), governing the liability' of common carriers, (Revised Statutes, 1889, sec. 944),forbidding contracts to limit the time for bringing, any action, (Revised Statutes, sec. 2394), putting into insurance contracts statutory terms, and nullifying “any stipulation in the policy to the contrary,” (Revised Statutes, sec. 5856,
The enactment before us comes veiy near to the class last named. Examining its terms (section 7058) closely, it will be observed that it merely impresses upon contracts for the payment of wages with goods, etc., certain statutory conditions, intended to give the-employe an option to demand payment in cash or goods, as his interest may appear to require. As the employer fixes the price of the goods, he is not prejudiced by such a regulation. Its effect is to establish a just standard of value for every dollar due for wagfes. It does not differ in principle from governmental regulations in the form of laws by which a person who has contracted to receive a yard of cloth or a bushel of corn is protected against the necessity of accepting such a short yard or light bushel as the seller may choose to impose upon him. Statutes designed to prevent that sort of overreaching have been' universally regarded as proper exertions of the police power. Charleston v. Rogers (1823), 2 McCord, 495; Stokes v. New York (1835), 14 Wend. 87; Green v. Moffett (1856), 22 Mo. 529; Yates v. Milwaukee (1860), 12 Wis. 673; Eaton v. Kegan (1874), 114 Mass. 433.
In view of. the onerous bearing of the truck system upon some of those whom it affects, in compelling them to accept payment for labor in articles whose value is determined by the party adversely interested in the bargain, this statute (which seeks to relieve against that hardship) should be held (no less than those already mentioned) “due process of law.”
Adam Smith, the great advocate of freedom of commerce, declared such legislation “perfectly just and equitable.” Wealth of Nations, c. 10, approv
Whether or not that view is sound it is not our province to determine, for all question of the policy, wisdom or expediency of the law belongs to other departments not to the judiciary; The people in the exercise of , the prerogative of self-government have thought proper to establish a rule of conduct on the subject which appeared to them conducive towards maintaining the equilibrium of right and duty between citizens whose common welfare was important to the state. No express command of the constitution forbade such action, and in my judgment it should be sustained.
3. In his opinion the learned chief justice adopts a quotation to the effect that an act of the legislature may “transcend the due bounds of legislative power, even though no express constitutional provision could be pointed out with which it would come in conflict.”
That view of the extent of the revisory power of the supreme court over acts of the general assembly has not previously prevailed in Missouri. It is in conflict with several precedents.
In County Court v. Griswold (1874), 58 Mo. 192, it was declared: “That the law is unjust, or impolitic, or oppressive, will not authorize a court to declare it illegal, unless it violates some specific provision of the constitution. * * * A law may be unjust in its operation, or even in the principles upon which it was founded; but that would not justify a court in expanding the prohibitions in the constitution beyond their natural and original meaning, in order to remedy an evil in any particular case. These principles have now become axiomatic.”
To the same purport is Hamilton v. County Court (1851), 15 Mo. 3.
The spirit and intent of terms used in the constitution are no doubt as much a part of it as its letter, and should be considered in its interpretation. But that is a rule essentially different from the proposition that a statute may be pronounced void because it appears to some court to be in' conflict with the supposed general spirit or principles of free government, not expressed in any particular provision of the constitution. To that proposition, or any approach towards declaring it, my dissent is earnestly entered.
The authority of the court is drawn from the organic law which asserts the independence of the three departments of government (Constitution, 1875, article 3),. and the. power of each is marked by the terms of that instrument.
' It has heretofore been considered settled that all action of the legislative department comes within range of the presumption that public, officers have rightly acted until the contrary is made clearly to appear; consequently that “a party who wishes us to pronounce a law unconstitutional takes upon himself the burden of
■ Such a doctrine (reversing the presumption of the validity of statutes), coupled with the other proposition already discussed in this paragraph, subjecting every act of the general assembly to the hazard of being declared void, ‘ Though no express constitutional provisions could be pointed out with which it would come in conflict,” furnishes a very interesting formula to determine the constitutionality of legislation, but one quite different from that defined in former precedents-in this state. It amounts in substance to a declaration that statutes which seem to the court unjust or unreasonable are not “due process of law,” though not otherwise distinctly forbidden by the constitution.
To catch the full force of this ruling it will be well to recall that the guaranty of “due process” is now a part of the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution as well as of our own organic law; so that the test of the validity of Missouri legislation is to be whether or not it conforms to the standard of reasonableness, indicated by the chief justice, as applied by the federal courts as well as by our own. It would greatly prolong this opinion to point out the far-reaching consequences of adopting' such a standard, and its wide divergence from the principles of republican government through co-ordinate departments as established by our written constitutions. It is enough now to assert a dissent to those views of the organic law, as well as to the judgment in this case to which they have led.
The Pennsylvania case should be read along with the later one, in which it was held that the legislature might, under the police power, interfere with freedom of contract to the extent of forbidding totally the sale of an article of food, even though pure and.wholesome. Powell v. Commonwealth (1886), 114 Pa. St. 265. Judge G-okdon, who wrote the former decision, dissented from the latter'; but it was affirmed (1888) by the United States supreme court, 127 U. S. 678.
In a yet later unamimous opinion in that state, a •statute was held valid prohibiting citizens from assigning certain claims against others, for the purpose of •suit in another state. Sweeney v. Hunter (1891), 145 Pa. St. 363.
The West Virginia case cited by the chief justice has been much limited, if not overruled, by State v. Coal Co. (1892), 36 W. Va. 802, and the Massachusetts decision was by a divided court.
The cases in Illinois are placed chiefly on the ground that it is unconstitutional to establish rules to govern mining and manufacturing concerns different from those which regulate other legitimate enterprises. To that contention the remarks in the first paragraph .above are intended to apply. Moreover, the legislation •considered in that state differs in important particulars from that here in view.'
On the other side, Hancock v. Yaden (1890), 121 Ind. 366 supports the position taken in this opinion.
In State v. Mfg. Co. (R. I. 1892), 17 L. R. A. 856, a law requiring the payment of wages weekly was held valid; and the principles declared in the decisions .sustaining statutes prohibiting the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine are wholly inconsistent with the .judgment of the majority of the court in the case at-
5. It bas been suggested, in the main opinion as well as at the bar, that the statute in question is subject to criticism as being an exhibition of paternalism in government. To this it may properly be answered that that consideration affects only the policy of the statute and not the constitutional power of the legislature to enact it.
Students of juridical history are aware that governmental interferences with liberty of contract between man and man are less frequent now than in earlier epochs of the English law. Spencer, “Justice,” ch. 15, sec. 70; Mayne, Ancient Law [3 Am. Ed.] ch. 9, p. 295. But the power to interfere when necessary to prevent oppression is an important prerogative of sovereignty, and resides in the people of this state, subject only to the limitations expressed in their constitution.
The cure for paternal legislation is not to be found in an assumption by the courts of any part of the power of self-government belonging to the people or their representatives.
To borrow the words of Mr. Justice Hallan in the United States supreme court, referring to the oleomargarine law:
“If all that can be said of this legislation is that it is unwise, or unnecessarily .oppressive to those manufacturing or selling wholesome oleomargarine as an article of food, their appeal must be to the legislature, or to the ballot box, not -to the judiciary. The latter cannot interfere without usurping powers committed to another department of government.” Powell v. Pennsylvania (1888), 127 U. S. 686.