St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-01-06
NO STATE ELEVATOR.
Supreme Court Says the Law
Is Unconstitutional.
NOT WITHIN POLICE POWER,
State Cannot Go Into the Ele-
Vator Business.
THE DANGERS POINTED OUT:
Legislature Cannot Assume
to Be the People.
THE DANGERS POINTED OUT.
PATERNALiSM rs MENTIONED.

The supreme court yesterday handed
down its decision in the elevator case of
Henry Ripe against The State Ware
house Commission. The decision re-
verses the decision of Judge Willis, of
the Ramsey county district court. 1t
was written by Justice Mitchell and de-
cides the state cannot build an elevator
any more than it can build railroads or
any other works for the internal improve
ment of the state. The first point that
the court makes is that the action of the
commission is not constitutional, as the
law provides that ''the state shall never
contract any debts for works of internal
Improvement. or be party in carrying
OH such works" The contentious Of
the defendant are:
First-That the works contemplated by
the act are merely ancillary to the more
etfectual exercise by the state OF its
police power, to regulate the weigh
ing and inspection of grain
stored in bulk, and to regulate the
charges for storing and handling the
same in warehouses and elevators.
SecOnd-That the elevator and other
works provided for in the act are not
works of internal Improvement within
the meaning of the constitution; that
this term refers only to the channels of
travel and commerce, such as roads,
bridges, railways, canals, rivers and the
like.
A synopsis of the opinion is here
gIven& The right of the state, in the
exercise Of its police power, to regulate
the business of receiving, weighing, in
specting and storing grain for others in
elevators or warehouses, as being
business affected with public interest,
Is now settled beyond all controversy.
This power extends even TO fixing the
charges for such services.
slt seems to US as plain as words can
make it, too plain to admit of argument,
that the provisions of this act have no
relation whatever to the exercise OF the
police power of the state to regulate the
grain elevator business. The evident
sole purpose of the act is to provide for
the state erecting an elevator and itself
going into the grain elevator business.
"All the provisions of the act as to
receiving, handling, storing and deiy-
ering grain clearly have reference only
to the management of the business con-
Quoted by the state in its own elevator.
And so far as relates to the right of the
state under the police power to regu-
late this business the position of the
defendants counsel really is this: That
whenever those who are engaged in any
business affected with public interest,
and hence the subject OF government
regulation do not furnish the public
proper and reasonable service, the state
may, as means of regulating the busi-
ness, Itself engage in it, and furnish the
public service at reasonable rates, or by
means of such state competition. compel
others to do so. The very statement of
the proposition is sufficient to show to
what startling results it necessarily
leads. 1t needs no argument to prove
that if, in the exercise of
the police power to regulate this
business, the state itself has right to
erect and operate one elevator at Duluth
it has the power to erect and operate
twenty if necessary at the same point,
and also to erect and operate elevators
at every point in the state where there
is grain to be handled and stored"
The opinion proceeds to show how, if
the state were allowed to engage in any
and every sort of enterprise, outside of
its legitimate governmental functions,
Ill times of imitation and excitement it
might not only be moved to build ele-
Vators, but also to engage in schemes Of
drainage, irrigation, developing water
powers, building public griSt mills, pub
lie creamerIeS and cheese factories, es-
tablishing stock yards and pac king
houses, and other like enterprises with
out limit.
"The time was," reads the opinion.
"when the policy was to confne the
functions of government to the limits
strictly necessary to secure the
enjoyment OF life. liberty and property.
The old Jeffersonian maxim was that the
country is governed the best that is gov
erned the least. AT present the tend
ency is all all the other way, and to-
wards socialism and paternalism in gov
GIum6lt. 1HiS lcHuSHCS Is, perhaps. u
some extent natural as well as inevita.
bic as population becomes more dense
and society older and more complex IN
its relations. The wisdom of such
policy IS not for the courts. The people
are supreme, and if they wish to adopt
such change in the theory of govern
ment 1t is their right to do so. But in
order to do so they must amend the con-
stitution of the state. The present con-
stitutlon was not framed on any such
lines. 1t is always delicate as well as
an uugracious task to declare invalid an
act of coordinate branch of the gov
ernmcnt, and should never be done eX-
cept in cases free from reasonable
doubt. But the legislature is not the
people any more than are the executive
and judiciary. Like them, it is a
branch, doubtless the most important
one,of the government, and, equally with
them, subject to the limitations i'm
posed by the constitution. And when
ever it has clearly tranSceuded those
limitations it is the duty OF the Judiciary
to so declare. The act now under coU-
sideration seems to US so clearly in vio-
lation of the constitution that it is our
bounden duty to so hold"
The title and syllabus is as follows:
Henry Rippe, appellant, VS.. George L. Bockd
ct al, Board of Railroad and Warehouse