The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1894-02-07

tion of the State.
In all the cases cited by council as
to legislative action by the State,
! held constitutional as to liquor traffic,
the Court has upheld Acts as consti-
tutional because they were Acts
either:
(l) Regulating sales and business
of intoxicating liquor, or,
(2) Prohibiting sales and business
of intoxicating liquor.
But nowhere has the Court upheld
an Act that allowed the State to
engage in or monopolize liquor trade.
whether it prohibited it or not.
The only case-the Indiana case
in the books is decided against the
right of the State to conduct liquor
trade, and this is founded on fixed
principles of civil government, as
understood in American constitutional
law as heritage of the Ango-Saxon
people.
And the general principle of this
case is again announced and affirmed
with strong emphasis against the
State going into any business in the
following case, decided within this
month Ripe VS. Becker, Supreme
Court of Minnesota. January 5 1894,
in which the Court held, all Judges
concurring: THE police power OF
State to regulate business is to
be exercised by the adoption of rules
and regulations as to the manner in
which it shall be conducted by others,
and not by itself engaging in it
The Court says: ''The evident
sole purpose Of the Act is to provide
for the State erecting an elevator. and
itself going into the grain elevator
business, a business conducted by
the State in it's own elevator, and SO
far as relates to the right of the State,
under the police power, to regulate
business, the position of defendants
counsel really amounts to this: That
whenever those who are engaged in
any business which is effected with a
pnbllc interest, and hence the subject
of governmental regulation, do not
furnish the public proper and reason
able service, the State may, as a
means of regulating the business,
itself engage in it, aud furnish the
public better service at reasonable
rates, or, by means of such State
competition, compel others to do SO.
The very statements of the PROPOSE.
tion 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 elevate. at Duluth, if 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. Railways are also, under the
same police power, the subjects o1
State regulation and if it should
be deemed that they were not
furnishing the public with proper
service, or charging unreasonable
rates, it could with equal propriety
he claimed that it would be proper
means of exercising the police power
ofregulating the business for the State
itself to construct and operate com
peting railways. The hack business
the pawnbroker's business. the
manufacture and sale of intoxicat
ing liquors, and numerous other kindt
of business that might be named
are also the subject OF State reguIa
tion and, if counsels contention it
correct, we do not see why, as
means of regulating these kinds o
business, the State itself might no
engage in running hacks, pawn
brokers' shops. building and opera
ting distilleries and breweries, or ever
running saloons But further illus
tration cannot be- necessary. The
police power Of the State to regulate
business does not include the
power to engage in carrying it on
Police regulation is to be effected by
restraints upon business, and the
adoption Of rules and regulations a:
to the manner in which it shall bt
conducted. While the jurists o
continental Europe sometimes
include under the term police
power all governmental institution
which are established with public
funds for The promotion of the public
good, yet, as understood IN american
Constitutional laac, the term means
simply the power of the State te
impose those restraints upon private
r.. L.