Court Opinion

ID: 9550889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:44:22.434347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:39.087199
License: Public Domain

*753SCHAUER, J., Dissenting and Concurring.
This case is remarkable and regrettable in judicial annals for this reason: A majority of the justices of this court join in an opinion which recognizes the law as it is but refuses to follow it.
There is no question as to what the law is. It was enacted in the year 1920 by the people of California through the initiative (1 Deering’s Gen. Laws, Act 261); it is based, as to the classification established, on an act of the Congress of the United States1; for the past 32 years this law, as will appear more fully in the cases hereinafter cited and discussed, has been consistently upheld by this court and by the Supreme Court of the United States as against the precise attack now made on it. But now, say the majority, upon an elaborate analysis of the trend of recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, they think that that court, if the question were to be again presented to it might or would change its holding. The most careful study of the majority opinion discloses no other legal basis for their holding than this conjecture.
If this court may properly anticipate that the United States Supreme Court may in the future reverse its prior holdings and if we may act in reliance upon such anticipation, then what criticism can we in good grace offer if hereafter parties litigant anticipate that our judgments may be reversed by ourselves or stricken down by the federal Supreme Court, and upon such anticipation flaunt our judgments? Have we not today established a precedent for just such action ? What labor union or employers’ organization or little man could consistently be denied the right to follow us in speculation and anticipation and to act in reliance thereon?
The majority opinion, I think, is not motivated by an effort to find the law, and to uphold it as found. I think it stems more from the strong social views of the justices who write it and from their desire to make the law what they think it should be. But whether this law should be modified or repealed or continued in force is not, I think, a proper subject for our debate or ruling. The people enacted it and, as already noted, the only classification it makes is created by an act of the Congress of the United States. By constitutional processes the people, if they will, can amend or repeal it or the Congress can abolish the classification. But until and unless the people or the Congress act by the constitutional *754process, the law should not unnecessarily he stricken down by judicial intervention.
That the justices who join in striking down this law find it obnoxious to their personal social views and to their concepts of desirable international relations is quite understandable, and that they shall examine the law in the light of their personal views and concepts is of course a part of our judicial process. But our legitimate judicial process likewise requires that we indulge every reasonable presumption in favor of the validity of a law whether we like it or not; that, when personal views and public law differ, we subjugate pur personal social views and concepts to the law adopted by the people; and that we not strike down as unconstitutional any law which, consistently with constitutional precepts, can be sustained. That this law can be sustained is indubitably demonstrated by the plain fact that for 32 years it has been sustained both by this court and the United States Supreme Court. As recently as People v. Oyama (1946), 29 Cal.2d 164 [173 P.2d 794] (opinion for the court by Mr. Justice Edmonds), we upheld the validity of the act today held void. It is noteworthy and commendable that Mr. Justice Traynor therein concurring said (p. 181).- “I concur in the judgment on the ground that the decisions of the United States Supreme Court cited in the main opinion are controlling until such time as they are reexamined and modified by that court.” This concurrence by Justice Traynor exemplifies conformance to the duty of a judge as it is usually understood and respected; it suggests that the judicial duty is obnoxious to personal desire .but that respect for the law must and will prevail. The decisions he refers to have been reexamined but they have not been modified in the controlling point by the court which rendered them. The implicit and utter soundness of the principles of constitutional law upon which they rest, stand unweakened and untarnished— until today. Compliance with the law and faithful discharge of judicial duty, in my view, furnish a light which is as clear today as it was in 1946. Certainly the law may progress. But change is not necessarily progress; it may be destruction rather than growth.
Also recently this court (again speaking through Mr. Justice Traynor for the majority) said, in Werner v. Southern Calif. etc. Newspapers (1950), 35 Cal.2d 121, 131 [216 P.2d 825, 13 A.L.R.2d 252], quoting from County of Los Angeles v. Southern Calif. Tel. Co. (1948), 32 Cal.2d 378 [196 P.2d *755773], quoting in turn from People v. Western Fruit Growers (1943), 22 Cal.2d 494, 507 [140 P.2d 13], “ 1 “When a legislative classification is questioned, if any state of facts reasonably can be conceived that would sustain it, there is a presumption of existence of that state of facts, and the burden of showing arbitrary action rests upon the one who assails the classification.” ' ” If that principle were followed here the Alien Land Law could not be stricken down. It has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States; it still stands except as this court today refuses to abide by it, refuses to uphold the will of the people of California and concludes, contrary to the announced decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, and to the many earlier determinations of this court, that the law contravenes the federal Constitution. It is, indeed, an unusual procedure when a state court holds unconstitutional on federal grounds a state act which the United States Supreme Court holds to be constitutional as against the same attack. In my view, the only unconstitutional procedure apparent here is the act of the majority justices in using the judicial process to impose their social views on the people of California, rather than, if they were so minded, actively pursuing the obvious legislative remedy.
Of substituting the judicial process for the legislative, again in Werner v. Southern Calif. etc. Newspapers (1950), supra (p. 129 of 35 Cal.2d), the majority of this court said: “It is for the Legislature ... to choose between conflicting policies, and this court may not presume that in reaching its decision it acted upon improper motives ... ‘We cannot undertake a search for motive in testing constitutionality . . .’
‘ ‘ This court cannot invoke the due process clause to invalidate a legislative policy that it may deem unwise without exercising judicial censorship directed not at the constitutionality of legislation but at its wisdom, a censorship whose dangers Mr. Justice Holmes clearly envisaged: ‘I have not yet adequately expressed the more than anxiety that I feel at the ever increasing scope given to the Fourteenth Amendment in cutting down what I believe to be the constitutional rights of the States. As the decisions now stand, I see hardly any limit but the sky to the invalidating of those rights if they happen to strike a majority of this Court as for any reason undesirable. I cannot believe that the Amendment was intended to give us carte hlcmche to embody our economic or moral beliefs in its prohibitions. ’ (Baldwin v. Missouri, 281 U.S. 586, 595 [50 S.Ct. 436, 74 L.Ed. 1056], dissent.) *756TMs view has found increasing acceptance by the United States Supreme Court. ‘This Court beginning at least as early as 1934 when the Nebbia case was decided, has steadily rejected the due process philosophy enunciated in the Adair - Coppage line of cases. In doing so it has consciously returned closer and closer to the earlier constitutional principle that states have power to legislate against what are found to be injurious practices in their internal commercial and business affairs, so long as their laws do not run afoul of some specific federal constitutional prohibition, or ■ of some valid federal law. [Citations.] Under this constitutional doctrine the due process clause is no longer to be so broadly construed that the Congress and state legislatures are put in a strait jacket when they attempt to suppress business and industrial conditions which they regard as offensive to the public welfare. ’ (Lincoln Fed. L. Union v. Northwestern I. & M. Co., 335 U.S. 525, 536-537 [69 S.Ct. 251, 93 L.Ed. 212, 6 A.L.R.2d 473].)
“ ‘Despite evidence to the contrary, respondents see no evil to be corrected by this legislation. We are asked to agree with respondents and call the statute arbitrary and unreasonable.
“ ‘Looking through the form of this plea to its essential basis, we cannot fail to recognize it as an argument for invalidity because this Court disagrees with the desirability of the legislation. We rehearse the obvious when we say that our function is thus misconceived. We are not equipped to decide desirability; and a court cannot eliminate measures which do not happen to suit its tastes if it seeks to maintain a democratic system. The forum for the correction of ill-considered legislation is a responsive legislature.’ (Daniel v. Family Secur. L. Ins. Co., 336 U.S. 220, 224 [69 S.Ct. 550, 93 L.Ed. 632, 10 A.L.R.2d 945].)
“The responsiveness of a legislature reflects the alertness of the electorate, and legislation ill-considered in a climate of indifference may continue to flourish in such a climate to the dismay of interested citizens whose numbers may be small. If these few then turn impatiently to the courts, however, abandoning the hard task of dispelling the general lethargy, they accomplish nothing to improve legislation, for if courts are called upon to set their judgment as to what is wise against the popular judgment they may summarily put an end to certain laws that may be foolish but also to certain laws that may be wise, and particularly to laws that may be *757wise in the long run although they appear foolish at the moment. ‘Most laws dealing with economic and social problems are matters of trial and error. That which before trial appears to be demonstrably bad may belie prophecy in actual operation. It may not prove good, but it may prove innocuous. But even if a law is found wanting on trial, it is better that its defects should be demonstrated and removed than that the law should be aborted by judicial fiat. Such an assertion of judicial power deflects responsibility from those on whom in a democratic society it ultimately rests—the people. ’ (Mr. Justice Frankfurter concurring in A.F.L. v. American Sash & D. Co., 335 U.S. 538, 553 [69 S.Ct. 258, 93 L.Ed. 222, 6 A.L.R.2d 481].)”
This case today is probably not of such immediately grave importance to the citizens of California, and to the United states as a nation, as it would have been prior to the events of the period between December 7, 1941, and August 14, 1945. The long-planned occupation and conquest of California by Japan has been at least for the foreseeable future averted. That nation, finally defeated at horrible cost to the United States and to other freedom-loving peoples of the world, as well as to itself, is now building a new government. It is to be hoped that this new government may in time prove its right to, and thereupon be welcomed in, the family of nations as a champion of peace and good will and a defender against aggressors, their stealth, their devices, their cunning and their violence. It is indeed to be fervently hoped that the people of this late enemy nation, though perhaps unwillingly rescued from totalitarianism, may espouse the principles of democracy, and of forthrightness, honesty, reason and gentleness for their own government and in their dealings with all. But the validity of a law should be decided on facts as they existed at the time of its enactment, not on social theories or expectation for the future, or speculation that the United States Supreme Court may eventually change its ruling on a constitutional issue. Justice is pictured as being blind but not in the posture of an ostrich, and judicial duty is not performed when a court refuses to follow a law because it conjectures that a higher court which has previously upheld the law may eventually reverse itself.
Even if we forsake completely the doctrine of stare decisis and reexamine the statute in question in all its aspects, its validity is unquestionable on any sound approach.
The question is whether one of the states of our union may *758properly place restrictions upon the rights in real property within its boundaries which may be enjoyed by an alien resident whom the Congress of the United States has not made eligible to citizenship.2
Regulation of the devolution and ownership of land within its borders has been traditionally considered an attribute of state sovereignty (United States v. Fox (1876), 94 U.S. 315, 320 [24 L.Ed. 192]; Hauenstein v. Lynham (1879), 100 U.S. 483, 484 [25 L.Ed. 628]; Blythe v. Hinckley (1901), 180 U.S. 333 [21 S.Ct. 390, 393-394, 45 L.Ed. 557]). Plaintiff, however, contends that the Alien Land Law of this state violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, invades the field of federal power over immigration, and is inconsistent with the United Nations Charter. He also contends that the law is invalid special legislation prohibited by the Constitution of this state, and that it unlawfully delegates state legislative power to Congress.

Constitutionality

With regard to equal protection, plaintiff urges, first, that statutory classification of aliens on the basis of eligibility to citizenship is arbitrary insofar as discrimination against the ineligible bears no reasonable relationship to promotion of the safety and welfare of the state. He argues that the statute distinguishes not between citizens and aliens, but between classes of aliens, and that persons eligible to citizenship are given all the ownership rights of citizens regardless of whether they intend to become naturalized. Secondly, he contends that the purpose and effect of the statute is to discriminate against *759aliens solely on the basis of race and that such discrimination is arbitrary and irrational.
Although it is declared by the United States Supreme Court in the restrictive covenants case, Shelley v. Kraemer (1947), 334 U.S. 1 [68 S.Ct. 836, 841, 92 L.Ed. 1161, 3 A.L.R.2d 441], relied upon by plaintiff, that “It cannot be doubted that among the civil rights intended to be protected from discriminatory state action by the Fourteenth Amendment are the rights to acquire, enjoy, own and dispose of property,” it must be borne in mind that the Shelley case involved the property rights of a negro citizen.3 The rule is, of course, settled that the Fourteenth Amendment protects aliens as well as citizens from unreasonable or discriminatory state action. (Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1885), 118 U.S. 356 [6 S.Ct. 1064, 30 L.Ed. 220]; Truax v. Raich (1915), 349 U.S. 33 [36 S.Ct. 7, 6 L.Ed. 131].) And, as to equal protection, where rights other than those relating to land ownership are involved the United States Supreme Court has stated that11 The power of a state to apply its laws exclusively to its alien inhabitants as a class is confined within narrow limits.” (Takahashi v. Fish & Game Com. (1948), 334 U.S. 410 [68 S.Ct. 1138, 1143, 92 L.Ed. 1478].) However, in 1923 the United States Supreme Court upheld the Washington and California Alien Land Laws against attack on due process and equal protection grounds, and those decisions have never been overruled. (Terrace v. Thompson, 263 U.S. 197 [44 S.Ct. 15, 68 L.Ed. 255] [Washington statute] ; Porterfield v. Webb, 263 U.S. 225 [44 S.Ct. 21, 68 L.Ed. 278] [California statute]; see, also, Webb v. O’Brien, 263 U.S. 313 [44 S.Ct. 112, 68 L.Ed. 318], and Frick v. Webb, 263 U.S. 326 [44 S.Ct. 115, 68 L.Ed. 323], sustaining constructions of the California statute which prohibited aliens ineligible to citizenship from entering into cropping contracts or holding stock in farming corporations, respectively.)
*760The leading case, Terrace v. Thompson, involves the Washington law which prohibited land holding by all aliens except those who had declared an intention to become American citizens.4 The court disposes of the due process argument in the following manner (pp. 216-217 of 263 U.S.)': “The Fourteenth Amendment . . . protects the owners in their right to lease and dispose of their land for lawful purposes and the alien resident in his right to earn a living by following ordinary occupations of the community, but it does not take away from the State those powers of police that were reserved at the time of adoption of the Constitution [citations]. . . . And, while Congress has exclusive jurisdiction over immigration, naturalization and the disposal of the public domain, each State, in the absence of any treaty provision to the contrary, has power to deny to aliens the right to own land within its borders. ’ ’ The court points out the common law rule that an alien could not hold land against seizure by the crown and .concludes that state legislation withholding from all aliens equally the right to hold land ‘1 can not be said to be capricious or to amount to an arbitrary deprivation of liberty or property, or to transgress the due process clause.” (P. 218 of 263 U.S.)
Turning to the equal protection argument the court rejects as “without foundation” the contention that the Washington statute discriminated on grounds of race or color, stating that, by the terms of the statute, all aliens, of whatever race or color, who failed to declare their intention to become citizens were prohibited from owning agricultural lands. The court then holds that discrimination on the basis of ineligibility to citizenship did not violate the equal protection clause, for the following reasons (pp. 220-221 of 263 U.S.) : “Two classes of aliens inevitably result from the naturalization laws—those who may and those who may not become citizens. The rule established by Congress on this subject, in md of itself, furnishes a reasonable basis for classification in a state law withholding from, aliens the privilege of land ownership. [Italics added.] . . .
“It is obvious that one who is not a citizen and cannot become one lacks an interest in, and the power to effectually work for the' welfare of, the state, and, so lacking, the state may rightfully deny him the right to own and lease real estate within its boundaries. If one incapable of citizenship may *761lease or own real estate it is within the realm of possibility that every foot of land within the state might pass to the ownership or possession of non-citizens. . . . The quality and allegiance of those who own, occupy and use the farm lands within its borders are matters of highest importance and affect the safety and power of the state itself.”
The court in the Terrace decision discusses the case of Truax v. Raich (1915), supra, 239 U.S. 33, which involves an Arizona statute requiring all employers of more than five persons to employ not less than 80 per cent qualified electors or native-born citizens. It is there held that the statute violated the equal protection clause in discriminating against alien inhabitants, lawfully in the state, with regard to the “right to work for a living in the common occupations of the community,” and, further, that the denial of such right to aliens would be tantamount to denying them entrance and abode in the state and would conflict with the exclusive federal power over immigration.
The “right to work for a living in the common occupations of the community,” secured to all aliens by the Truax case, was urged as a reason for invalidating alien land laws in the Terrace ease but is distinguished by the court as follows (p. 221 of 263 U.S.) : “In the case before us the thing forbidden is very different. It is not an opportunity to earn a living in common occupations of the community, but it is the privilege of owning or controlling agricultural land within the State. The quality and allegiance of those who own, occupy and use the farm lands within its borders are matters of highest importance and affect the safety and power of the State itself.”
Porterfield v. Webb (1923), supra, 263 U.S. 225, upholding the constitutionality of the California Alien Land Law, was decided the same day as Terrace v. Thompson and was held to be controlled by the Terrace decision. The court, in a short opinion reasons as follows: The prohibited class in the Washington Alien Land Law were all nondeclarant aliens; this necessarily included all aliens ineligible for citizenship, which smaller group constituted the prohibited class defined by the California act; forbearance of California to extend the prohibition to eligible aliens who failed to declare their intent to become citizens could not be said to be arbitrary or unreasonable.
As noted above, Terrace v. Thompson and its companion cases have not only never been overruled by the United States *762Supreme Court, but the constitutionality of the California statute was again upheld by this court as recently as People v. Oyama (1946), supra, 29 Cal.2d 164. Although the Supreme Court of the United States reversed our decision (Oyama v. State of California (1948), 332 U.S. 633 [68 S.Ct. 269, 92 L.Ed. 249]), upon the narrow ground that a presumption declared by section 9(a) of the act, and relied on in the case, violated the rights of citizens who were the children of ineligible aliens and arbitrarily discriminated against such citizens, I cannot overlook the highly important fact that that court refused to overrule its earlier holdings that the Alien Land Law is constitutional insofar as it relates to the land rights of ineligible aliens themselves. These holdings, as well as our own antecedent expressions to the same effect, are sound expositions of the best constitutional precepts.
It is inescapable that it is settled by the foregoing cases and numerous other decisions sustaining the validity of specific provisions of the Alien Land Law that classification on the basis of eligibility to citizenship is proper for the purpose of determining who may own and enjoy land.
With reference to the statement made in the Terrace case that if aliens ineligible to citizenship could own farm land, they might possibly acquire all such land in the state, plaintiff argues that natural events and changes in the naturalization and immigration laws since the Terrace decision have reduced such a possibility to the vanishing point. Moreover, he urges, these changes in circumstances of themselves warrant reexamination of the land law.
When the Terrace case was decided, in 1923, only white persons and persons of African nativity and descent were eligible to become citizens. (Naturalization Act of 1790; 18 Stat. 318 (1875).) At the time the present proceeding was begun, in 1949, the naturalization laws had been amended to provide that the following may become citizens: “descendants of races indigenous to the Western Hemisphere” (8 U.S.C.A. § 703; 54 Stat. 1140, ch. 876 (1940)); “any person not a citizen, regardless of age, who has served or hereafter serves honorably in the military or naval forces of the United States” (8 U.S.C.A. § 1001; 56 Stat. 182 (1942)); Chinese persons and persons of Chinese descent (8 U.S.C.A. § 703; 57 Stat. 601 (1943)); Filipinos and persons indigenous to India (8 U.S.C.A. § 703; 60 Stat. 416 (1946)). Thus, in 1949, the California Alien Land Law could operate only against Orientals who are Japanese and against certain other races, such as *763Polynesians.5 According to 1940 census figures, the alien Japanese population discovered and counted in California was 33,569. Immigration of persons ineligible to citizenship was halted by the Exclusion Act of 1924 (43 Stat. 161, 8 U.S.C. § 213(c)); hence the number of Japanese aliens legally in the state in 1949 was probably less than in 1940 due to death, changes of residence, deportation and other causes. For the purposes of the constitutional test of state legislation, however, it is immaterial that the number of races embraced in the ineligible class has been narrowed by the Congress through recent amendments to the naturalization laws; the Congress itself has made and it has preserved the class; it has set and defined the limits and the qualifications of eligibles; the class of ineligibles may be broadened again in the future and it is still within the realm of possibility that ineligible aliens might acquire a disproportionate share, or dangerously located and extensive areas, of land in the state.
Plaintiff further contends that most, if not all of the reasoning of the Terrace and Porterfield cases has been repudiated by the United States Supreme Court in Oyama v. State of California (1948), supra, 68 S.Ct. 269; Ex parte Endo (1944), 323 U.S. 283, 302 [65 S.Ct. 208, 89 L.Ed. 243]; and Takahashi v. Fish & Game Com. (1948), supra, 68 S.Ct. 1138, and that a state court may “properly” disregard them, as, it is said, was recently done by the Oregon Supreme Court in Namba v. McCourt (1949), 185 Ore. 579 [204 P.2d 569], It was there held that the Oregon Alien Land Law, one similar to the California statute, violated the Fourteenth Amendment in placing restrictions on aliens ineligible to citizenship but not on other aliens, since there was no valid reason why the ineligibles, as a class of aliens, should not be permitted to own and rent agricultural land. The court reviewed the decisions of the United States Supreme Court on the subject, giving particular attention to the Oyama and Takahashi cases, and conjectured that the United States Supreme Court “no longer deems the [Terrace and related] cases binding.” (No petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court was filed.) Regardless of the thought expressed by the Oregon court, it is my view that since none of the cases relied upon *764by plaintiff passed upon the power of the state to regulate alien' ownership of land within its boundaries, such cases are not controlling here.
In reliance upon the statements in the Truax and Takahashi cases that discrimination is invalid when it deprives an alien of the “right to work for a living in the common occupations of the community,” or prevents him from “earning a living in the same way that other state inhabitants earn their living” (Truax v. Raich (1915), supra, 36 S.Ct. 7, 10; Takahashi v. Fish & Game Com. (1948), supra, 68 S.Ct. 1138, 1142), plaintiff urges that although farming is one of the most ancient and common ways of earning a living, the Terrace v. Thompson rule permits a state, in the absence of a treaty, to so restrict an alien that he can farm land only in the capacity of an employee or hired hand, and also permits a state to restrict an alien in following occupations other than farming, since it is necessary to the operation of any ordinary business or industry to own or lease land upon which a shop or factory may be located. The effect of such legislation, argues plaintiff, is to impose upon the alien ineligible to citizenship an economic status inferior to that of all other persons living in the state. Such argument ignores the fact that land ownership is held by only a relatively few of the inhabitants of this state and nation, is not at all a necessary attribute of an equality of economic status, and is not desired or availed of by many who enjoy ample economic security. It is, therefore, not persuasive to the end of striking down a law which has been duly enacted by the people of the state and which has been sustained by the highest courts of state and nation for more than a quarter of a century.
The critical question (if this court assumes to reexamine the problem) in determining whether the land law accords with the guarantee of equal protection is whether the discrimination between persons ineligible to citizenship and those who are citizens or eligible to citizenship is “based upon some difference in the classes having a substantial relation to a legitimate object to be accomplished.” (See Takahashi v. Fish & Game Com. (1947), 30 Cal.2d 719, 727 [185 P.2d 805] (reversed 334 U.S. 410, 422 [68 S.Ct. 1138, 92 L.Ed. 1478], on the ground that the classification there involved was unconstitutionally discriminatory, but expressly distinguishing the land law cases); see, also, Werner v. Southern Calif. etc. Newspapers (1950), supra, 35 Cal.2d 121, 131; Watson v. Division of Motor Vehicles (1931), 212 Cal. 279, 284-285 *765[298 P. 481].) And, as plaintiff concedes, upon the outcome of this question will depend the answer to plaintiff’s contention that the Alien Land Law constitutes special legislation in violation of the California Constitution. (See Lelande v. Lowery (1945), 26 Cal.2d 224, 232 [157 P.2d 639, 175 A.L.R. 1109]; County of Los Angeles v. Southern Calif. Tel. Co. (1948), supra, 32 Cal.2d 378, 389.)
The following pertinent principles are well established: “Wide discretion is vested in the Legislature in making the classification and every presumption is in favor of the validity of the statute; the decision of the Legislature as to what is a sufficient distinction to warrant the classification will not be overthrown by the courts unless it is palpably arbitrary and beyond rational doubt erroneous. [Citations.] A distinction in legislation is not arbitrary if any set of facts reasonably can be conceived that would sustain it.” (Sacramento M. U. Dist. v. Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. (1942), 20 Cal.2d 684, 693 [128 P.2d 529] ; see, also, In re Herrera (1943), 23 Cal.2d 206, 212 [143 P.2d 345] ; Reclamation District v. Riley (1923), 192 Cal. 147, 156 [218 P. 762].) “The existence of facts supporting the legislative judgment is to be presumed and the burden of overcoming the presumption of constitutionality is cast upon the assailant.” (Takahashi v. Fish & Game Com. (1947), supra, 30 Cal.2d 719, 728; see, also, People v. Western Fruit Growers (1943), supra, 22 Cal.2d 494, 507; In re Fuller (1940), 15 Cal.2d 425, 437 [102 P.2d 321] ; California Physicians’ Service v. Garrison (1946), 28 Cal.2d 790, 803 [172 P.2d 4, 167 A.L.R. 306].) The classification should be reasonable; i. e., “have a substantial relation to a legitimate object to be accomplished . . . [I]t is not our concern whether the Legislature has adopted what we might think to be the wisest and most suitable means of accomplishing its objects. [Citations.]” (Lelande v. Lowery (1945), supra, 26 Cal.2d 224, 232, 234.)
In Werner v. Southern Calif. etc. Newspapers (1950), supra, 35 Cal.2d 121, 131, quoting from County of Los Angeles v. Southern Calif. Tel. Co. (1948), supra, 32 Cal.2d 378, 390, and People v. Western Fruit Growers (1943), supra, 22 Cal.2d 494, 506, the rule is reaffirmed in these words: “Problems of classification under the California Constitution are thus similar to those presented by the federal equal protection of the laws clause of the 14th Amendment. Under either provision, the mere production of inequality which necessarily results to some degree in every selection of persons for regulation *766does not place the classification within the constitutional prohibition. The discrimination or inequality produced, in order to conflict with the constitutional provisions, must be ‘ actually and palpably unreasonable and arbitrary/ or the legislative determination as to what is a sufficient distinction to warrant the classification will not be overthrown. [Citations.] When a legislative classification is questioned, if any state of facts reasonably can be conceived that would sustain it, there is a presumption of existence of that state of facts, and the burden of showing arbitrary action rests upon the one who assails the classification.”
Applying these rules to the present controversy, it can hardly be seriously doubted that use or ownership of land by persons ineligible to citizenship may reasonably be determined by the people of a state to constitute a threat to the safety or welfare of the state because such ineligible persons cannot be bound by an oath of allegiance to the United States, of which each state is an inseparable part, and, as a class, their loyalty to and interest in the state are suspect, and further, such ownership of the land by its citizens, or those who can become such, bears a vital relationship to the strength of a free country. As declared in Mott v. Cline (1927), 200 Cal. 434, 447 [253 P. 718], “It has been firmly settled by the decisions of both federal and state courts [citations] that the adoption of the Alien Land Acts was a lawful exercise of the police power. In fact, it is the exercise of that power in its highest and truest sense. The ownership of the soil by persons morally bound by obligations of citizenship is vital to the political existence of the state. It directly affects its welfare and safety.”6 (See, also, Palermo v. Stockton Theatres, Inc. (1948), 32 Cal.2d 53, 63 [195 P.2d 1].) The question is not whether every individual ineligible alien may be said to be disloyal to this nation, but whether the loyalty of such ineligible aliens as a class may be doubted.7 It is not within the province of this court, especially in the light of history which need go no further back than December 7, 1941, to declare *767that such doubt is unreasonable and bears no substantial relationship to the public welfare.
Likewise without merit is plaintiff's contention that the purpose and effect of the Alien Land Law is to discriminate against him solely because of his race, and that despite the fact that the law does not mention race or color on its face we should determine that it was the result of race prejudice against Orientals and particularly Japanese, and declare it therefore unconstitutional. In this respect plaintiff relies upon certain arguments in favor of the legislation contained in the official pamphlet8 mailed to the voters prior to the election at which the act was to be voted upon, as well as on statements in Estate of Yano9 (1922), 188 Cal. 645, 654, 658 [206 P. 995]. Plaintiff’s position on this point ignores the fundamental and controlling fact, however, that it is those who are ineligible for citizenship, regardless of race or color, to whom the Alien Land Law applies, and that it is Congress and not the State of California that determines such ineligibility. It is clear that the statements in Estate of Yano upon which plaintiff relies have no application to the problem here involved and do no more than recognize that Japanese fall within the class whom Congress has refrained from declaring eligible. Moreover, as pointed out in the Terrace case (p. 223 of 263 U.S.), it was in accordance with the desire of Japan that the right to own land was not conferred by either that nation or the United States upon the nationals of the other. To argue, in the face of such circumstance, that the California Alien Land Law is directed at plaintiff solely because of his race simply denies reality. Furthermore, the fact that the attention of the citizens was being attracted chiefly to the *768Japanese by the very nature and extent of their activities10 in the state, far from showing racial prejudice as the motivating cause for the land act, indicates a sound basis for the law.
Plaintiff’s argument that the Alien Land Law interferes with the power of Congress over legislation is answered by the declaration in the Terrace case (p. 217) that “while Congress has exclusive jurisdiction over immigration, naturalization and the disposal of the public domain, each State, in the absence of any treaty provision to the contrary, has power to deny to aliens the right to own land within its borders. ’ ’ Traux v. Raich (1915), supra, 239 U.S. 33, 42, and Takahashi v. Fish & Game Com. (1948), supra, 334 U.S. 410, 419, do not involve land laws, and statements therein which are relied upon by plaintiff are not controlling here.
*769Plaintiff’s further contention that the law under attack unlawfully delegates state legislative powers to Congress because amendments to the naturalization laws changing eligibility provisions operate to amend the state law without the consent of the people or the Legislature of this state has already been rejected by this court in People v. Oyama (1946), supra, 29 Cal.2d 164, 178,11 in the following language: “The Legislature of this state has set up eligibility to citizenship as a primary standard, and because the determination of some fact or condition incorporated in this primary standard rests elsewhere than in the Legislature, or this requirement is to *770be measured by another standard not under the control of the state and which may be subject to change, does not amount to an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority. [Citations.] ” (See, also, Palermo v. Stockton Theatres, Inc. (1948), supra, 32 Cal.2d 53, 59.)
I agree that the United Nations Charter, as presently constituted and accepted was not intended to, and does not, supersede existing domestic legislation of the United States or of the several states and territories.
I would hold that provisions of the Alien Land Latv here invoked by the State of California do not contravene either the federal or state Constitutions; and would affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Shenlc, J., and Spence, J., concurred.

Naturalization Act of 1790, 18 Stats. 318 (1875); 8 U.S.C.A. § 703, 54 Stat. 1140, ch. 876 (1940).

Restrictions on the right of aliens to hold land are no innovation in the law. Since 1887 there has been a federal Alien Land Law which, with certain exceptions, prohibits aliens who have not declared their intention to become citizens from owning territorial land. (8 U.S.C.A. §§ 71-86.) Every state has made some provision with regard to the rights of aliens to own real property. (See 5 Vernier, American Family Laws (1938), 304-346; McGovney, “The Anti-Japanese Land Laws of California . . 35 Cal.L.Rev. at pp. 21-24.) Of these about twenty-one states expressly allow aliens, at least those residing in the state, all the property rights of citizens. All the remaining states impose some kind of disabilities on aliens, and these vary from outright prohibition of land ownership to limitations on the size of holdings or the time land may be held. Some of these statutory restrictions apply to all aliens. Other states distinguish between classes of aliens, such as those who have and have not declared their intention to become citizens, those who are and who are not eligible to citizenship, those who are enemies and those who are friends. Nine states, other than California, classify on the basis of eligibility to citizenship.

It should be noted that federal legislation enacted pursuant to the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments does not secure to aliens any rights to acquire real property. The Oivil Rights Act provides that “All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof *to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.” (8 U.S.C.A. § 42, based on 14 Stat. 27 and 16 Stat. 144.) However, no similar provision is made for noncitizens. The act merely provides: “All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens. . . .” (8 U.S.C.A. § 41, based on 14 Stat. 27 and 16 Stat. 144.)

This classification automatically places aliens ineligible to citizenship within the prohibited group.

For purposes of this discussion, defendant excludes from consideration all persons ineligible to citizenship for reasons other than their race, such as those who do not speak English or have not satisfied the residence requirement or are not attached to the political principles of this country. (See 8 U.S.C.A. § 704 et seq.)

The importance attached to domestic control of land ownership is not merely local to this state or nation; its far-flung recognition must be obvious to every reader of history or current events. We need mention only two examples: (1) The relatively recent expropriation acts of the Bepublie of Mexico; (2) the pending controversy between Great Britain and Iran over the petroleum bearing lands of the latter nation.

As is pointed out by Walter Pitkin in Ms "Must We Fight Japan? ’ ’ (1921, The Century Co., p. 440), "The loyalty of the Japanese to his Government stands above all else. That is his religion.”

The following argument appears in the pamphlet: “Its primary-purpose is to prohibit Orientals who cannot become American citizens from controlling our rich agricultural lands . . . Orientals, and more particularly Japanese, [have] commenced to secure control of agricultural lands in California.” Further arguments in the pamphlet in support of the measure were directed against the Japanese alone, without reference to other Orientals or to others who were ineligible for American citizenship.

Yano involves a provision of the act prohibiting the appointment of an ineligible alien as guardian of land. The court, in holding that the right of a father to be appointed guardian of the person and estate of his citizen minor child did not depend upon his own eligibility to citizenship, stated that the prohibitory provision “is clearly a discrimination against citizens of Japan residing in this state,” and that the object thereof was “to discourage the coming of Japanese into this state.”

Tlic California State Board of Control in 1920 prepared a report on the situation then confronting the state. In a letter of transmittal of the report (and published therewith), written by Governor Wm. D. Stephens of California to Hon. Bainbridge Colby, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C., dated June 19, 1920, the following reference is made to facts which appear more fully in the report itself: "The Japanese in our midst have indicated a strong trend to land ownership and land control, and by their unquestioned industry and application, and by standards and methods that are widely separated from our occidental standards and methods, both in connection with hours of labor and standards of living, have gradually developed to a control of many of our important agricultural industries. Indeed, at the present time they operate 458,056 acres of the very best lands in California. The increase in acreage control within the last decade, according to these official figures has been 412.9 per cent. In productive values—that is to say, in the market value of crops produced by them-— our figures show that as against § 6,235,856 worth of produce marketed in 1909, the increase has been to § 67,145,730, approximately tenfold.
"More significant than these figures, however, is the demonstrated fact that within the last ten years Japanese agricultural labor has developed to such a degree that at the present time between 80 and 90 per cent of most' of our vegetable and berry products are those of the Japanese farms. Approximately 80 per cent of the tomato crop of the state is produced by the Japanese; from 80 to 100 per cent of the spinach crop; a greater part of our potato and asparagus crops and so on. So that it is apparent that without much more effective restrictions that in a very short time, historically speaking, the Japanese population within our midst will represent a considerable portion of our entire population, and the Japanese control over certain essential food products will be an absolute one.” ("California and the Oriental” by State Board of Control of California, 1920 ed., pp. 8, 45, 49-52.)
Again, Walter B. Pitkin in "Must We Fight Japan?” (The Century Co., 1921), speaks of the competition imposed on the non-Oriental American farmer who made a practice of taking Sundays off and of working only ten or twelve hours a day, by the Japanese whose schedules ran from fourteen to eighteen hours a day. Says Mr. Pitkin (pp. 207-8): "The results of such competition can be clearly read all over California. For the statistics we need not go to American observers, who may be suspected of prejudice. We have luckily at hand a com*769prehensive stud^of the expansion of Japanese farmers which has been made by one S' their own countrymen, one Yamato Ichihashi, instructor in Japanese history and economics at Leland Stanford University. In 1915 Mr. Ichihashi published a volume on ‘Japanese Immigration,' in which he presented detailed charts that brought out the following remarkable facts:
“Out of every 100 people growing berries in California, 88 are Japanese. Out of every 100 who raise sugar beets, 67 are Japanese. Out of every 100 who grow grapes, 52 are Japanese. Out of every 100 who raise vegetables (for market, of course), 46 are Japanese. Out of every 100 who grow citrus fruits, 39 are Japanese. Out of every 100 who grow deciduous fruits, 36 are Japanese.
“The State board [of Control], in commenting upon these findings, holds that the percentages would run considerably higher today.”
In the same letter of transmittal of the report of the state board, the attitude of California in respect to the Japanese people was officially expressed by Governor Stephens as follows:
“It is also proper to state that I believe I speak the feelings of our people when I express to you a full recognition of the many admirable qualities of the Japanese people. We assume no arrogant superiority of race or culture over them. Their art, their literature, their philosophy, and, in recent years, their scientific attainments have gained for them a respect from the white peoples in which we, who know them so well, fully share. We have learned to admire the brilliancy of their art and the genius that these people display. We respect that deep philosophy which flows so placidly out of that wonderful past of theirs and which has come down through ages that antedate our Christian era. We join with the entire civilized world in our admiration of the tremendous strides which the Japanese nation itself has made in the last two generations unparalleled as its career is in the history of nations. We respect the right of the Japanese to their true development and to the attainment of their destiny.
“All these matters I am at pains to emphasize so as to convince you, and, through you the people of the United States, that this problem of ours is not an insignificant or temporary one. It is not factious. It has no origin in narrow race prejudice or rancor or hostility. It is, however, a solemn problem affecting our entire Occidental civilization.” (P. 9 of “California and the Oriental” by State Board of Control of Calif., 1920 ed.)
See, also, discussion “Is This a Racial War? ” in “Report Prom Tokyo” (Grew, 1942, p. 65, Simon and Schuster).

See Oyama v. State of California (1948), 332 U.S. 633 [68 S.Ct. 269, 92 L.Ed. 249].