West v. Jefferson Woolen Mills. "The appellant insists that the statute in question violates section 2 of article 2 of the Constitution of the State, which provides that 'no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.' This is the only question for consideration, as the averments of the bill with reference to transactions prior to that of February, 1907, are too indefinite to show the existence of any equity in favor of appellee. "The right to labor for and to render services to another, and the right to dispose of the compensation to be received for so doing, are property rights within the meaning of the language just quoted from the Constitution. Frorer v. People, 141 Ill., 171, 31 N. E., 395, 16 L. R. A., 492; Braceville Coal Co. v. People, 147 Ill., 66, 35 N. E., 62, 22 L. R. A., 340, 37 Am. St. Rep., 206; Mallin v. Wenham, 209 Ill., 252, 70 N. E., 564, 65 L. R. A., 602, 101 Am. St. Rep., 233. It is at once apparent, upon an examination of this statute, that it abridges the right of the man who earns a salary and the right of the man who earns wages to contract with reference thereto. Notwithstanding this fact, appellee contends that the act in question is not prohibited by the Constitution, for the reason that it is referable to the police power of the State. The laws which the legislature may enact in the exercise of that power are laws which have a tendency to promote the public comfort, health, safety, morals, or welfare, or which have a tendency to prevent some recognized evil or wrong. Ritchie v. People, 155 Ill., 98, 40 N. E., 454, 29 L. R. A., 79, 46 Am. St. Rep., 315; City of Chicago v. Netcher, 183 Ill., 104, 55 N. E., 707, 48 L. R. A., 261, 75 Am. St. Rep., 93; Noel v. People, 187 Ill., 587, 58 N. E., 616, 52 L. R. A., 287, 79 Am. St. Rep., 238; People v. Steele, 231 Ill., 340, 83 N. E., 236, 14 J. R. A. (N. S.), 361, 121 Am. St. Rep., 321. West v. Jefferson Woolen Mills. "It is urged: That wage-earners compose a class of inhabitants of the state who, when they desire to borrow money and secure the same by the assignment of their wages earned or to be earned, become victims of men engaged in the business of loaning money at usurious rates, who are commonly denominated ‘loan sharks;' that when the wageearner finds it necessary to borrow money upon such security, he is unable to deal with the money lender upon an even footing; that the latter is able to exact usury, and to practice various like wrongs and impositions upon him, by reason of his poverty, and sometimes by reason of his improvidence; and that this creates a condition of affairs which the legislature may remedy by the exercise of the police power. While we think this evil exists, it is yet apparent, upon a careful examination of this statute, that it is too broad in its terms to be justified as an exercise of the police power for the purpose of mitigating or remedying the wrong at which it is aimed. It applies not only to wages, but also to salaries. 'Wages,' in its ordinary acceptation, has a less extensive meaning than 'salary.' 'Wages' is usually restricted to sums paid as hire or reward to domestic or menial servants and to sums paid to artisans, mechanics, laborers, and others employed in various manual occupations, while 'salary' has reference to the compensation of clerks, bookkeepers, other employees of like class, officers of corporations, and public officers. 2 Standard Dict., p. 1573; In re Stryker, 158 N. Y., 526, 53 N. E., 525, 70 Am. St. Rep., 489. In this State salaries in excess of $5,000 per annum are not unusual. It cannot be said that an officer of a corporation who is in the enjoyment of a salary of $20,000 per annum is or may be the victim of the evil at which this statute is aimed, and yet his salary is plainly within the West v. Jefferson Woolen Mills. terms of the act. Counsel for appellee intimate that a bank president or the head of a great commercial enterprise requires the same protection in this respect as a wage-earner. We have not been able to regard this suggestion as seriously made. A bank president who desires to borrow money does not need protection from a loan shark' unless he be mentally deficient or morally delinquent. A very limited exercise of the power of observation is sufficient to demonstrate that, as a borrower, he is not in the same class as the laborer who works for $2 per day." The court cited no authority in support of its holding, and although numerous other acts, which have received judicial sanction, contained the word "salaries," in none of the decisions has this distinction been made. It should be borne in mind that our act only refers to unearned wages. A more recent case, and one more nearly in point, is that of Heller v. Lutz, 254 Mo., 704, 164 S. W., 123, L. R. A., 1915B, 191. The statute there involved is as follows: "All assignments of wages, salaries, or earnings must be in writing, with the correct date of the asisgnment and the amount assigned and the name or names of the party or parties owing the wages, salaries, and earnings so assigned; and all assignments of wages, salaries, and earnings, not earned at the time the assignment is made, shall be null and void." The court, in its opinion, in referring to Massie v. Cessna, supra, said that it was not unmindful of the ruling of the court in that case, "which held a statute in derogation of the right to assign future earnings unconstitutional, such statute being wholly unlike the one in question here, and the opinion assuming that the assignment created a property right, which we deny." West v. Jefferson Woolen Mills. The court, in sustaining the constitutionality of the act involved, said: "As the forms of industrial activity increase, the relations of those engaged therein, towards each other, undergo changes which necessitate regulatory legislation, not only for the welfare of those immediately interested, but for the general public. Such legislation is authorized under that continually expanding power recognized as an incident of sovereignty, called the police power. In the absence of this power of the state, as WOODSON, J., has aptly said in State ex rel. Hadley v. Standard Oil Co., 218 Mo., 1,379, 116 S. W., 902, 1019, a 'citizen would have the absolute authority to contract and the power to hold property as he might deem proper; but under that power the State may enact valid laws requiring each citizen to so conduct himself and so use his property as not to unnecessarily injure others.' "The exercise of the police power, as evidenced by various phases of legislation affecting individual liberty or personal rights, has met with judicial approval in many cases; the rule to be deduced therefrom being that in civilized society there is no such thing as an unrestrained power on the part of the individual to contract; this right being subject to wise and beneficial police regulations, and, when an act which may prove detrimental to the public welfare is prohibited by a general statute, it will be upheld unless it is clearly in violation of some provisions of the organic law. Grimes v. Eddy, 126 Mo., 186, 26 L. R. A., 638, 47 Am. St. Rep., 653, 28 S. W., 756; State ex rel. Crow v. Firemen's Fund Ins. Co., 152 Mo., 1, 45 L. R. A., 363, 52 S. W., 595; Karnes v. American F. Ins. Co., 144 Mo., 413, 46 S. W., 166; Morrison v. Morey, 146 Mo., 543, 48 S. W., 629. And in West v. Jefferson Woolen Mills. State v. Davis, 194 Mo., 500, 4 L. R. A. (N. S.), 1023, 92 S. W., 488, 5 Ann. Cas., 1000, it is held that 'the State,' in the exercise of its police power, 'has a right to determine upon what conditions and under what circumstances its citizens should be entitled to pursue any vocation.' "Instances of the exercise of this power held not to be in violation of the Constitution are found in the following statutes: Requiring all corporations to pay wages of their employees semimonthly (Laws 1911, p. 150; State v. Missouri P. R. Co., 242 Mo., 339, 147 S. W., 118); abolishing the fellow-servant rule as applying to mining corporations (Whittaker Rev. Stat. 1909, sections 5440-5444; Hawkins V. Smith, 242 Mo., 688, 147 S. W., 1042); declaring invalid contracts made by employees with corporations limiting the liability of the latter in the event of injury to the employee (section 5437, Rev. Stat. 1909; Shohoney v. Quincy, O. & K. C. R. Co., 231 Mo., 131, 132 S. W., 1059, Ann Cas., 1912A, 1143); creating a lien in favor of subcontractors and others, notwithstanding prior payment of the full contract price by the owner of the property to the principal contractor, and further providing that such liens are not limited to the amount agreed to be paid to the owner by his contractors (sections 8212, 8233, Rev. Stat. 1909; Henry & C. Co. v. Evans, 97 Mo., 47, 3 L. R. A., 332, 10 S. W., 868). "These statutes illustrate the extent to which the police power has been invoked here; and, while we have confined our illustrations to this jurisdiction, the statutes of other States will disclose the exercise of a like, if not in some instances a greater, latitude in the enactment of laws on kindred subjects which have met with judicial approval. The statute in the instant case does not attempt to regulate labor or to interfere with contracts in regard to any present, |