efficiency in the machines but with inclusion of the effect of the combination so far as it was economically beneficial to itself and the community, is a problem that no human ingenuity could solve. The reason is not the general uncertainties of a jury trial but that the elements necessary to determine the imaginary ideal are uncertain both in nature and degree of effect to the acutest commercial mind. The very community, the intensity of whose wish relatively to its other competing desires determines the price that it would give, has to be supposed differently organized and subject to other influences than those under which it acts. It is easy to put simple cases; but the one before us is at least as complex as we have supposed, and the law must be judged by it. In our opinion it cannot stand.

We regard this decision as consistent with Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373, 377, in which it was held that a criminal law is not unconstitutional merely because it throws upon men the risk of rightly estimating a matter of degree-what is an undue restraint of trade. That deals with the actual, not with an imaginary condition other than the facts. It goes no further than to recognize that, as with negligence, between the two extremes of the obviously illegal and the plainly lawful there is a gradual approach and that the complexity of life.makes it impossible to draw a line in advance without an artificial simplification that would be unjust. The conditions are as permanent as anything human, and a great body of precedents on the civil side coupled with familiar practice make it comparatively easy for common sense to keep to what is safe. But if business is to go on, men must unite to do it and must sell their wares. To compel them to guess on peril of indictment what the community would have given for them if the continually changing conditions were other than they are, to an uncertain extent; to divine prophetically what the reaction of only partially deter

minate facts would be upon the imaginations and desires of purchasers, is to exact gifts that mankind does not possess.

Judgments reversed.

MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA and MR. JUSTICE PITNEY dissent.

KEOKEE CONSOLIDATED COKE COMPANY v.

TAYLOR.

SAME v. KELLY.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF VIRGINIA.

Nos. 372, 373: Submitted May 7, 1914.-Decided June 8, 1914.

This court does not go behind the construction given to a state statute by the state courts.

A state statute aimed at an evil and hitting it presumably where experience shows it to be most felt is not unconstitutional under the equal protection provision of the Fourteenth Amendment because there might be other instances to which it might be equally well applied.

It is for the legislature to determine to what classes a police statute shall apply; and unless there is a clear case of discrimination the courts will not interfere.

Section 3 of Chapter 391, Virginia Laws of 1888, reënacting the act of 1887 aimed at the evil of payment of labor in orders redeemable only at the employers' shops and forbidding certain classes of employers of labor to issue any order for payment thereto unless purporting

234 U. S.

Argument for Plaintiff in Error.

to be redeemable for its face value in lawful money of the United States, is not an unconstitutional denial of equal protection of the law because it does not apply to other classes of employers who also own shops and pay with orders redeemable in merchandise.

THE facts, which involve the constitutionality of a statute of Virginia providing for method of payment of employés of certain industries, are stated in the opinion.

Mr. J. F. Bullitt and Mr. R. T. Irvine for plaintiff in

error:

The Virginia act is repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, nor is it a valid exercise of police power.

The act is not constitutional; it does not embrace all of a class.

The act is class legislation even though it should be held to be a police regulation.

If an act is repugnant to the Constitution, it is not saved by the police power doctrine. The usual statement of the doctrine is too broad.

The burden is on plaintiffs to show that the act is within the police power.

The act would injure rather than benefit employés as well as employers.

In support of these contentions, see Virginia Code (Pollard), § 3657-d, cl. 1, 2, 3; Avent-Beattyville Coal Co. v. Commonwealth, 28 L. R. A. 273; Braceville Coal Co. v. People, 147 Illinois, 66; Frorer v. People, 141 Illinois, 171; Lockner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45; Millett v. People, 117 Illinois, 294; Peal Coal Co. v. State, 36 W. Va. 802; State v. Goodwell, 10 S. E. Rep. 285; State v. Loomis, 115 Missouri, 307; State v. Missouri Tie Co., 181 Missouri, 536; Cooley's Const. Lim. (7th Ed.) 561; Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S. 540; State v. Froehlich, 115 Wisconsin, 32; S. C., 91 N. W. 115; People v. Jackson Road Co., VOL. CCXXXiy-15

9 Michigan, 285, 307. Dayton Coal & Iron Co. v. Barton, 183 U. S. 13, distinguished.

Mr. J. C. Noel and Mr. C. T. Duncan for defendants in error.

MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the court.

These are actions of assumpsit brought by the defendants in error upon orders signed by employés of the plaintiff in error and addressed to it, directing it to pay to bearer 'in merchandise only from your store,' to the value specified. These orders were upon scrip issued by the plaintiff in error as an advance of monthly wages in payment for labor performed, and the only controversy between the parties arises from the refusal of the plaintiff in error to pay the indicated amounts in money. The facts were agreed, the Circuit Court gave judgment for the plaintiff and a writ of error was refused by the Supreme Court of Appeals. The ground of the judgment was an act of February 13, 1888, c. 118, amending and reënacting an act of 1887, c. 391, § 3, forbidding any person, firm, or corporation, engaged in mining coal or ore, or manufacturing iron or steel or any other kind of manufacturing to issue for the payment of labor any order unless the same purported to be redeemable for its face value in lawful money of the United States. The plaintiff in error saved its rights under the Fourteenth Amendment and when the Court of Appeals refused to hear the cases brought them here. The writ of error was allowed on September 25, 1912. Norfolk & Suburban Turnpike Co. v. Virginia, 225 U. S. 264, 269.

Of course we do not go behind the construction given to the state law by the state courts. The objections that are urged here are that the statute interferes with freedom of contract, and, more especially, that it is class legislation

of a kind supposed to be inconsistent with the Fourteenth Amendment; a West Virginia decision upon a similar statute being cited to that effect. State v. Goodwill, 33 W. Va. 179. The former of these objections, however, is disposed of by Knoxville Iron Co. v. Harbison, 183 U. S. 13, and Dayton Coal & Iron Co. v. Barton, 183 U. S. 23.

It is more pressed that the act discriminates unconstitutionally against certain classes. But while there are differences of opinion as to the degree and kind of discrimination permitted by the Fourteenth Amendment, it is established by repeated decisions that a statute aimed at what is deemed an evil, and hitting it presumably where experience shows it to be most felt, is not to be upset by thinking up and enumerating other instances to which it might have been applied equally well, so far as the court can see. That is for the legislature to judge unless the case is very clear. Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61, 81. Central Lumber Co. v. South Dakota, 226 U. S. 157, 160. Patsone v. Pennsylvania, 232 U. S. 138, 144. The suggestion that others besides mining and manufacturing companies may keep shops and pay their workmen with orders on themselves for merchandise is not enough to overthrow a law that must be presumed to be deemed by the legislature coextensive with the practical need.

Judgments affirmed.