* # loaded in the Chicago 1 rbor and sailed through the Saint Lawrence directly to Europe. The quantity (of grain) received in Chicago has made it the greatest grain-market in the world. This business has created a demand for means by which the immense quantity of grain can be handled or stored, and these have been found in grain warehouses which are commonly called elevators because the grain is elevated from the boat or car by machinery operated by steam into the bins prepared for its reception, and elevated from the bins by a like process into the vessel or car which is to carry it on. In this way the largest traffic between the citizens of the country north and west of Chicago and the citizens of the country lying on the Atlantic coast north of Washington, is in grain which passes through the elevators of Chicago. In this way the trade in grain is carried on by the inhabitants of seven or eight of the great States of the West with four or five of the States lying on the sea-shore, and forms the largest part of interstate commerce in these States. The grain elevators or warehouses in Chicago are immense structures, holding from 300,000 to 1,000,000 bushels at one time, according to size. They are divided into bins of large capacity and great strength. They are located with the river-harbor on one side and the railway-track on the other, and the grain is run through them from car to vessel or boat to car, as may be demanded in the course of business. It has been found impossible to preserve the owners' grain separate, and this has given rise to a system of inspection and grading by which the grain of different owners is mixed and receipts issued for the number of bushels which are negoti able and redeemable in like kind upon demand. This mode of conducting the business was inaugurated more than twenty years ago, and has grown to immense proportions. The railroads have found it impracticable to own such elevators, and public policy forbids the transaction of such business by the carrier. The ownership has, therefore, been by private individuals, who have embarked their capital and devoted their industry to such business as a private pursuit. In this connection it must also be borne in mind that, although in 1874 there were in Chicago fourteen warehouses adapted to this particular business and owned by about thirty persons, nine business firms controlled them, and that the prices charged and received for storage were such as have been from year to year agreed upon and established by the different elevators or warehouses in the city of Chicago, and which rates have been annually published in one or more newspapers printed in said city in the month of January in each year, as the established rates for the year then next ensuing such publication. Thus it is apparent that all the elevating facilities through which these vast productions of seven or eight great States of the West must pass on the way to four or five of the States on the sea-shore, may be a virtual monopoly. Under such circumstances it is difficult to see why, if the common carrier, or the miller, or the ferryman, or the innkeeper, or the wharfinger, or the hackney coachman pursues a public employment and exercises a sort of public office, these plaintiffs in error do not. They stand, to use again the language of their counsel, in the very gateway of commerce,' and take toll from all who pass. Their business most certainly tends to a common charge, and is become a thing of public interest and use.' Every bushel of grain for its passage pays a toll, which is a common charge;' and, therefore, according to Lord Hale, every such warehouseman ought to be under public regulation, viz, that he take but reasonable toll. Certainly, if any business can be clothed with a public interest, and cease to be juris privati only, this has been. It may not be made so by the operation of the constitution of Illinois or this statute, but it is by the facts. 66 "We also are not permitted to overlook the fact that, for some reason, the people of Illinois, when they revised their constitution in 1870, saw fit to make it the duty of the general assembly to pass laws for the protection of producers, shippers, and receivers of grain and produce,' (article 13, section 7,) and by section 5 of the same article to require all railroad companies receiving and transporting grain in bulk or otherwise to deliver the same at any elevator to which it might be consigned that could be reached by any track that was or could be used by such company; and that all railroad companies should permit connections to be made with their tracks, so that any public warehouse, &c., might be reached by the cars on their railroads. This indicates very clearly that during the twenty years in which this peculiar business has been assuming its present immense proportions' something had occurred which led the whole body of the people to suppose that remedies such as are usually employed to prevent abuses by virtual monopolies might not be inappropriate here. For our purposes we must assume that if a state of facts could exist that would justify such legislation, it actually did exist when the statute now under consideration was passed. For us the question is one of power, not of expediency. If no state of circumstances could exist to justify such a statute, then we may declare this one void because in excess of the legislative power of the State; but if it could, we must presume it did. Of the propriety of legislative interference within the scope of legislative power the legis lature is the exclusive judge. Neither is it a matter of any moment that no precedent can be found for a statute precisely like this. It is conceded that the business is one of recent origin; that its growth has been rapid, and that it is already of great importance; and it must also be conceded that it is a business in which the whole public has a direct and positive interest. It presents, therefore, a case for the application of a long-known and well-established principle in social science, and this statute simply extends the law so as to meet this new development of commercial progress. There is no attempt to compel these owners to grant the public an interest in their property, but to declare their obligations if they use it in this particular mauner. It mattersnot in this case that the plaintiffs in error had built their warehouses and established their business before the regulations complained of were adopted. What they did was from the beginning subject to the power of the body politic to require them to conform to such regulations as might be established by the proper authorities for the common good. They entered upon their business and provided themselves with the means to carry it on subject to this condition. If they did not wish to submit themselves to such interference they should not have clothed the public with an interest in their concerns. The same principle applies to them that does to the proprietor of a hackney carriage, and as to him it has never been supposed that he was exempt from regulating statutes or ordinances because he had purchased his horses and carriage and established his business before the statute or the ordinance was adopted. "THE POWER TO REGULATE. "It is insisted, however, that the owner of the property is entitled to a reasonable compensation for its use, even though it be clothed with a public interest, and that what is reasonable is a judicial and not a legislative question. As has already been shown, the practice has been otherwise. In countries where the common law prevails it has been customary from time immemorial for the legislature to declare what shall be a reasonable compensation under such circumstances; or, perhaps more properly speaking, to fix a maximum beyond which any charge made would be unreasonable. Undoubtedly in mere private contracts relating to matters in which the public have no interest, what is reasonable must be ascertained judicially. But this is because the legislature has no control over such a contract. So, too, in matters which do affect the public interest, and as to which legislative control may be exercised, if there are no statutory regulations upon the subject, the courts must determine what is reasonable. The controlling act is the power to regulate at all. If that exists, the right to establish the maximum of charge as one of the means of regulation is implied. In fact, the common-law rule, which requires the charge to be reasonable, is itself a regulation as to price. Without it the owner could make his rates at will and compel the public to yield to his terms or forego the use. But a mere common-law regulation of trade or business may be changed by statute. A person has no property, no vested interest in any rule of the common law. That is only one of the forms of municipal law, and is no more sacred than any other. Rights of property which have been created by the common law cannot be taken away without due process, but the law itself, as a rule of conduct, may be changed at the will, or even at the whim, of the legislature, unless prevented by constitutional limitations. Indeed, the great office of statutes is to remedy defects in the common law as they are developed, and to adapt it to the changes of time and circumstances. To limit the rate of charge for services rendered in a public employment, or for the use of property in which the public has an interest, is only changing a regulation which existed before. It establishes no new principle in the law, but only gives a new effect to an old one. We know that this is a power which may be abused, but that is no argument against its existence. For protection against abuses by legislatures the people must resort to the polls, not to the courts. After what has already been said it is unnecessary to refer at length to the effect of the other provision of the fourteenth amendment, which is relied upon-viz, that no State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Certainly it cannot be claimed that this prevents the State from regulating the fare of hackmen or the charges of draymen in Chicago, unless it does the same thing in every other place within its jurisdiction. But, as has been seen, the power to regulate the business of warehouses depends upon the same principle as the power to regulate hackmen and draymen, and what cannot be done in the one case in this particular cannot be done in the other. THE POWER OF CONGRESS. "We come now to consider the effect upon this statute of the power of Congress to regulate commerce. It was very properly said in the case of the State tax on railway gross receipts, (15 Wall., 293,) that it is not everything that affects commerce that amounts to a regulation of it within the meaning of the Constitution. The ware houses of these plaintiffs in error are situated, and their business carried on exclusively within the limits of the State of Illinois. They are used as instruments by those engaged in State as well as those engaged in interstate commerce, but they are no more necessarily a part of commerce itself than the dray or cart by which, but for them, grain would be transferred from one railroad station to another. Incidentally they may become connected with an interstate commerce, but not necessarily so. Their regulation is a thing of domestic concern, and certainly, until Congress acts in reference to their interstate relations, the State may exercise all the powers of government over them, even though in so doing it may indirectly operate upon commerce outside its immediate jurisdiction. We do not say that a case may not arise in which it will be found that a State, under the form of regulating its own affairs, has encroached upon the exclusive domain of Congress in respect to interstate commerce, but we do say that, upon the facts as they are presented to us in this record, that has not been done. "THE QUESTION OF REFERENCE. "The remaining objection-to wit, that the statute in its present form is repugnant to section 9, article 1, of the Constitution of the United States, because it gives preference to the ports of one State over those of another-may be disposed by the single remark that this provision operates only as a limitation of the powers of Congress, and in no respect affects the States in the regulation of their domestic affairs. We con clude, therefore, that the statute in question is not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, and that there is no error in the judgment. "In passing upon this case we have not been unmindful of the vast importance of the questions involved. This and cases of a kindred character were argued before us more than a year ago by the most eminent counsel, and in a manner worthy of their well-earned reputations. We have kept the case long under advisement in order that the decision might be the result of our mature deliberations. "The judgment is affirmed.” |