defendants to the public. The proof shows that plaintiff habitually caused the quotations, when received upon defendant's instrument, to be transmitted by private wire to Lawrence Gross & Co., at 574 Fifth Avenue.

Plaintiff seeks to justify this breach of the conditions upon which he received the instrument by alleging that he is interested in business with that firm. We think this affords no justification. If plaintiff, by entering into business relations with another firm, could gain a right to repeat the quotations he might, if diligent, absorb a great share of defendant's business. Plaintiff's attempted justification brings out clearly the reasonableness of the clause in the contract to which we have referred. The violation by plaintiff of the stipulation upon which he received the instrument amply sustains the order vacating the injunction. Order affirmed, with costs.1 Present-PRATT and DYKMAN, JJ.; BARNARD, P. J., not sitting. Order vacating injunction affirmed, with costs.

THE INTER-OCEAN PUBLISHING CO. v. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.

SUPREME COURT OF ILLINOIS, 1900.

[184 Ill. 438.]

MR. JUSTICE PHILLIPS2 delivered the opinion of the court: The Inter-Ocean Publishing Company, a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Illinois, is engaged in publishing two newspapers in the city of Chicago, known as "The Daily Inter-Ocean" and "The Weekly Inter-Ocean," which have a wide circulation in the States and Territories of the United States. The Associated Press is a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Illinois in 1892. The object of its creation was, "To buy, gather, and accumulate information and news; to vend, supply, distribute, and publish the same; to purchase, erect, lease, operate, and sell telegraph and telephone lines and other means of transmitting news; to publish periodicals; to make and deal in periodicals and other goods, wares, and merchandise." It has about eighteen by-laws with about seventy-five subdivisions thereof. The stockholders of the Associated Press are the proprietors of newspapers, and the only business of the corporation is that enunciated in its charter, and is mainly buying, gathering, and accumulating news and furnishing the same to persons and corporations who have entered into contract therefor. It may furnish news

1 Compare: Grain and Stock Exchange v. Board of Trade, 127 Ill. 153; Telegraph Co. v. Hyer, 22 Fla. 637; Telegraph Co. v. Wilson, 108 Ind. 308; Brown v. Telegraph, 6 Utah, 236.

2 The case is abridged. - ED.

to persons and corporations other than those who are its stockholders, and the term "members," used in its by-laws, applies to proprietors of newspapers, other than its stockholders, who have entered into contracts with it for procuring news. It does not appear that it has availed itself of any of the powers conferred by its charter other than that of gathering news and distributing the same to its members. Under the by-laws of appellee the Inter-Ocean Publishing Company became a stockholder. Among the by-laws having reference to stockholders are the following:

"Article 11. Sec. 8. Sale or purchase of specials. -No member shall furnish, or permit any one to furnish, its special or other news to, or shall receive news from, any person, firm, or corporation which shall have been declared by the board of directors or the stockholders to be antagonistic to the association; and no member shall furnish news to any other person, firm, or corporation engaged in the business of collecting or transmitting news, except with the written consent of the board of directors."

The bill set up the facts hereinbefore stated, and set out the by-laws of the appellee in full, and alleged that the appellee had been able to control the business of buying and accumulating news in Chicago and selling the same, and has thus created in itself an exclusive monopoly in that business, and to preserve such monopoly had declared the Sun Printing and Publishing Association a rival or competitor in business and antagonistic to it, and sought to prohibit its members from buying news therefrom under pain of suspension or expulsion; alleged that appellee had at various times, by threats of suspension and expulsion, compelled divers of its members to cease buying the special news of the Sun Printing and Publishing Association under its contracts with its members. The bill set out the contracts and names of such members, and alleged that the notice served on appellant for a hearing on the complainants against it is similar to the action of appellee against other members who were forced to cease buying special news from the Sun Printing and Publishing Association; that appellant is in duty bound, both to its patrons and to the public, to publish all the news it can gather, and if not able to obtain such news from one source, it must, in justice to its patrons and the public, resort to other sources; that the news which it obtained from appellee it was unable to obtain from any other source, and appellee would not furnish the same to appellant unless it executed the contract herein before mentioned, because of which appellant was forced to and did execute such contract; that appellee does not furnish all the news obtainable and desired by appellant under that contract, and to obtain such other news appellant was forced to resort to the Sun Printing and Publishing Association of New York; that the right to receive the news gathered by appellee and publish the same in its newspaper is a valuable property and property right, and appellant is forced to obtain the news not obtainable from appellee, and which is absolutely needed in publishing

its newspapers, from the Sun Printing and Publishing Association; that the appellee is attempting to force appellant to cease taking news from the latter association, but to do so would work irreparable damage and injury to appellant, and would prevent it from furnishing needed, important, and necessary news to the public, and would tend to create in favor of appellee a monopoly.

The organization of such a method of gathering information and news from so wide an extent of territory as is done by the appellee corporation, and the dissemination of that news, requires the expenditure of vast sums of money. It reaches out to the various parts of the United States, where its agents gather news which is wired to it, and through it such news is received by the various important newspapers of the country. Scarcely any newspaper could organize and conduct the means of gathering the information that is centred in an association of the character of the appellee because of the enormous expense, and no paper could be regarded as a newspaper of the day unless it had access to and published the reports from such an association as appellee. For news gathered from all parts of the country the various newspapers are almost solely dependent on such an association, and if they are prohibited from publishing it or its use is refused to them, their character as newspapers is destroyed and they would soon become practically worthless publications. The Associated Press, from the time of its organization and establishment in business, sold its news reports to various newspapers who became members, and the publication of that news became of vast importance to the public, so that public interest is attached to the dissemination of that news. The manner in which that corporation has used its franchise has charged its business with a public interest. It has devoted its property to a public use, and has, in effect, granted to the public such an interest in its use that it must submit to be controlled by the public for the common good, to the extent of the interest it has thus created in the public in its private property. The sole purpose for which news was gathered was that the same should be sold, and all newspaper publishers desiring to purchase such news for publication are entitled to purchase the same without discrimination against them.

We hold that the Circuit Court of Cook County erred in entering a decree dismissing the bill for want of equity, and the Appellate Court for the First District erred in affirming the same. The judgment of the Appellate Court for the First District and the decree of the Circuit Court of Cook County are each reversed, and the cause is remanded to the Circuit Court of Cook County, with directions to enter a decree as prayed for in the bill. Reversed and remanded.1

1 Compare: State v. Associated Press, 159 Mo. 410. — Ed.

MUNN v. ILLINOIS.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1876.

[94 U. S. 113.1]

From an agreed statement of facts, made a part of the record, it appears that Munn & Scott leased of the owner, in 1862, the ground occupied by the "North-western Elevator," and erected thereon the grain warehouse or elevator in that year, with their own capital and means; that they ever since carried on, in said elevator, the business of storing and handling grain for hire, for which they charged and received, as a compensation, the rates of storage which had been, from year to year, agreed upon and established by the different elevators and warehouses in the city of Chicago, and 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. On the twenty-eighth day of June, 1872, Munn & Scott were the managers and proprietors of the grain warehouse known as "The North-western Elevator," in Chicago, Ill., wherein grain of different owners was stored in bulk and mixed together; and they then and there carried on the business of receiving, storing, and delivering grain for hire, without having taken a license from the Circuit Court of Cook County, permitting them, as managers, to transact business as public warehousemen, and without having filed with the clerk of the Circuit Court a bond to the people of the State of Illinois, as required by sects. 3 and 4 of the act of April 25, 1871. The city of Chicago then, and for more than two years before, had more than one hundred thousand inhabitants. Munn & Scott had stored and mixed grain of different owners together, only by and with the express consent and permission of such owners, or of the consignee of such grain, they having agreed that the compensation should be the published rates of storage.

Munn & Scott had complied in all respects with said act, except in two particulars: first, they had not taken out a license, nor given a bond, as required by sects. 3 and 4; and, second, they had charged for storage and handling grain the rates established and published in January, 1872, which were higher than those fixed by sect. 15.

The defendants were found guilty, and fined $100.

The judgment of the Criminal Court of Cook County having been affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State, Munn & Scott sued out this writ, and assign for error :—

1. Sects. 3, 4, 5, and 15 of the statute are unconstitutional and void. 1 This case is somewhat abridged. - ED.

2. Said sections are repugnant to the third clause of sect. 8 of art. 1, and the sixth clause of sect. 9, art. 1, of the Constitution of the United States, and to the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Mr. Chief Justice WAITE delivered the opinion of the court. The question to be determined in this case is whether the general assembly of Illinois can, under the limitations upon the legislative power of the States imposed by the Constitution of the United States, fix by law the maximum of charges for the storage of grain in warehouses at Chicago and other places in the State having not less than one hundred thousand inhabitants, "in which grain is stored in bulk, and in which the grain of different owners is mixed together, or in which grain is stored in such a manner that the identity of different lots or parcels cannot be accurately preserved."

It is claimed that such a law is repugnant

1. To that part of sect. 8, art. 1, of the Constitution of the United States which confers upon Congress the power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States; "

2. To that part of sect. 9 of the same article which provides that "no preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another;" and

3. To that part of amendment 14 which ordains that no State shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

We will consider the last of these objections first.

Every statute is presumed to be constitutional. The courts ought not to declare one to be unconstitutional, unless it is clearly so. If there is doubt, the expressed will of the legislature should be sustained.

The Constitution contains no definition of the word "deprive," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment. To determine its signification, therefore, it is necessary to ascertain the effect which usage has given it, when employed in the same or a like connection.

While this provision of the amendment is new in the Constitution of the United States, as a limitation upon the powers of the States, it is old as a principle of civilized government. It is found in Magna Charta, and, in substance if not in form, in nearly or quite all the constitutions that have been from time to time adopted by the several States of the Union. By the Fifth Amendment, it was introduced into the Constitution of the United States as a limitation upon the powers of the national government, and by the Fourteenth, as a guaranty against any encroachment upon an acknowledged right of citizenship by the legislatures of the States.

When the people of the United Colonies separated from Great Britain, they changed the form, but not the substance, of their government. They retained for the purposes of Government all the powers of the British Parliament, and through their State constitutions, or other forms of social compact, undertook to give practical effect to such as