Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/404

378 378 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. 886, the " Six Little Tailors " procured an injunction estraining another firm from doing business under the name of " Six Big Tailors. " And the end is not yet. Injured traders will be forced to seek the aid of the law until doomsday unless the code of business morahty prevalent among a large class of our citizens becomes greatly changed. The cases on the subject are surprisingly numerous. The whole topic was treated at length, with full citation of authorities, in Mr. Mitchell's article in the last number of the Review. Interstate Commerce and the Police Power. — Two recent de- cisions of the United States Supreme Court raise again the vexed ques- tion of what are the limits of a State's power of legislation in matters touching interstate commerce. Illinois Cent. R. R. Co. v. State of Illi- nois, 163 U. S. 142, holds unconstitutional a local statute which compels all trains to stop at county seats. The court properly rests its opinion on the ground that such an enactment, though purporting to be a police regu- lation, was in reality a most unreasonable interference with interstate com- merce, unnecessarily delaying fast mail trains, and oftentimes forcing them to go several miles out of their regular route. (See Henderson v. Mayor of the City of New York, 92 U. S. 259, 268.) The other and more important case of Hennington v. State of Georgia^ 163 U. S. 299, decides that a State law forbidding the running of freight trains on Sunday is valid, although its effect is to prevent interstate trains from passing through the State on that day. 'J he decision was not a unanimous one. But this was hardly to be expected in view of the previous divisions of the same court on similar questions. Bowman v. Chicago 6- Northwestern Ry. Co., 125 U. S. 465 ; Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100; Plumley v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 155 U. S. 461. And the difference of opinion existing upon the precise question decided in Henfiington v. State of Georgia is well illustrated by the fact that, in the only two instances in which this exact point has hitherto come before the courts, the decisions have been squarely opposed to each other. State V. R. R. Co., 24 W. Va. 783 ; Norfolk 6- Western R. R. Co. v. Commonwealth, 88 Va. 95. The ratio decidendi advanced in the principal case is, that the Sunday law was a legitimate exercise of the State's acknowledged power to pro- tect the health and morals of its own citizens, and that it affected interstate commerce only incidentally. In determining the extent of a State's authority in matters which concern the commerce of other States, it seems to be generally admitted that, if Congress has passed laws on the same subject, these are superior to any State statute. Cooley, Const. Lim., 6th ed., 722, 723. But the point of difficulty is where, as in Hennington v. State of Georgia, and as is generally the fact, Congress has been silent. How far can the State then go in enacting such laws as relate to foreign or interstate commerce? Two tests by which to answer this question have been suggested. The first makes the intention of the State legislature the final criterion. It says that, if the object of the legislature is simply to promote the physical or moral wel- fare of the local community, then no matter what the real consequence upon commerce may be, the law is merely a police regulation and there- fore valid. See article in i Harvard Law Review, 159. This theory, however, in the light of recent decisions, can hardly be said to have been