Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/197

Rh structure and a telegraph-pole. Both are uses of the street inconsistent with the use of the same as an open public street. Such use in both cases violates the rights of abutting owners to freely use or pass over the street. How, then, has a single post been legally erected, if the owner of the premises, whose rights are violated by the erections in front of his property, has not first received compensation, be it ever so little, awarded him in due form? It is safe to assume that not one cent has ever been paid by way of such compensation, and, that being the case, such structures must fall under the prohibition of the above principle, and are therefore unlawful.

But, if, after all, none of the foregoing objections are tenable, is there no way of getting rid of the evil? If a panacea does not already exist, one suggests itself in legislation. Our State Legislature can relieve us. It has the power to drive the poles and wires from the street, and compel the construction of lines underground. As to wires yet unstrung and poles yet unerected, it may be said this course would be quite proper, but with regard to those already up (assuming that they are legally up) would not such legislation be manifestly unconstitutional, as impairing the obligation of the charter contract which, we will say, authorized their erection?

Now, the framers of the Constitution, in declaring against the enactment of laws impairing the obligations of contracts, never intended that the Legislature should altogether avoid retrospective action upon the civil relations of parties to existing contracts. No Legislature ever did avoid it, they said, and to require it would be extremely inconvenient. It has accordingly frequently been held by our courts that the clause in question does not so far remove from State control the rights and properties which depend for their existence or enforcement upon contracts as to relieve them from the operation of such general regulations for the good government of the State and the protection of the rights of individuals as may be deemed important. All enactments are subject to the subsequent exercise by the Legislature of what is known as the police power, which the Legislature can not alienate, if it would, but must reserve to itself in order to avoid embarrassment in the exercise of control over the general welfare. By virtue of this power the Legislature may, for the public welfare, subject persons and property to various restraints and burdens. It may abate nuisances, even if in their origin they may have been permitted or licensed by law. It would be monstrous if it were otherwise. If a charter implies that a corporation may always continue to exercise its rights in the same way in which their exercise was at first permissible, and under the regulations then existing and those only, the public would be helpless when, without anybody's fault, circumstances so change that what was once lawful, proper, and unobjectionable,