Opinion of the Court. erty shall be used and enjoyed and business carried on, with a view to the good order and benefit of the community, even though they may interfere to some extent with the full enjoyment of private property, and although no compensation is given to a person so inconvenienced; and Munn v. Illinois was cited as holding that the rules of the common law which had from time to time been established, declaring or limiting the right to use or enjoy property, might themselves be changed as occasion might require. The Supreme Court of Indiana, in 1885, in Brechbill v. Randall, 102 Indiana, 528, held that a statute was valid which required persons selling patent rights to file with the clerk of the county a copy of the patent, with an affidavit of genuineness and authority to sell, on the ground that the State had power to make police regulations for the protection of its citizens against fraud and imposition; and the court cited Munn v. Illinois as authority. The Supreme Court of Nebraska, in 1885, in Webster Telephone Case, 17 Nebraska, 126, held that when a corporation or person assumed and undertook to supply a public demand, made necessary by the requirements of the commerce of the country, such as a public telephone, such demand must be supplied to all alike, without discrimination; and Munn v. Illinois was cited by the prevailing party and by the court. The defendant was a corporation, and had assumed to act in a capacity which was to a great extent public, and had undertaken to satisfy a public want or necessity, although it did not possess any special privileges by statute or any monopoly of business in a given territory; yet it was held that, from the very nature and character of its business, it had a monopoly of the business which it transacted. The court said that no statute had been deemed necessary to aid the courts in holding that where a person or company undertook to supply a public demand, which was "affected with a public interest," it must supply all alike who occupied a like situation, and not discriminate in favor of or against any. In Stone v. Yazoo & Miss. Valley R. Co., 62 Mississippi, 607, 639, the Supreme Court of Mississippi, in 1885, cited Opinion of the Court. Munn v. Illinois as deciding that the regulation of warehouses for the storage of grain, owned by private individuals, and situated in Illinois, was a thing of domestic concern and pertained to the State, and as affirming the right of the State to regulate the business of one engaged in a public employment therein, although that business consisted in storing and transferring immense quantities of grain in its transit from the fields of production to the markets of the world. In Hockett v. The State, 105 Indiana, 250, 258, in 1885, the Supreme Court of Indiana held that a statute of the State which prescribed the maximum price which a telephone company should charge for the use of its telephones was constitutional, and that in legal contemplation all the instruments and appliances used by a telephone company in the transaction of its business were devoted to a public use, and the property thus devoted became a legitimate subject of legislative regulation. It cited Munn v. Illinois as a leading case in support of that proposition, and said that although that case had been the subject of comment and criticism, its authority as a precedent remained unshaken. This doctrine was confirmed in Central Union Telephone Co. v. Bradbury, 106 Indiana, 1, in the same year, and in Central Union Telephone Co. v. The State, 118 Indiana, 194, 207, in 1888, in which latter case Munn v. Illinois was cited by the court. In Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. v. Balto. & Ohio Telegraph Co., 66 Maryland, 399, 414, in 1886, it was held that the telegraph and the telephone were public vehicles of intelligence, and those who owned or controlled them could no more refuse to perform impartially the functions which they had assumed to discharge than a railway company, as a common carrier, could rightfully refuse to perform its duty to the public; and that the legislature of the State had full power to regulate the services of telephone companies, as to the parties to whom facilities should be furnished. The court cited Munn v. Illinois, and said that it could no longer be controverted that the legislature of a State had full power to regulate and control, at least within reasonable limits, public employments and property used in connection therewith; that Opinion of the Court. the operation of the telegraph and the telephone in doing a general business was a public employment, and the instruments and appliances used were property devoted to a public use and in which the public had an interest; and that, such being the case, the owner of the property thus devoted to public use must submit to have that use and employment regulated by public authority for the common good. In the Court of Chancery of New Jersey, in 1889, in Delaware &c. Railroad Co. v. Central Stock-Yard Co., 45 N. J. Eq. 50, 60, it was held that the legislature had power to declare what services warehousemen should render to the public, and to fix the compensation that might be demanded for such services; and the court cited Munn v. Illinois as properly holding that warehouses for the storage of grain must be regarded as so far public in their nature as to be subject to legislative control, and that when a citizen devoted his property to a use in which the public had an interest, he in effect granted to the public an interest in that use, and rendered himself subject to control, in that use, by the body politic. In Zanesville v. Gas-Light Company, 47 Ohio St. 1, in 1889, it was said by the Supreme Court of Ohio, that the principle was well established, that where the owner of property devotes it to a use in which the public have an interest, he in effect grants to the public an interest in such use, and must to the extent of that interest submit to be controlled by the public for the common good, as long as he maintains the use; and that such was the point of the decision in Munn v. Illinois. We must regard the principle maintained in Munn v. Illinois as firmly established; and we think it covers the present cases, in respect to the charge for elevating, receiving, weighing and discharging the grain, as well as in respect to the charge for trimming and shovelling to the leg of the elevator when loading, and trimming the cargo when loaded. If the shovellers or scoopers chose, they might do the shovelling by hand, or might use a steam-shovel. A steam-shovel is owned by the elevator owner, and the power for operating it is fur Opinion of the Court. nished by the engine of the elevator; and if the scooper uses the steam-shovel, he pays the elevator owner for the use of it. The answer to the suggestion that by the statute the elevator owner is forbidden to make any profit from the business of shovelling to the leg of the elevator is that made by the Court of Appeals of New York in the case of Budd, that the words "actual cost," used in the statute, were intended to exclude any charge by the elevator owner, beyond the sum specified for the use of his machinery in shovelling and the ordinary expenses of operating it, and to confine the charge to the actual cost of the outside labor required for trimming and bringing the grain to the leg of the elevator; and that the purpose of the statute could be easily evaded and defeated if the elevator owner was permitted to separate the services, and to charge for the use of his steam-shovel any sum which might be agreed upon between himself and the shovellers' union, and thereby, under color of charging for the use of his steam-shovel, to exact of the carrier a sum for elevating beyond the rate fixed by the statute. We are of opinion that the act of the legislature of New York is not contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and does not deprive the citizen of his property without due process of law; that the act, in fixing the maximum charges which it specifies, is not unconstitutional, nor is it so in limiting the charge for shovelling to the actual cost thereof; and that it is a proper exercise of the police power of the State. On the testimony in the cases before us the business of elevating grain is a business charged with a public interest, and those who carry it on occupy a relation to the community analogous to that of common carriers. The elevator owner, in fact, retains the grain in his custody for an appreciable period of time, because he receives it into his custody, weighs it, and then discharges it, and his employment is thus analogous to that of a warehouseman. In the actual state of the business the passage of the grain to the city of New York and other places on the seaboard would, without the use of eleva Opinion of the Court. tors, be practically impossible. The elevator at Buffalo is a link in the chain of transportation to the seaboard, and the elevator in the harbor of New York is a like link in the transportation abroad by sea. The charges made by the elevator influence the price of grain at the point of destination on the seaboard, and that influence extends to the prices of grain at the places abroad to which it goes. The elevator is devoted by its owner, who engages in the business, to a use in which the public has an interest, and he must submit to be controlled by public legislation for the common good. It is contended in the briefs for the plaintiffs in error in the Annan and Pinto cases that the business of the relators in handling grain was wholly private, and not subject to regulation by law; and that they had received from the State no charter, no privileges and no immunity, and stood before the law on a footing with the laborers they employed to shovel grain, and were no more subject to regulation than any other individual in the community. But these same facts existed in Munn v. Illinois. In that case, the parties offending were private individuals, doing a private business, without any privilege or monopoly granted to them by the State. Not only is the business of elevating grain affected with a public interest, but the records show that it is an actual monopoly, besides being incident to the business of transportation and to that of a common carrier, and thus of a quasi-public character. The act is also constitutional as an exercise of the police power of the State. So far as the statute in question is a regulation of commerce, it is a regulation of commerce only on the waters of the State of New York. It operates only within the limits of that State, and is no more obnoxious as a regulation of interstate commerce than was the statute of Illinois in respect to warehouses, in Munn v. Illinois. It is of the same character with navigation laws in respect to navigation within the State, and laws regulating wharfage rates within the State, and other kindred laws. It is further contended that, under the decision of this court in Chicago &c. Railway Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U. S. 418, the VOL. CXLIII-35 |