law, nor which can be said to be in any way
contrary to the public policy of the state,
as it is at this time established. The ordi-
nance does not purport to deal exclusively
with the subject of the reception of liquor
from one who has no authority to sell the
same. On the contrary, taking into consid-be
eration the entire ordinance, the conclusion
is inevitable that the purpose of the ordi-
nance is to deal with the subject of the recep-

KANSAS SUPREME COURT.

ten or more hands, whatever the nature of such employment may be.

Gulf, C. & S. F. R. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150. 41 L. ed. 666, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 255; State v. Peel Splint Coal Co. 36 W. Va. 802, 17 L. R. A. 385, 15 S. E. 1000; Shoffer v. Union Min. Co. 55 Md. 74; Frorer v. People use of School Fund, 141 Ill. 171, 16 L. R. A. 492, 31 N. E. 395; State v. Goodwill, 33 W. Va. 179, 6 L. R. A. 621, 10 S. E. 285; State v. Fire Creek Coal & C. Co. 33 W. Va. 188, 6 L. R. A. 359, 10 S. E. 288; Millett v. People, 117 Ill. 294, 57 Am. Rep. 869, 7 N. E. 631. The freedom of contract may be abridged. A party is not permitted to contract away his right of exemption.

Maloney v. Newton, 85 Ind. 565, 44 Am.
Rep. 46.

Nor his right to stay of execution.
McLane v. Elmer, 4 Ind. 239.
Parties cannot contract away their right
to go to court for redress.

Bauer v. Samson Lodge, K. of P. 102 Ind. 262, 1 N. E. 571; Dugan v. Thomas, 79 Me. 221, 9 Atl. 354.

Nor that a cause shall not be removed to the Federal court.

Home Ins. Co. v. Morse, 20 Wall. 445, 22 L. ed. 365; Doyle v. Continental Ins. Co. 94 U. S. 535, 24 L. ed. 148; Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U. S. 678, 32 L. ed. 253, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 992, 1257.

Smith, J., delivered the opinion of the

court:

and Parts of Acts in Conflict Herewith." Turning to the General Statutes of 1889, we find that §§ 2441, 2442, and 2443, repealed, have no reference to corporate charters. The sections repealed are incorporated in the Laws of 1887 (chap. 171), entitled "An Act to Secure to Laborers in and about Coal Mines and Manufactories the Payment of Their Wages at Regular Intervals, and in Lawful Money of the United States." A person engaged in the pursuit of information regarding the extent of corporate powers under the laws of this state would receive no hint from the title of the act of 1897 that the law in question was intended for any such purpose. In the General Statutes of 1897 the act is made a part of chapter 73, under the head of "Labor and the Protection of Laborers," and nowhere appears classified in that part of the statute relating to corporations. This is mentioned as indicating that the compiler of the General Statutes saw nothing in the act which indicated to him that it in any wise affected the powers of corporations. The 1st section of the act makes it unlawful for any person, firm, company, corporation, or trust to give any scrip, token, check, or order to any employee. The application of this section to persons, firms, companies, and trusts makes it quite clear that the general scope and purpose of the law are defined in its title, and that the alteration or amendment of corpoislature, and is not expressed in the body of rate charters was never intended by the leg

the act, when the true rules of construction In sustaining the constitutionality of the act under consideration, the court of ap-ion of Mr. Chief Justice Doster in Missouri, are applied thereto. In the concurring opinpeals held that it applied only to corpora- K. & T. R. Co. v. Medaris, 60 Kan. 151-155, tions and trusts severally employing ten or 55 Pac. 875, the same reasons are employed more persons, and, further, that the act is to show that the "fellow-servant" law of constitutional as a valid exercise of legisla- 1874 could not be regarded as amendatory of tive authority to alter and amend corporate corporate charters. To hold that corporate charters. The fact has been ignored that the charters are affected is to set at naught § 16 complaint upon which the appellant was tried and convicted does not charge that the "No bill shall contain more than one subof article 2 of the Constitution, as follows: coal company for which he was acting was incorporated under the laws of this state. ject, which shall be clearly expressed in its The agreed statement of facts recites merely Sedgwick County Comrs. v. Bailey, 13 Kan. title." This requirement is mandatory. that the Kansas Commercial Coal Company 600. No information appearing in the title was a duly-organized corporation, engaged that corporate charters are affected, such subin the business of mining coal for private ject is not only not clearly expressed, but is gain, among other places, in Crawford county, Kansas. There is neither allegation nor stitutional command is thus stated: "To prenot expressed at all. The object of this conproof that the corporation obtained its char-vent the practice ter in Kansas. Nor can there be a presump- the same bill incongruous matters, having of embracing in tion in a criminal case that it was a domestic corporation in order to sustain a convicno relation to each other or to the subject tion. While the state might prohibit a for- specified in the title, by which measures eign corporation from doing business here, were often adopted without attracting atit can hardly be claimed that it could alter tention." Sutherland, Stat. Constr. §§ 78-85, or amend a corporate charter granted by the and cases cited; State v. Barrett, 27 Kan. laws of another state. We will proceed, 213; State v. Sholl, 58 Kan. 507, 49 Pac. however, by assuming that the coal company 668. To satisfy the constitutional requirewas a Kansas corporation. There is no sug- ment, the language of the act should be gestion in the title of the act that the pro- broad enough to show that corporate rights visions of corporate charters are to be in were either increased or abridged. In the any wise affected. The title reads: "An view taken by the court of appeals, the sancAct to Secure to Laborers and Others the tion of the act is visited upon corporations Payment of Their Wages, and Prescribing a and trusts employing ten or more persons, Penalty for the Violation of This Act, and treating trusts as equivalent to corporations. Repealing Sections 2441, 2442, and 2443 of Our statute defines a trust. Section 14 of the General Statutes of 1889, and All Acts chapter 145 of the General Statutes of 1897

reads: "A trust is a combination of capital | skill, or acts, by two or more persons, firms, corporations, or associations of persons, or either two or more of them, for either, any, or all of the following purposes." (Then follow the particular acts prohibited.) Just how the court of appeals concluded that the act we are now considering did not apply to individuals, but to trusts and corporations only, when a trust may be composed of persons or firms associated together, we do not understand. A trust may or may not be endowed with corporate powers. If not, then it is a mere aggregation of individuals or partnerships, and could hardly be regulated under a law, the constitutionality of which can be sustained only upon the ground that it alters and amends corporate charters. We are clearly of the opinion that a construction of the act which attributes to it a purpose to alter or amend corporate charters is erroneous.

We have no hesitation in saying that if this statute had, without defect as to title, clearly and in express terms amended corporate charters, retaining the section classify ing corporations to which it was applicable by the number of men in their employ, it would be obnoxious to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The law is partial and unequal in its operation. The 1st section of the act makes it "unlawful for any person, firm, company, corporation, or trust, or the agent, or the business manager of any such person, firm, company, corporation, or trust," to do certain things. Section 2 declares that "all contracts to pay or accept wages in any other than lawful money, or by check or draft, as specified in section one, of this act, and any private agreement or secret understanding that wages shall be or may be paid, in other than lawful money, or by such check or draft, shall be void." So far the act is general, and applies to all persons and aggregations of persons alike. În § 3 partiality commences. Any person, says that section, who "shall compel or in any manner attempt to compel, or coerce any employee of any corporation or trust to purchase goods, or supplies, from any particular store or person shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. If, therefore, any person compels or attempts to compel or coerce any employee, other than an employee of a corporation or trust, he is guiltless of wrong, and may proceed with his compulsion without fear of prosecution. Section 4 provides that the act "shall apply only to corporations or trusts or other agents, lessees, or business managers, that employ ten or more persons." Not only is the attempted act of compulsion or coercion denounced in § 3 made applicable only to corporations and trusts, but the denunciation of § 4 does not touch a corporation or trust that employs less than ten men. Thus an act of an agent or a corporation or trust of a given class is unlawful, while the same act of the same man is lawful if he works for an individual or another class of corporations or trusts. Again, the same act of the same man would be unlawful to-day if his

employer was a corporation or trust and em-
ployed ten men, while to-morrow it would be
lawful, provided in the meantime the corpo-
ration or trust had discharged one of its em-
ployees. Shaver v. Pennsylvania Co. 71 Fed.
Rep. 931. The obvious intent of the act
is to protect the laborer, and not to benefit
the corporation. Why should not the nine
employees who work for one corporation be
equally protected with the eleven engaged in
the same line of employment for another
corporation? If such law is beneficial to
wage earners in the one instance, why not in
the other? The nine men lawfully paid for
their labor in goods at a truck store might
with much reason complain that the protec
tion of the law was unequal as to them, when
they saw eleven men paid in money for the
same service performed for another corpora-
tion engaged in a like business. Such in-
equality destroys the law. In the instance
cited, two of the eleven inen might quit the
employment of the company for which they
worked, and by this act alone make a method
of payment by the corporation lawful which
was unlawful while the eleven were em-
ployed. The criminality or innocence of an
act done ought not to depend on the happen-
ing of such a circumstance. Equal protec
tion of the laws means equal exemption with
others of the same class from all charges and
burdens of every kind. Re Ah Fong, 3
Sawy. 144, Fed. Čas. No. 102. In Leeper v.
Texas, 139 U. S. 462-468, 35 L. ed. 225–227,
11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 579, it is said: "No state
can deprive particular persons, or classes of
persons, of equal and impartial justice un-
der the law.
Due process is so se-
cured by laws operating on all alike, and not
subjecting the individual to the arbitrary ex-
ercise of the powers of government, unre-
strained by the established principles of pri-
vate right and distributive justice."

If the classification attempted by this act
is a constitutional one, it follows that the
legislature might have made the law applica-
ble only to corporations employing married
men or persons over a certain age, or to cor-
porations a proportion of whose employees
were women, or applied any other arbitrary
or capricious means of distinction. In the
language of Mr. Justice Brewer, infra: "In
all cases it must appear, not only that a clas-
sification has been made, but also that it is
one based upon some reasonable ground,-
some difference which bears a just and prop-
er relation to the attempted classification."
A classification of the kind attempted makes
a distinction between corporations identical-
ly alike in organization, capital, and all
other powers and privileges conferred by law.
It is arbitrary and wanting in reason.
act in question is class legislation of the
most pronounced character. Judge Cooley,
in his Constitutional Limitations, in discuss-
ing such laws, says: "Everyone has a
right to demand that he be governed by gen-
eral rules, and a special statute, which, with-
out his consent, singles his case out as one
to be regulated by a different law from that
which is applied in all similar cases, would
not be legitimate legislation, but would be

The

ceeding $50, might present the same, verified by affidavit, for payment to such corporation, by filing it with the station agent; and if, at the expiration of thirty days, such claim was not paid, he might immediately institute suit thereon, and, if he should obtain judgment, he should be entitled to recover the amount of the claim and all costs, and in addition thereto a reasonable attorney's fee, not to exceed $10. It was held that the statute deprived the railway companies of property without due process of law, and denied to them its equal protection in that they were singled out of all citizens and corporations, and required to pay in certain cases attorney's fees to the parties successfully suing them, while it gave to them no corresponding benefit. A large number of decisions bearing upon the question are collected in this opinion. Mr. Justice Brewer, in deciding the case, among other things, said: "If it be said that this penalty is cast only upon corporations; that to them special privileges are granted, and therefore upon them special burdens may be imposed, it is a sufficient answer to say that the penalty is not imposed upon all corporations. The burden does not go with the privilege. Only railroads, of all corporations, are selected to bear this penalty. The rule of equity is ignored. .

such an arbitrary mandate as is not within or injured by any railway company. not exthe province of free governments. Those who make laws are to govern by promulgated, established laws, not to be varied in particular cases, but to have one rule for the rich and poor, for the favorite at court and the countryman at plough.' This is a maxim in constitutional law, and by it we may test the authority and binding force of legislative enactments." Cooley, Const. Lim. 5th ed. 484. "The doubt might also arise whether a regulation made for any one class of citizens, entirely arbitrary in its character, and restricting their rights, privileges, or legal capacities in a manner before unknown to the law, could be sustained, notwithstanding its generality. Distinctions in these respects must rest upon some reason upon which they can be defended,-like the want of capacity in infants and insane persons; and if the legislature should undertake to provide that persons following some specified lawful trade or employment should not have capacity to make contracts or to receive conveyances, or to build such houses as others were allowed to erect, or in any other way to make such use of their property as was permissible to others, it can scarcely be doubted that the act would transcend the due bounds of legislative power, even though no express constitutional provision could be pointed out with which it would come in conflict. To forbid to an individual or a class the right to the acquisition or enjoyment of property in such manner as should be permitted to the community at large would be to deprive them of liberty in particulars of primary importance to their 'pursuit of happiness'; and those who should claim a right to do so ought to be able to show a specific authority therefor, instead of calling upon others to show how and where the authority is negatived." Id. 486. Such legislation is violative of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which provides: "Nor shall any state 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." Corporations are regarded as persons, within the meaning of said amendment. Santa Clara County v. Southern P. R. Co. 118 U. S. 394, 30 L. ed. 118, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1132; Pembina Consol. Silver Min. & Mill. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 125 U. S. 181, 31 L. ed. 650, 2 Inters. Com. Rep. 24, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 737. The equal protection mentioned by the enforcement of this statute is denied by making one of two men engaged in the same business, under precisely similar circumstances, in the same town or building, a criminal, and imposing no penalty whatever upon the other for the same act; the only difference being that one worked for a co-court said: "The rights of every individpartnership, and the other for a corporation. In the late case of Gulf, C. & S. F. R. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150, 41 L. ed. 666, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 255, the Supreme Court of the United States passed upon a statute of Texas which provided that any person having a bona fide claim for services, labor, damages, overcharges on freight, or for stock killed

But a mere statute to compel the payment of indebtedness does not come within the scope of police regulations. The hazardous business of railroading carries with it no special necessity for the prompt payment of debts. That is a duty resting upon all debtors, and, while in certain cases there may be a peculiar obligation which may be enforced by penalties, yet nothing of that kind springs from the mere work of railroad transportation. But arbitrary selection can never be justified by calling it classification. The equal protection demanded by the Fourteenth Amendment forbids this. It is apparent that the mere fact of classification is not sufficient to relieve a statute from the reach of the equality clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that in all cases it must appear, not only that a classification has been made, but also that it is one based upon some reasonable ground,-some difference which bears a just and proper relation to the attempted classification." In the case of State v. Goodwill, 33 W. Va. 179–182, 6· L. R. A. 623, 10 S. E. 286, a statute prohibiting any person, firm, company, corporation, or association engaged in mining or manufacturing from using in payment for labor any order or other paper, unless redeemable for its face value in lawful money of the United States, was held to be void. The

ual must stand or fall by the same rule of law that governs every other member of the body politic under similar circumstances; and every partial or private law which directly proposes to destroy or affect individual rights, or does the same thing by restricting the privileges of certain classes of citizens, and not of others, when there is no