frivolous for further notice. It is said, however, that since under the Constitution as originally framed state citizenship was primary and United States citizenship but derivative and dependent thereon, therefore the power conferred upon Congress to raise armies was only coterminous with United States citizenship, and could not be exerted so as to cause that citizenship to lose its dependent character and dominate state citizenship. But the proposition simply denies to Congress the power to raise armies which the Constitution gives. That power, by the very terms of the Constitution, being delegated, is supreme. * When the Constitution came to be formed it may not be disputed that one of the recognized necessities for its adoption was the want of power in Congress to raise an army and the dependence upon the states for their quotas. In supplying the power it was manifestly intended to give it all and leave none to the states, since, besides the delegation to Congress of authority to raise armies, the Constitution prohibited the states, without the consent of Congress, from keeping troops in time of peace or engaging in war. Article 1, § 10. To argue that, as the state authority over the militia prior to the Constitution embraced every citizen, the right of Congress to raise an army should not be considered as granting authority to compel the citizen's service in the army, is but to express in a different form the denial of the right to call any citizen to the army. Nor is this met by saying that it does not exclude the right of Congress to organize an army by voluntary enlistments, that is, by the consent of the citizens, for if the proposition be true, the right of the citizen to give consent would be controlled by the same prohibition which would deprive Congress of the right to compel unless it can be said that although Congress had not the right to call, because of state authority, the citizen had a right to obey the call and set aside state authority if he pleased to do so. * * * * It remains only to consider contentions which, while not disputing power, challenge the act because of the repugnancy to the Constitution supposed to result from some of its provisions. First, we are of opinion that the contention that the act is void as a delegation of Federal power to state officials because of some of its administrative features is too wanting in merit to require further notice. Second, we think that the contention that the statute is void because vesting administrative officers with legislative discretion has been so completely adversely settled as to require reference only to some of the decided cases: Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649, etc. And we pass without anything but statement the proposition that an establishment of a religion or an interference with the free exercise thereof, repugnant to the 1st Amendment, resulted from the exemption clauses of the act to which we at the outset referred because we think its unsoundness is too apparent to require us to do more. Fianally, as we are unable to conceive upon what theory the exaction by government from the citizen of the performance of his supreme and noble duty of contributing to the defense of the rights. and honor of the nation as the result of a war declared by the great representative body of the people can be said to be the imposition of involuntary servitude, in violation of the prohibitions of the 13th Amendment, we are constrained to the conclusion that the contention to that effect is refuted by its mere statement. Affirmed. Sub-Section D. RENT CASES. EMERGENCY RENT CASE. BLOCK v. HIRSH. 256 U. S. 134. 1921. This was an action by the owner of an apartment in Washington, District of Columbia, to recover possession of the premises after expiration of the lease. The defendant, the lessee of the apartment, refused to surrender possession relying on the Act of Congress of October 22, 1919. This act was an emergency law which declared that it was made necessary by emergencies growing out of the Great War resulting in rental conditions dangerous to public health in the District of Columbia and thereby embarrassing the Federal Government in the transaction of public business and by its provisions was a temporary measure to end in two years unless sooner repealed. By this act, the right of a tenant to occupy any hotel, apartment or "rental property" was to continue notwithstanding the expiration of the term, at the option of the tenant, subject to regulation by the commission appointed by the act, so long as the latter pays the rent and performs the conditions of the lease or as modified by the commission. The act provided that the owner might have the right of possession only "for actual and bona fide occupancy by himself, or his wife, children or dependents-upon giving thirty days' notice in writing." The Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia affirmed a judgment of the Supreme Court of the District in favor of the plaintiff and the defendant appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. The main constitutional question involved was whether the statute was an attempt to authorize the taking of property, not for public use, without due process of law. MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the court: No doubt it is true that a legislative declaration of facts that are material only as the ground for enacting a rule of law, for instance, that a certain use is a public one, may not be held conclusive by the courts. But a declaration by a legislature concerning public conditions that, by necessity and duty, it must know, is entitled at least to great respect. In this instance Congress stated a publicly notorious and almost worldwide fact. That the emergency declared by the statute did exist must be assumed, and the question is whether Congress was incompetent to meet it in the way in which it has been met by most of the civilized countries of the world. The general proposition to be maintained is that circumstances have clothed the letting of buildings in the District of Columbia with a public interest so great as to justify regulation by law. Plainly, circumstances may so change in time or so differ in space as to clothe with such an interest what at other times or in other places would be a matter of purely private concern. We do not perceive any reason for denying the justification held good in the foregoing cases to a law limiting the property rights now in question if the public exigency requires that. The reasons are of a different nature, but they certainly are not less pressing. Congress has stated the unquestionable embarrassment of government and danger to the public health in the existing condition of things. The space in Washington is necessarily monopolized in comparatively few hands, and letting portions of it as much a business as any other. Housing is a necessary of life. All the elements of a public interest justifying some degree of public control are present. The only matter that seems to us open to debate is whether the statute goes too far. For just as there comes a point at which the police power ceases and leaves only that of eminent domain, it may be conceded that regulations of the present sort, pressed to a certain height, might amount to a taking without due process of law. * * * * The main point against the law is that tenants are allowed to remain in possession at the same rent that they have been paying, unless modified by the commission established by the act, and that thus the use of the land and the right of the owner to do what he will with his own and to make contracts he pleases are cut down. But if the public interest be established, the regulation of rates is one of the first forms in which it is asserted, and the validity of such regulation has been established since Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113. * * * * The regulation is put and justified only as a temporary measure. A limit in time, to tide over a passing trouble, well may justify a law that could not be upheld as Machinery is provided to secure a permanent change. * * * * * * * to the landlord a reasonable rent. * Assuming that the end in view otherwise justified the means adopted by Congress, we have no concern, of course, with the question whether those means were the wisest, whether they may not cost more than they come to, or will effect the result desired. It is enough that we are not warranted in saying that legislation that has been resorted to for the same purpose all over the world is futile, or has no reasonable relation to the relief sought. * * * * A part of the exigency is to secure a speedy and summary administration of the law, and we are not prepared to say that the suspension of ordinary remedies was not a reasonable provision of a statute reasonable in its aim and intent. The plaintiff obtained a judgment on the ground that the statute was void, root and branch. That judgment must be reversed. Section 5. Judgment reversed. THE POWER OF CONGRESS OVER THE TERRITORIES. Sub-Section A. THE INSULAR TARIFF CASES. DE LIMA v. BIDWELL. 182 U. S. 1. 1900. This was an action in the Supreme Court of New York State by the firm of De Lima & Co., against the collector of the port of New York, G. R. Bidwell, to recover duties paid under protest upon certain importations of sugar from San Juan, Porto Rico, during the autumn of 1899, and subsequent to the cession of the island to the United States. (The Foraker Act of April 12, 1900, had not been passed when these goods were brought into New York.) The case was removed to the Circuit Court of the United States, which decided in favor of the collector of the port and against De Lima & Co.'s right to recover the duties. De Lima & Co. then appealed the case to the Supreme Court of the United States, and claimed that the tariff duties could only be collected on goods coming from a foreign country and that Porto Rico since the Spanish-American War was no longer a foreign country. MR. JUSTICE BROWN delivered the opinion of the court: This case raises the single question whether territory acquired by the United States by cession from a foreign power remains a "foreign country" within the meaning of the tariff laws. * * * * By Article II, section 2, of the Constitution, the President is given power, "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided that two-thirds of the senators present concur;" and by Art. VI "this Constitution and the laws of the United States, which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land." It will be observed that no distinction is made as to the question of supremacy between laws and treaties, except that both are controlled by the Constitution. A law requires the assent of both houses of Congress, and, except in certain specified cases, the signature of the President. A treaty is negotiated and made by the President, with the concurrence of two-thirds of the senators present, but each of them is the supreme law of the land. One of the ordinary incidents of a treaty is the cession of territory. It is not too much to say it is the rule, rather than the exception, that a treaty of peace, following upon a war, provides for a cession of territory to the victorious party. It was said by Chief Justice Marshall in American Ins. Co. v. Canter, 1 Pet. 511, 542; "The Constitution confers absolutely upon the government of the Union. the powers of making war and of making treaties; consequently that government possesses the power of acquiring territory, either by conquest or by treaty." The territory thus acquired is acquired as absolutely as if the annexation were made, as in the case of Texas and Hawaii, by an Act of Congress. It follows from this that by a ratification of the treaty of Paris the island became territory of the United States-although not an organized territory in the technical sense of the word. * * * But whatever be the source of this power, its uninterrupted exercise by Congress for a century, and the repeated declarations of this court, have settled the law that the right to acquire territory involves the right to govern and dispose of it. That was stated by Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott case. In the more recent case of National Bank v. County of Yankton, 101 U. S., 129, it was said by Mr. Chief Justice Waite that Congress "has full and complete legislative authority over the people of the territories and all the departments of the territorial governments. It may do for the territories what the people under the Constitution of the United States, may do for the States." * In short, when once acquired by treaty, it (the territory) belongs to the United States, and is subject to the disposition of Congress. * * * Territory thus acquired can remain a foreign country under the tariff laws only upon one of two theories; either that the word "foreign" applies to such countries as were foreign at the time the statute was enacted, notwithstanding any subsequent change in their condition, or that they remain foreign under the tariff laws until Congress has formally embraced them within the customs union of the States. The first theory is obviously untenable. While a statute is presumed to speak from the time of its enactment, it embraces all such persons |