necessarily limit the freedom of contract which would otherwise exist. Such limitations are constantly imposed upon the right to contract freely, because of restrictions upon that right deemed necessary in the interest of the general welfare. So long as such action has a reasonable relation to the exercise of the power belonging to the local legislative body, and is not so arbitrary or capricious as to be a deprivation of due process of law, freedom of contract is not interfered with in a constitutional sense. See, in this connection, Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549, and the previous cases in this court reviewed in the course of the opinion in that case."

§ 278. Freedom of contract not abridged by state law punishing the selling of goods at a lower rate in one place than another. In Central Lumber Co. v. South Dakota, 226 U. S. 157, it was held that a law of South Dakota punishing the selling of goods at a lower rate in one place than in another, for the purpose of destroying the competition of any regular established dealer therein, or to prevent the competition of any person, who in good faith, intends and attempts to become such dealer, does not abridge the freedom of contract guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court said: "On the first of these points it is said that an indefensible classification may be disguised in the form of a description of the acts constituting the offense, and it is urged that to punish selling goods in one place lower than at another in effect is to select the class of dealers that have two places of business for a special liability, and in real facts is a blow aimed at those who have several lumber yards along a line of railroad, in the interest of independent dealers. All competition, it is added, imparts an attempt to destroy or prevent the competition of rivals, and there is no difference in principle between the prohibited act and the ordinary efforts of traders at a single place. The premises may be conceded without accepting the conclusion that this is an unconstitutional discrimination. If the

legislature shares the now prevailing belief as to what is public policy, and finds that a particular instrument of trade war is being used against that policy in certain cases, it may direct its law against what it deems the evil as it actually exists without covering the whole field of possible abuses, and it may do so none the less that the forbidden act does not differ in kind from those that are allowed. Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61; Missouri P. R. Co. v. Mackey, 127 U. S. 205. That is not the arbitrary selection that is condemned in such cases as Southern R. Co. v. Greene, 216 U. S. 400. The Fourteenth Amendment does not prohibit legislation special in character. Magoun v. Illinois Trust and Savings Bank, 170 U. S. 283. It does not prohibit a state from carrying out a policy that cannot be pronounced purely arbitrary, by taxation or penal laws. Orient Insurance Co. v. Daggs, 172 U. S. 557, 562; Quong Wing v. Kirkendall, 223 U. S. 59, 62. If a class is deemed to present a conspicuous example of what the legislature seeks to prevent, the Fourteenth Amendment allows it to be dealt with, although otherwise and merely logically not distinguishable from others not embraced in the law. Carroll v. Greenwich Ins. Co., 199 U. S. 401, 411. We must assume that the legislature of South Dakota considered that people selling in two places made the prohibited use of their opportunities, and that such use was harmful, although the usual efforts of competitors were desired."

§ 279. Freedom of contract not abridged by state law making it a crime for a junk dealer to buy certain materials under certain circumstances. In Rosenthal v. New York, 226 U. S. 260, it was held that a law of that state, as construed by its highest court, making it a crime for a dealer in junk, metals, or second-hand materials to buy or receive any stolen copper, lead, wire, cable, solder, brass or iron used by or belonging to a railroad, telegraph, telephone, gas, or electric light company, prior to

diligent inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining whether the person selling or delivering it has a legal right to dispose of the same, does not abridge the freedom of contract guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court said: "We have said enough to indicate the character of the arguments employed in the effort to show that the act of 1903 is wholly arbitrary and constitutes so groundless an interference with the citizen's liberty of contract as to bring it within the denunciation of the due process of law clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It seems to us that the object of the legislation is well within the legitimate bounds of the police power of the state, and sustainable upon the principles discussed in Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 626, of which more recent applications are to be found in Booth v. Illinois, 184 U. S. 425, 429, and Lemieux v. Young, 211 U. S. 489. See also, Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549, 568."

§ 280. Freedom of contract abridged by state law making it a crime for a person to act as a railway conductor without certain qualifications. In Smith v. Texas, 233 U. S. 630, it was held that a law of that state making it a misdemeanor for any one to act as a conductor on a railway train without previous service for two years as a freight conductor or brakeman, embodied an unconstitutional abridgment of the freedom of contract guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court said: "The liberty of contract is, of course, not unlimited; but there is no reason or authority for the proposition that conditions may be imposed by statute which will admit some who are competent and arbitrarily exclude others who are equally competent to labor on terms mutually satisfactory to employer and employee. None of the cases sustains the proposition that under the power to secure public safety, a privileged class can be created and be then given a monopoly of the right to work in a special or favored position. Such a statute would shut the door, without a hearing, upon many persons and classes of per

sons who were competent to serve, and would deprive them of the liberty to work in a calling they were qualified to fill with safety to the public and benefit to themselves."

§ 281. Freedom of contract not infringed by state law forbidding employment of a child or woman for more than ten hours a day. In Riley v. Massachusetts, 232 U. S. 671, it was held that a law of that state forbidding the employment of a child or woman for more than ten hours in any one day, or more than fifty-six hours a week, in any manufacturing or mechanical establishment, does not infringe the freedom of contract guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court said: "The statute of the state which is assailed provides that no child or woman shall be employed in laboring in any manufacturing or mechanical establishment more than ten hours in any one day, except as hereinafter provided in this section, unless a different apportionment of the hours of labor is made for the sole purpose of making a shorter day's work for one day of the week, and in no case shall the hours of labor exceed fifty-six in a week.

The

first contention of plaintiff in error is that the statute restricts the right to sell and buy labor, and therein infringes the liberty of contract assured by article 14 of the Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. The contention is untenable expressed in this generality. In Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412, against a similar contention, a statute of Oregon was sustained which prohibited the employment of women in mechanical factories or laundries working more than ten hours during any one day with power, as in the Massachusetts statute, to apportion the hours through the day."

§ 282. Freedom of contract not infringed by state law forbidding the issuance of irredeemable orders in payment of labor. In Keokee Consolidated Coke Co. v. Taylor, 234 U. S. 224, it was held that freedom of contract was

not infringed by a Virginia statute forbidding any person, corporation or firm, engaged in mining coal or ore, or manufacturing iron or steel, or any other kind of manufacturing, to issue, for the payment of labor, any order not purporting to be redeemable for its face value in the lawful money of the country. The Court said: "Of course we do not go behind the construction given to the state law by the state courts. The objections that are urged here are that the statute interferes with freedom of contract, and, more especially that it is class legislation of a kind supposed to be inconsistent with the Fourteenth Amendment; a West Virginia decision upon a similar statute being cited to that effect. State v. Goodwill, 33 W. Va. 179. The former of these objections, however, is disposed of by Knoxville Iron Co. v. Harbison, 183 U. S. 13, and Dayton Coal & I. Co. v. Barton, 183 U. S. 23."

§ 283. Freedom of contract not limited by a Missouri statute against combinations. In International Harvester Co. v. Missouri, 234 U. S. 199, it was held that a statute of that state against combinations tending to lessen competition in the importation, manufacture, transportation, or sale of commodities, does not limit the freedom of contract guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, even when its prohibitions are applied to a combination that has benefited instead of injured the public. The Court said: "(1) The specification under this head is that the Supreme Court found, it is contended, benefit-not injury-to the public had resulted from the alleged combination. Granting that this is not an overstatement of the opinion, the answer is immediate. It is too late in the day to assert against statutes which forbid combinations of competing companies that a particular combination was induced by good intentions and has had some good effect. Armour Packing Co. v. United States, 209 U. S. 56, 62; Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co. v. United States, 226 U. S. 20, 49. The purpose of such