physicians, without rendering the statute invalid as denying the equal protection of the laws. A consideration of the exceptions to the law makes it manifest that they are not without reason. Before a law of this kind can be declared violative of the Fourteenth Amendment as an unreasonable classification of the subjects of such legislation because of the omission of certain classes, the court must be able to say that there is "no fair reason for the law that would not require with equal force its extension to others whom it leaves untouched." The selection of the exempted classes was within the legislative power, subject only to the restriction that it be not arbitrary or oppressive, and apply equally to all persons similarly situated. The conduct of hospitals may be regulated by such laws or municipal regulations as might not reach the general practitioner of medicine. The Supreme Court said it could not say that these exceptions were so wholly arbitrary and have such slight relation to the objects to be attained by the law as to require the courts to strike them down as a denial of the equal protection of the laws, within the meaning of the Federal Constitution. Watson v. Maryland, 218 U. S. 173.

§ 468. Exempting banks and trust companies and bona fide mortgages from state usury law. The Connecticut statute exempting banks and trust companies and bona fide mortgages from the operation of the law prohibiting the exaction of more than 15 per cent interest on loans, or accepting a note for a greater amount than that actually loaned, with intent to evade this provision, does not render such statute repugnant to the equal protection of the laws clause of the Federal Constitution, but such classification has a reasonable basis. The general assembly, in respect to the matter of usury, had the right to deal with different classes of money lenders or money borrowers in a different way, provided there was apparently nothing unreasonable in creating such distinctions, and all the members of each class were treated in the

same manner. The classification complained of has a reasonable basis, and the exemption of national banks, etc., was not a mere arbitrary selection. Hunter v. Mutual Reserve Ins. Co., 218 U. S. 573.

§ 469. Creating bank depositors' guaranty fund. An unconstitutional discrimination does not result from the preference of ordinary depositors over other creditors, given by a state statute creating a bank depositors' guaranty fund for the purpose of securing the full repayment of deposits in case of the insolvency of any bank contributing to the fund. This is the Kansas bank depositors' guaranty law and the case of Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U. S. 104, is decisive except so far as the Kansas law shows certain minor differences from that of Oklahoma. The most important of these is that contribution to the fund is not absolutely required. But if the law might compel the contribution it may try to bring about the same result by the creation of motives less compulsory than command and of disadvantages in holding aloof less peremptory than an immediate stop. Assaria State Bank v. Dolley, 219 U. S. 121.

§ 470. Licensing private bankers. The possibility that the comptroller may refuse a license to a private banker upon his arbitrary whim does not invalidate, as denying the equal protection of the laws, the requirement of the New York statute that a license from that official be obtained by individuals or partnerships desiring to engage in that business. No unconstitutional

discrimination is made by exempting those private bankers in whose business the average amount of each sum received is not less than $500, and those who give a bond in a specified sum, from the requirement of the statute that a license from the comptroller be obtained by individuals or partnerships desiring to engage in the business of receiving deposits of money for safekeeping, or for the purpose of transmission to another, or for any

Due Process-47

other purpose. One form at least, of the business aimed at, and on the face of the bill, that carried on by plaintiff, is a branch of the banking business. Furthermore, it is a business largely done with poor and ignorant immigrants, especially on their first arrival here. Experience has shown that the protection of such depositors against fraud, which is the purpose running through the statute, is especially needed by at least that class of them with whom the persons hit by the statute largely deal. Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U. S. 104, establishes that the state may regulate the banking business, and may take strong measures to render it secure. It also establishes that the plaintiff has no such constitutional right to carry it on at will as to raise him above state laws not manifestly unfit to accomplish the supposed end, greatly in excess of the need, or arbitrary and capricious in discrimination. The quasi-paternal relations shown to exist between those following the plaintiff's calling and the newly arrived immigrants justifies a supervision more paternal than is needed in ordinary affairs. Whether the court thinks them wise or not, such laws are within the scope of discretion which belongs to legislatures, and which it is usual for them to exert. Engel v. O'Malley, 219 U. S. 128.

§ 471. Penalizing insurance company connected with tariff association. An insurance company connected with a tariff association which fixes rates is not denied the equal protection of the laws by the Alabama law under which the insured or beneficiary in a policy issued by such company may recover, in addition to the actual loss or damage, 25 per cent of the amount of such actual loss or damage, since such statute places upon an equality in every respect all insurers which, at the time of issuing the insurance or subsequently, and before trial, were in any way connected with any other persons, associations, or corporations which acted together in fixing insurance rates. The statute applies only to associations or cor

porations that unite in fixing the rates of insurance to be charged by each constituent member of the combination. Looking at the evil to be remedied, that was such a classification as the state could legally make. It is neither unreasonable nor arbitrary within the rule that a classification must rest upon some difference indicating "a reasonable and just relation to the act in respect of which the classification is proposed." The legislature naturally directed its enactment against insurance companies or corporations which, before or at the time of trial, were found to be members of an insurance tariff association that fixed rates. All insurance companies, persons or corporations engaged in the business of insurance, which acted together in fixing rates, are placed by the statute upon an equality in every respect, and therefore it cannot rightfully be contended that the plaintiff in error is denied the equal protection of the laws. Statutes that apply equally to all of the same class and under like conditions cannot be held to deny the equal protection of the laws; for, as the Supreme Court has held, "the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws" to all under like circumstances. German Alliance Ins. Co. v. Hale, 219 U. S. 307.

§ 472. Prohibiting waste of mineral waters. The substantial difference in point of harmful result, which, so far as the case as made shows, may exist, affords a reasonable basis, under the equal-protection-of-the-laws clause of the Federal Constitution, for the exemption of pumping from wells not penetrating the rock, and such pumping as is done for other purposes than collecting and vending, as a separate commodity, the carbonic acid. gas contained in mineral waters, from the operations of the provisions of the New York Laws, 1908, chap. 429, prohibiting the pumping or artificially drawing of unnatural quantities of mineral waters from a common underground source of supply, and wasting them to the injury and impairment of other proprietors. Making

the engaging in pumping mineral waters from wells bored or drilled into the rock for the purpose of collecting and vending as a separate commodity the carbonic acid. gas contained therein prima facie evidence of the common underground source of supply and of injury to other proprietors, as is done by the same statute, forbidding the pumping of the waters under such conditions, does not render the statute invalid, as infringing upon the guarantees in the Federal Constitution of due process of law and the equal protection of the law. The contention that a classification is arbitrary, and consequently denies the equal protection of the laws to those whom it affects, must be tested by the following rules, as shown by repeated decisions of the Supreme Court: 1. The equalprotection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not take from the state the power to classify in the adoption of police laws, but admits of the exercise of a wide scope of discretion in that regard, and avoids what is done only when it is without any reasonable basis, and therefore is purely arbitrary. 2. A classification having some reasonable basis does not offend against that clause merely because it is not made with mathematical nicety, or because in practice it results in some inequality. 3. When the classification in such a law is called in question, if any state of facts reasonably can be conceived that would sustain it, the existence of that state of facts at the time the law was enacted must be assumed. 4. One who assails the classification in such a law must carry the burden of showing that it does not rest upon any reasonable basis, but is essentially arbitrary. Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61.

§ 473. Advertising wagons on city streets. The equal protection of the laws is not denied to a stage coach company by a municipal ordinance prohibiting the use of advertising trucks, vans or wagons in the city streets, because "ordinary business wagons" when "engaged in the usual business or regular work of the owner, and not