pursuit of happiness, a deprivation of property and property rights, and of the privileges and immunities guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. These objections are all subject to one test;—namely, whether the right to attend the state university is an absolute or conditional right, whether the public educational institutions of the state are so far under the control of the legislature that it may impose what the supreme court of the state calls "disciplinary regulations." The supreme court of the state held that the legislature was in control of the colleges and universities of the state with the right to legislate for their welfare and to enact measures for their discipline and when the legislature had done that it was not subject to any control by the courts. The condition upon which the state offered free instruction in its university that its students renounce affiliation with a society which the state considers inimical to discipline finds no prohibition in the Fourteenth Amendment. Waugh v. Board of Trustees, 237 U. S. 589.

§ 487. Requiring washhouses for coal miners. Neither due process of law nor the equal protection of the laws is denied by the provisions of the Indiana statute requiring the owners and operators of coal mines, collieries, or other places where laborers employed are surrounded by, or affected by, similar conditions as employees in coal mines, to provide suitable washhouses or washrooms for their employees upon the request in writing of twenty or more of such employees, or in case there are not so many employed, upon the written request of one-third of the employees; but such statute is a proper exercise of the police power in the interest of the public health. The legislature having the power, in the interest of the public health, to regulate the conditions upon which coal mining may be conducted, it cannot be limited by moments of time and differences of situation, by the distinction between what a legislature may require for the safety and protection of a miner while actually in service below

ground, and that which may be required when he has ceased or has not commenced his labors. The legislative judgment may be determined by all of the conditions and their influence. The conditions to which a miner passes or returns from are very different from those which an employee in work above ground passes to or returns from, and the conditions of actual service in the cases are very different, and it cannot be judicially said that a judgment which makes such differences a basis of classification is arbitrarily exercised; certainly in view of the wide discretion the Supreme Court of the United States has recognized, and necessarily has recognized in legislation to classify its objects. It is, however, further objected that the law discriminates because it may be applied to one mine, and not to another, all other conditions being the same but the desire of the miners,-indeed, discriminates upon a distinction more arbitrary than that, upon the desire of twenty in one mine as against a lesser number, nineteen, it may be, in another. The objection is the usual ground of attack upon a distinction based on degree and where the distinction depends upon a difference in numbers, and is answered in McLean v. Arkansas, 211 U. S. 539. Nor was the law open to objection because it could not be put in operation by any power which the state government possessed, but was enforceable only upon the demand or election of a limited number of employees in the coal mining business. The choice of manner was, under the circumstances, for the legislature to determine, and its choice was legal. Booth v. Indiana, 237 U. S. 391.

§ 488. Discrimination between county and city in disposition of tax penalties. No substantial Federal question which will support a writ of error from the Federal Supreme Court to a state court is presented by the contention that taxpayers of a county, who reside outside of cities of the first class, are deprived of their property without due process of law and are denied the equal pro

tection of the laws by state legislation under which, as construed by the state court, a county must reimburse a city of the first class within such county for the amount by which the taxes collected for the city are reduced by rebates granted for prompt payment, and at the same time must pay over to the city the amount collected as penalties for delay in the payment of taxes levied by the city, while in the cases of taxes levied by cities of the second and third class and by townships and school districts the rebates are charged to the county and the penalties credited to it. It is manifest that the statute assailed was enacted by the state in regulation of its municipalities, and the power to do this is very broad. Counties, cities and towns exist only for the convenient administration of the government, and are instruments of the state, created to carry out its will. This power of creation and control may be exercised in many ways and may give rise to actual or asserted inequalities. It has been exercised to enlarge or contract the boundaries of municipal corporations, invest them with special powers, divide and apportion their property. It would be difficult to define the restrictions upon this power of control and keep it efficient. This Kansas statute does not transcend the limitations. Stewart v. Kansas City, 239 U. S. 14.

§ 489. Discrimination against aliens. The discrimination against aliens lawfully resident in the state, which is produced by the provisions of Arizona act of December 14, 1914, that every employer of more than five workers at any one time, "regardless of kind or class of work or sex of workers shall employ not less than 80 per cent qualified electors or native-born citizens of the United States or some sub-division thereof," renders the statute invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment, as denying the equal protection of the laws, and such statute cannot be justified as an exercise of the power of the state to make reasonable classifications in legislating to promote the health, safety, morals, and welfare of those within

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its jurisdiction. The equal protection clause of the amendment is universal in its application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to race, color or nationality; "and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws." The discrimination defined by the act does not pertain to the regulation or distribution of the public domain, or of the common property or resources of the people of the state, the enjoyment of which may be limited to its citizens as against both aliens and the citizens of other states. A statute was upheld restricting to the citizens of Virginia the right to plant oysters in one of its rivers upon the ground that the regulation related to the common property of the citizens of the state. An analogous principle was involved in a Pennsylvania case where the discrimination against aliens upheld by the court had for its object the protection of wild game within the state, with respect to which it was said that the state could exercise its preserving power for the benefit of its own citizen if it pleased. The case is not within these decisions, or within those relating to the devolution of real property, neither is the act limited to persons who are engaged on public work or receive the benefits of public money. The discrimination involved is imposed upon the conduct of ordinary private enterprise. It covers the entire field of industry with the exception of enterprises that are relatively very small. The purpose of the act is frankly revealed in its title, and is aimed at the employment of aliens, as such. The power of the state to make reasonable classifications does not go so far as to make it possible for the state to deny to lawful inhabitants, because of their race or nationality, the ordinary means of earning a livelihood. The right to work for a living in the common occupations of the community is of the very essence of the personal freedom and opportunity that it was the purpose of the amendment to secure. The act is in hostility to the exclusive Federal authority to admit or exclude aliens. Denying to aliens the oppor

tunity of earning a livelihood when lawfully admitted to the state would be equivalent to denying them entrance and abode, for in ordinary cases they cannot live where they cannot work. It is no defense that by the act the employer in any line of business who employs more than five workers may employ aliens to the extent of 20 per cent of his employees. If the 20 per cent restriction is maintainable, the state undoubtedly has the power, if it sees fit, to make the percentage less. It has been frequently held that the legislature may recognize degrees of evil and adapt its legislation accordingly; but underlying the classification is the authority to deal with that at which the legislation is aimed. No special public interest with respect to any particular business is shown that could possibly be deemed to support the enactment, for, as has been said, it relates to every sort. The discrimination is against aliens as such in competition with citizens in the described range of enterprises, and clearly falls under the condemnation of the fundamental law. Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33.

§ 490. Discrimination against foreign labor on public works. Property is not taken without due process of law, nor is the equal protection of the laws denied, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment, by the provisions of the New York law that only citizens of the United States may be employed in the construction of public works by or for the state or a municipality, and that in such employment citizens of New York state must be given pref

erence.

The case was decided on the principle laid down in Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U. S. 207, where it was held that "it belongs to the state, as the guardian of its people, and having control of its affairs, to prescribe the conditions. upon which it will permit public work to be done in its behalf, or on behalf of its municipalities." Heim v. McCall, 239 U. S. 175; Crane v. New York, 239 U. S. 195.