32 FOREST commissioners' REPORT. 



restricted or even dai^iaged particular persons and corporations 

 may be, such general laws and regulations are to be held valid 

 unless there can be pointed out some provision in the state or 

 United States constitution which clearly prohibits them. Those 

 we understand to be universally accepted principles of constitu- 

 tional law. 



As to the proposed laws and regulations named in the senate 

 order, the only provision of the United States constitution hav- 

 ing any possible application to such legislation by a state would 

 seem to be that in XIV amendment. As to that provision, we 

 think it sufficient to quote the language of the United States 

 supreme court in Barbier versus Connolly, 113 United States 27, 

 where, speaking of the XIV amendment, the court said: "But 

 neither the amendment, broad and comprehensive as it is, nor 

 any other amendment was designed to interfere with the power 

 of a state, sometimes termed its 'police power,' to prescribe 

 regulations to promote the health, peace, morals, education and 

 good order of its people, and to legislate so as to increase the 

 industries of the state, develop its resources and add to its 

 wealth and prosperity." It may be added that the proposed 

 laws and regulations would not discriminate between persons 

 or corporations but only between things and situations, with a 

 classification not merely arbitrary but based on real dififerences 

 in the nature, situation and condition of things. 



We think the only provisions in the state constitution that 

 could be reasonably invoked against the proposed laws and 

 regulations are the guaranteed right of "acquiring, possessing 

 and defending property" and the provision that "private prop- 

 erty shall not be taken for public uses without just compensa- 

 tion." (Dec. of Rights, section i and 21). If, however, the 

 proposed legislation would not conflict with the latter provision, 

 it evidently would not with the former; hence, only the latter 

 one need be considered. 



The question of what constitutes a "taking" of private prop- 

 erty in the constitvitional sense of the term has been much con- 

 sidered and variously decided. In the earlier cases and in the 

 older states the provision has been construed strictly. In some 

 states, in later cases, it has been construed more widely to 

 include legislation formerly not considered within the provision. 

 Still more recently however, the tendency seems to go back to 



