86 SALMON GEAR LIMITATION 



defined to include all those regulations designed to promote the public 

 convenience, the general welfare, the general^ prosperity, and extends to 

 all great public needs, as well as regulations designed to promote the 

 public health, the public morals, or the public safety. "^^ 



This case, incidentally, was fully reviewed by the United States 

 Supreme Court and there affirmed. ^^ In that decision, the United 

 States Supreme Court likened the use of trading stamps to gambling, 

 pointing out that the trading stamp's easy availability made the 

 buyer think he was getting something for nothing, whereas, as a 

 matter of fact, he was really paying for the products which the 

 coupons brought him. The legislature was thus protecting the buyer 

 against improvidence induced by his own greed. This, of course, is 

 one of the justifications for laws against gambling. Perhaps one 

 could fit this into a classification of a law enacted in the interest of 

 public morality; it would seem more accurate to recognize both the 

 trading stamp law and the gambling laws as separately maintainable 

 upon the straight-forward basis that the legislature serves a public 

 purpose in protecting a person from the unfortunate consequences 

 of his own greed. 



The claims asserted under the heading of due process protection 

 of economic interests have been many and varied. They have included 

 those which flow from ownership of land or other tangible property, 

 from contractual relationships or relationships in commercial trans- 

 actions involving negotiable instruments, and from the conduct of 

 a great variety of occupations. 



Two cases dealing with state regulations which restricted the 

 time during which clams could be harvested commercially illustrates 

 claims made on the basis of property ownership. In each of these 

 the court decided that the restrictions could constitutionally be applied 

 even to a person who wanted to dig his own clams upon his own 

 land. In the first of these cases. State v. Van Vlack,^"^ decided in 1918, 

 the court said: 



". . . We arc of the opinion that the act in question, as applied to 

 private owners of clam beds in tide lands abutting on Puget Sound, is not 

 unconstitutional. Let it be remembered that property in clams is not the 

 result of human effort or industry; such property is acquired by the 

 uncontrolled forces of nature. It cannot be said, therefore, to be unreason- 

 able to so regulate the use and enjoyment of this manna-like possession by 



92. /^. at 610, 611; 140 Pac. at 919. 



93. Pitney V. State of Washington, 240 U. S. 387 ( 1916), 



94. 101 Wash. 503, 172 Pac. 563 (1918). 



