90 SALMON GEAR LIMITATION 



from an opinion of the United States Supreme Court in Schmidinger 

 V. Chicago :'^^^ 



" 'The right of state legislatures or municipalities acting under state 

 authority, to regulate trades and callings in the exercise of the police power 

 is too well settled to require any extended discussion . . . what such regula- 

 tions shall be and to what particular trade, business or occupation they 

 shall apply, are questions for the state to determine . . .' "^^ 



D. Application to the Particular Problem 



The foregoing analysis of the constitutional requirements for the 

 validity of state regulations of economic activity can, in general 

 terms, be reduced to a fairly simple statement which, it will be 

 noted, should satisfy the requirements of both equal protection and 

 due process. It is this: regulations of a business activity are valid if 

 they are the result of legislative judgment based on factual infor- 

 mation, rationally deciding from those facts how to alleviate a 

 harm which is currently being caused or threatened to be caused 

 to the welfare of the persons within the state, or, affirmatively, how to 

 further that welfare. That the legislature must make a rational choice 

 based on those facts also implies that it should act fairly as among 

 the different persons within the state who may be affected by the 

 legislation. This latter requirement is often stated in these terms: 

 any differences in treatment must be related to the problem to be 

 solved, making only such discriminations among persons as could 

 rationally be thought appropriate to the solution of the problem. 

 It will be noted, incidentally, that this test does not require everyone 

 to agree that the solution chosen by the legislature is the one that he, 

 himself, were he a legislator, would have chosen. All that is required 

 is that a reasonable body of fair-minded men could have chosen 

 this particular solution to the problem. 



One further subsidiary aspect should also be noted: 

 In determining the factual details which the legislature thinks to 

 constitute the problem and the means appropriate to its solution, 

 the legislature can inform itself as it chooses. Its decision to legislate 

 thereupon will be sustained by the court if there is any basis in fact 

 for it to consider that there is a legitimate legislative purpose to 

 be served by the legislation it enacts. The methods employed by a 

 legislature in this process are peculiarly its own and may range from 

 research work such as this project with the University of Washington 



113. 226U.S.578 (1913). 



1 14. 79 Wash, at 611 ; 140 Pac. at 919. 



