STATE REGULATION OF CUTTINGS 709 



renders the more uncertain and vmsatis factory an opinion on the con- 

 etitutional validity of prospective legislation involving the exercise of 

 the police power. 



Atte.npts have been made to define the police power. But almost 

 as often as judges have resorted to definitions of this function of gov- 

 ernment, they have admitted the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of 

 correct and comprehensive delineation and have turned to explanation 

 and example. However, from a few of the well night innumerable 

 judicial opinions — few, if any, subjects of the law have been so widely 

 and frequently discussed — it can be gleaned that it is possessed by 

 every sovereign State (In re Jacobs, 98 N. Y., 98), is inherent in the 

 States of the American Union (People v. Budd, 117 N. Y., 1), and it 

 is determined as each case presents itself whether there the power was 

 properly invoked. It rests to a large extent on those ancient maxims of 

 the law: "So to use your own that you will not injure another," and 

 "The safety of the people is the supreme law," and the vital principles 

 of both must be regarded and enforced. 



Usually when occasion arises for assailing a specific exercise of the 

 police power, those who believe their rights or property invaded and 

 hence seek to overturn the law so affecting such result, invoke the 

 fourteenth amendment to the Federal constitution and kindred pro- 

 visions in the constitutions of the States. Such provisions declare that 

 no State "shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without 

 due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the 

 equal protection of the laws." Considering the effect of such consti- 

 tutional guarantees, Judge Field, in Barbier v. Connolly (113 U. S., 

 27), significantly observes: 



"But neither the amendment — broad and comprehensive as it is — 

 nor any other amendment, was designed to interfere with the power 

 of the State, sometimes termed its police power, to prescribe regula- 

 tions to promote the health, peace, morals, education, and good order 

 of the people, and to legislate so as to increase the industries of the 

 State, develop its resources, and add to its zvealth and prosperity." 



1 have directed attention to the adherence of the courts to the de- 

 termination of the necessity and legal propriety of the use of the police 

 power in each case as it is presented. Your inquiry can be illumined 

 and mainly answered by presenting some cases, both in this State and 

 elsewhere, in which this power has been invoked to limit and restrain 

 the owner in the use of his own property on his own land, for the 



