STATE REGULATION OF CUTTINGS 713 



gency of rent profiteering in the city of New York. They operated to 

 deprive the owner of his real estate during the term of their existence, 

 provided only compensation fixed by another, not by such owner, was 

 paid by the occupant ; and attack was made upon these laws upon the 

 grounds that they impaired the obligations of contracts as they applied 

 in some instances to rentals fixed by agreement before the act took 

 effect ; that they deprived the owner of his property without due 

 process of law; that they denied to the owner equal protection of the 

 laws, and that they took private property for private use without com- 

 pensation. The Court of Appeals upheld this drastic legislation upon 

 the ground of the dire and acute emergency in the lack of dwellings 

 for the people of congested centers of population and the advantage 

 being taken of that situation by selfish landlords to extort exorbitant 

 and oppressive rents. 



In the prevailing opinion by Judge Pound, the basic principles gov- 

 erning the exercise of the police power under the recognized existing 

 emergency was well stated as follows : 



"The question comes back to what the state may do for the benefit 

 of the community at large. Here the legislation rests on a secure 

 foundation. {Chicago & Alton R. R. Co. v. Tranbarger, 238 U. S., 

 67, 76, 77.) The struggle to meet changing conditions through new 

 legislation constantly goes on. The fundamental question is whether 

 society is prepared for the change. The law of each age is ultimately 

 what that age thinks should be the law. Decisions of the courts in 

 conflict with legislative policy, when such decisions have been thought 

 to be unwisely hard and stiff, have been met by constitutional amend- 

 ments . . ." 



The United States Supreme Court has sustained the doctrine of the 

 LaFetra case in Marcus Brown Holding Co. v. Feldman (N. Y. Law 

 Journal, April 23, 1921). 



The expression of judicial opinion, bearing most directly on the 

 question you propound, which I have been able to discover, occurred 

 in the State of Maine. (Opinion of Justices, 103 Me., 506; 69 Atl., 

 627.) There, under a peculiar provision of the constitution of that 

 State, the Legislature could request, in advance, the opinion oi the 

 judges of the Supreme Court of that State on the constitutionality of 

 a proposed law. Under that constitutional authorization, the Senate 

 of Maine requested of the judges of the Supreme Judicial Court an 

 opinion on the constitutional validity of a contemplated act; and the 

 importance of their opinions as bearing on the matter before me. war- 

 rants some detailed attention to that inquiry and its determination. 



