1900.] HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. 415 
suit brought for the value of liquors destroyed by city authorities, 
April 3, 1865, in anticipation of the entry into the city of the 
northern army. But the adoption of a policy of prohibition can 
hardly be upheld by ‘‘ overwhelming necessity ’’ or the ‘‘ right of 
self-preservation, inherent in every organized community.’’ Al- 
though there may be no doubt ‘‘ that some have died of drinking,”’ 
we are not informed of nations being in sudden and imminent 
peril from such cause. 
** Salus popult, Suprema lex esto’’ will hardly do for a sufficient 
foundation for this branch of constitutional law. And the other 
motto which has been thought to lie at the foundation of this 
power, ‘* Sic utere tuo ut alienum non ledas,’’ has to be strained 
a good deal to make it apply here as in many other cases of police 
action. The object in this instance, as in many others, is much 
more to prevent the citizen from using his property to his own 
harm than from employing it to the injury of anyone else. The 
fact that such is the real purpose is often urged as an objection to 
such legislation, but not as a reason as excluding it from being 
classed under the police power. 
That the police power includes the field embraced under both of 
the maxims is no doubt true. If the term includes all the unclassi- 
fied powers of the state, this will be among them. That it includes 
much more is equally certain. The example just given is sufficient 
to show that. The general power used in the leading case of }Van- 
derbilt vs. Adams shows it still more clearly. ‘There was no 
pressing danger in that case either to public or private interests. 
There was no application of the maxim ‘‘ Sze utere tuo ut alienum 
non ledas’’ except by a manifest stretching of it. 
The owner of the wharf was not using it to any one’s injury. 
He merely refused, when ordered by proper authority, that of the 
harbor-master, to change the position of his own vessel to accom- 
modate one coming in. No special damage was shown to have 
occurred to anyone, but the penalty for refusal was assessed and 
collected. The case has never been questioned since, and is not 
likely to be. The necessity for order and authority in New 
York harbor imposes upon those who use it not only a liability to 
have their property seized and applied to answer some urgent and 
unprovided-for need of defense against man or the elements, not 
only that he shall so use his property as to inflict no needless 
17 Cow., 349. 
