1900.] HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. 457 
New York vs. Miln and the Passenger cases are held to show 
that a state has police authority over incoming passengers, but the 
exaction of a sum of money as a condition of their entry is an in- 
vasion of federal authority. Judge Miller has no difficulty in 
concluding that the requirement of a bond for the support of the 
immigrant from a carrier is a mere pretext, when accompanied 
with the provision for a commutation at so trivala sum. The real 
purpose he finds is to exact the $1.50; under the decision in the 
Passenger cases it would be void, but he declines to rest on that 
judgment, given, as he says, by a bare majority of a divided court, 
and with much disagreement among the concurring majority as to the 
grounds of their action. 
He thinks that the carrying of passengers is clearly commerce, 
both as defined in Gibbons vs. Ogden and as shown by the vast 
development of traffic since the date of that decision. He con- 
cludes that in view especially of the latter fact the subject of intro- 
ducing alien passengers requires a uniform rule throughout the 
country, and therefore the control of that matter must be held to 
have been given to Congress. He declines to recognize any 
peculiar police power on the subject, and declares that nothing is 
gained by calling the power under which the act is passed by that 
name. He proceeds to show that very many statutes may be justi- 
fied under any one of several so-called powers of the state, and 
that no matter to what power of a state its action may be referred, 
that action is void if it invade the domain of legislation belonging 
exclusively to the United States. Thus while throwing down the 
boundaries of any exclusive police power in the state, he, never- 
theless, finds some ‘‘ exclusive ’’ powers in the United States. 
The weakness of any theory of an essential difference in nature 
between the powers of government has seldom been so displayed as 
in the opinion of this case. He declines to say whether or how 
far a state may protect itself against actual pauperism, disease, and 
criminality among persons arriving from foreign countries. That 
there is any distinction in nature and essential quality between 
force of government applied to obtain from the master of a vessel 
$1.50 for each passenger and the same force applied to compel the 
same man to give information as to the number, character and 
former domicile of such passengers, would seem hard to establish. 
Evidently the court that is applying such a distinction must, as 
Judge Miller says, ‘‘look to the effect of a statute for the test of its 
