1900.] HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE SATE. 497 
CHAPTERS Zr 
THE FEDERAL SUPREME CouURT AS THE ULTIMATE TRIBUNAL OF 
PERSONAL AND PROPERTY RIGHTS. 
At the session of the court beginning October, 1884, the cases of 
‘Foster vs. Kansas as to prohibitory liquor laws and *Wurtz vs. 
Hoagland as to the New Jersey drainage laws and especially *Barbier 
vs. Connolly as to the relation of the fourteenth amendment to the 
““ power of the state, sometimes termed its police power,’’ are note- 
worthy. 
In the case of *Foster vs. Kansas, plaintiff had been county attor- 
ney of Saline county in that state and had refused to prosecute for 
sales of intoxicating liquors made in violation of the state constitu- 
tion and statutes to enforce it. Quo warranto proceedings were 
commenced against him in the Supreme Court of the state, and he 
was removed from office. He obtained a writ of error, alleging 
the statute in question unconstitutional, though authorized by stat- 
ute, the rules of civil procedure being applied to his case while he 
insisted that it was a-criminal action. 
The court held that absolute prohibition of sales for use as a bev- 
erage violated no principle of the federal constitution, and was no 
deprivation of property in liquors or in liquor manufacturing plants, 
and held the procedure adopted in this case constitutional. This 
very brief opinion marked the final abandonment of the once pre- 
valent opinion that absolute prohibition of liquor sales for use as a 
beverage was a violation of rights of property when applied to 
stock on hand, although the United States Circuit Court for 
Kansas, two years later, in State vs. Walruff, asserted such a doc- 
trine, and we shall see it attempted to be set up again in the 
Supreme Court. 
In *Barbier vs. Connolly the plaintiff was convicted of washing 
and ironing clothing between 1o o’clock in the evening and 6 
LTO Se, 20 Ne STON O Sue 20M 
* 114 UV. S., 606. 5778 O. S., 27 (1884). 
SOUT ms, ie, (20 
