Standard Stock Food Co. v. Wright

Savage v. Jones, ante, p. 501, followed to effect that it is within the police power of a State to prevent imposition upon the public and 'to that end to require the disclosure of ingredients of food for stock. Where the fair import of the provisions of a state police statute is that the fees exacted are for necessary expenses of inspecting an article properly the subject of inspection, and the bill alleges no facts warranting a conclusion that the charges are unreasonable as compared with the cost, this court will not condemn the statute as an unconstitutional revenue measure. One attacking a state, statute as unconstitutional must show that he is within the class whose constitutional rights are invaded, and one admittedly doing a large business cannot be heard on the plea • that the act discriminates against those doing a small business. The Iowa statute of 1907 regulating the sale of concentrated commercial feeding stuff is not unconstitutional as depriving vendors of sutíh stuff of their property without due process of law, or because it . is a revenue measure in disguise.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF IOWA. The facts, which involve the construction and constitutionality of the provisions in the statutes of Iowa relative to sale of feed for stock, are stated in the opinion. The tax imposed is a license fee and therefore void as a violation of the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution. Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419; Robbins v. Shelby County, 120 U. S. 489; American Fertilizer Co. v. Board of Agriculture, 43 Fed.-Rep. 609; Lee Co. v. Webster, Í90 Fed. Rep. 353. To require a manufacturer or one importing goods into a State to pay a tax before he has the right to sell his products within the State, is a tax on interstate commerce, and such legislative enactment of a State is void. Lyng v. Michigan, -135 U. S. 161. See, also, Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100; McColl v. California, 136 TJ. S. 1Q4; Crutcher v. Kentucky, 141 U. S. 47; Dooley v. United States. 183 U. S. 151. The' Iowa statute specifically requires manufacturers, dealers, importers, etc., without the borders of the State, to pay' into the state treasury $100 each year before he is permitted to sell or offer for sale his products within the State. This is so clearly an attempt to levy a tax upon interstate commerce for the privilege of doing such business within the State, that no attempt will be made to sustain it, except on the assumption that such tax is an inspection fee, and therefore valid as an exercise of the police power of the State. The statute nowhere contemplates an inspection of complainant’s products before sale, and hence the license fee cannot be sustained upon the ground that it is to cover the cost of inspection. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; Turner v. Maryland, 107 U. S. 38. The license fee imposed by the State is not an inspection fee and cannot be sustained upon that ground. It is not made so by statute, and the requirement that the manufacturer, etc., shall pay a fixed sum before he sells his goods in the State, is a charge for the, privilege of selling them, and hence a license fee. An inspection fee cannot be determined in advance by a lump sum. Conditions of sale which a State may prescribe do not include a right to exact a fee or license for the privilege of vending articles of commerce within the State, and herein lies the difference between an inspection fee which the State has the right to exact, and a license fee which is prohibited by the Constitution. An inspection fee is exacted to cover the cost of the performance of a certain duty of state officials preceding the sale of the proposed article to the public and in order to ascertain whether or not it is meeting the requirements of the State in its sale. A license fee is imposed as a condition precedent' to the sale of a product and for the privilege of permitting it. The piohibition of the commerce clause of the Constitution is direct and positive. The State cannot tax an article of commerce except only to cover a proper inspection of .such article before it becomes an article of commerce, within the State. Pabst Brew. Co. v. Crenshaw, 198 U. S. 17; Vance v. Vandercook, 170 TJ. S. .438. To permit a State to tax commerce to provide a fund to enforce its police laws or to punish those who disobey them would destroy in substance the prohibition of the Constitution. ■ A State has not the power to require the maker of any wholesome product, that contains nothing injurious whatever and is not and cannot be from its very nature an imitation of something else, to disclose not only the ingredients but the percentages of such wholesome ingredients. Such a formula where no fraud is perpetrated, is as much entitled to the protection of the law as the good will of a business or an ownership in land. Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 206.' The act of Congress of June 30, 1906, specifically exempts proprietors or manufacturers of proprietary food stuffs which contain no unwholesome added ingredients from disclosing their trade formula. To require such disclosure by the State is in effect to supersede and annul the act of Congress. The act of the Iowa legislature m so far as it sought to compel complainant to pay a tax of one hundred dollars for the privilege of doing business in the State, and to set forth upon the outside of the package or container of its product the percentage or percentages of the diluent or base, is void. The validity of the act must be determinéd not by the casual use of any word or phrase, but by its necessary and obvious result, and the purpose for which it-was framed. Henderson v. New York, 92 TJ.-'S. 259; Minnesota v. Barber, 136 ü. S. 319. The requirements of the act are not for the mere purpose of raising revenue or placing a burden upon the business of dealers in commercial feeding stuffs. There is hardly a section in the entire act which does not contain some provision looking to the protection of the public against fraud and deception. One of the objects of inspection, so far as it applies to domestic sales, is to protect the community from fraud and imposition. Clintsman v. Northrup, 8 Cow. 46. Elements of inspection include quality of the article, form, capacity, dimensions, weight of package, the mode of putting up, marking and branding of various kinds; but it is not necessary for all these,elements to coexist to make a valid inspection law. Turner v. Maryland, 107 U. S. 38. .And see McLean v. Denver, 203 U. S. 38. Inspection need not be made before the goods become articles of commerce. Neilson v. Garza, 2 Woods, 287; Clintsman v. Norihrup, 8 Cow. 46, do not apply. The words “imports” and “exports” as used in Art. I, § 10 of the Constitution, have been held to apply only to articles imported from or exported to foreign countries. Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123; Pittsburg &c. Coal Co. v. Louisiana, 156 U. 8. 590, 600; Patapsco Guano Co. v. North Carolina, 171 U. 8. 350. The scope of inspection laws is very large and is 'not confined to articles of domestic produce or manufacture, or to articles intended for exportation, but applies to articles imported and to those intended for domestic use as well. Neilson v. Garza, supra. Inspection laws may operate as well on importations as exportations. Patapsco Guano Co. v. North Carolina, supra., Where the receipts from inspection fees are found to .average largely more than enough to pay the expenses, the presumption is that the legislature will moderate the charge. Patapsco Guano Co. v, North Carolina,'supra; .McLean v. Denver & B, G. R. B. Co., 203 U. 8: 55. Even though the act may discriminate against the manufacturer doing a small amoünt of business in the State who is required to pay. a fee equal to that done by the large manufacturer doing a large business, as complainant herein, this objection to the statute cannot be raised by the appellant for the reason that it is to his advantage and not disadvantage. Turpin v. Lemon, 187 U. S. 51; Hooker v. Burr, 194 U. 3. 415, 419; Southern By. Co. v. King, 217 U. 8. 524, 534; Collins v. Texas, 223 U. S. 281, 295; Quong Wing v. Kirkendall, 223 U. S. 59; People v. Olson, 215 Illinois, 620, 623. The fact that each and every package is not inspected will not invalidate the act. Pabst Brewing Co. v. Cren-shaw, 198 U. S. 17, and Vance v. Vandercook, 170 U. S. 438, distinguished; and see Frazier v. Warfield, 13 Maryland, 279; State v. Bixman, 162 Missouri, 34. The law is not invalid because the fee is prescribed in a lump sum. Tennessee v. Bank of Commerce, 53 Fed. Rep. 735. It is the ultimate result which is to govern, that in the final analysis the fee must be' paid by some person or corporation, and necessarily by either the seller or the purchaser, and therefore the form of the imposition of the fee should not in and of itself invalidate an act. Cinn. Gas Light Co. v. State, 18 Oh. St. 245; 22 Cyc. 1366. The law was framed to meet a condition which existed and not a theory. It was so worded as to meet the exigencies of a particular situation, and is not void because thereof. McClain v. Denver & R. G. R. R. Co., 203 U. S. 38; Missouri Pac. Ry. v. Mackey, 127 U. S.205. If the act bears a real relation to the object to be accomplished, the method of its accomplishment is for the legislature. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11; St. Louis & I. M. Ry. v. Taylor, 210 XL S. 295. The act is not invalid because it requires, among other things, a labeling so as not to deceive the purchaser, and a setting forth of the percentage of the diluent or base of the product. The constitutionality of an act cannot be determined upon the particular practice during a particular time of a particular company engaged in the manufacture and .sale of stock food. The legislature in the passage of the act under its police power determined that there was an evil to correct; that stock food companies manufactured and sold false, fraudulent and adulterated stock foods and labeled the same so as to mislead and deceive the purchasers, and that if this practice was so common among other stock food companies as to require the passage of an act in question, there must be some information contained upon the package to the end that the purchaser may know what he is buying, and unless the percentage of the diluent or diluents or bases is stated upon the package, there will be great opportunity for fraud and deception. Heath & Milligan v. Worst, 207 U. S. 338; Schollenberger v. Pennsylvania, 171 U. S. 1, 12; Stils v. Thompson, 44 Minnesota, 271. And see also: Patterson v. Kentucky, 97 U. S. 501; Arbuckle v. Blackburn, 113 Fed. Rep. 616, 627, affirmed, 191 U. S. 405. The act is not void by reason of its conflict with the law of the United States enacted by Congress June 30, 1906. It is merely supplementary to the Federal law and covers A .field which is not covered by the act of Congress and concerning which Congress would not have the power to legislate. United States v. New Bedford Bridge, 27 Fed. Cas. 97, No. 15,867; Plumley vl 'Massachusetts, 155 U. S. 461," 472; Grossman v. Harman, 192 U. S. 189, 198; Bowman v. Chicago &c. By. Co., 125 U. S. 465, 501. The Constitution of the United States does not declare that an inspection fee to be valid must be prescribed in one form alone. It permits the States to levy a sufficient amount to execute its inspection laws, but does not define the method in which the amount may be collected. Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419. This court is not clothed with authority and jurisdiction to declare unconstitutional an act of a state legislature because it is not couched in stereotyped language, or because the court might consider that it was illogical in its arrangement. 5 Elliott’s Debates, 428; Hylton v. United States, 3 Dali. 171; Sinking Fund Cases, 99 U. S. 717; Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366; Commonwealth v. Alger, 7 Cush. 53. The whole act discloses the fact that its relation to interstate commerce is incidental. If there is any doubt as to the constitutionality of the act, that doubt should be resolved in the interests,of the people of the State. Atkins v. Kansas, 191 U. S. 223.