One whose rights protected by a provision of the federal
Constitution which is identical with a provision of the state
constitution are invaded by state officers claiming to act under a
state statute is not debarred from seeking relief in the federal
court under the federal Constitution until after the state court
has declared that the acts were authorized by the statute.
The provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment are generic in terms,
and are addressed not only to the states but to every person,
whether natural or judicial, who is the repository of state
power.
The reach of the Fourteenth Amendment is coextensive with any
exercise by a power, in whatever form exerted.
Under the Fourteenth Amendment, the federal judicial power can
redress the wrong done by a state officer misusing the authority of
the state with which he is clothed; under such circumstances,
inquiry whether the state has authorized the wrong is irrelevant.
Ex Parte Young, 209 U. S. 123,
followed.
Barney v. New York, 193 U.
S. 430, distinguished.
Acts done under the authority of a municipal ordinance passed in
virtue of power conferred by the state are embraced by the
Fourteenth Amendment.
The power which exists to enforce the guarantees of the
Fourteenth Amendment is typified by the immediate and efficient
federal right to enforce the contract clause of the Constitution as
against those violating or attempting to violate its provision.
The facts, which involve the jurisdiction of the District Court
of a suit arising under the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment and the validity of an ordinance of Los Angeles,
California, establishing telephone rates, are stated in the
opinion.
Page 227 U. S. 280
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellant, a California corporation furnishing telephone
service in the City of Los Angeles, sued the city and certain of
its officials to prevent the putting into effect of a city
ordinance establishing telephone rates for the year commencing July
1, 1911.
It was alleged that, by the Constitution and laws of the
Page 227 U. S. 281
state, the city was given a right to fix telephone rates, and
had passed the assailed ordinance in the exercise of the general
authority thus conferred. It was charged that the rates fixed were
so unreasonably low that their enforcement would bring about the
confiscation of the property of the corporation, and hence the
ordinance was repugnant to the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. The averments as to the confiscatory character of the
rates were as ample as they could possibly have been made. The
charge of confiscation was supported by statements as to the value
of the property, and the sum which might reasonably be expected
from the business upon the application of the rates assailed. The
confiscatory character of the rates, it was moreover alleged, had
been demonstrated by the putting into effect during the previous
year of rates of the same amount as those assailed, which it was
charged the corporation at great sacrifice, had, after protest,
submitted to in order to afford a practical illustration of the
confiscation which would result.
Being of the opinion that no jurisdiction was disclosed by the
bill, the court refused to grant a restraining order or allow a
preliminary injunction, and thereafter, on the filing of a formal
plea to the jurisdiction, the bill was dismissed for want of power
as a federal court to consider it. This direct appeal was then
taken.
The plea to the jurisdiction was a follows:
". . . that this court ought not to take jurisdiction of this
suit, for that the said suit does not really or substantially
involve a dispute or controversy properly within the jurisdiction
of this court, forasmuch as the Constitution of the State of
California, in Article 1, section 13 thereof, provides that 'no
person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property
without due process of law;' that this complainant, a citizen of
the State of California, has never invoked the aid or protection of
its said state to prevent the alleged taking of its property,
Page 227 U. S. 282
nor has complainant appealed to the courts of said state, nor to
any of them, to enforce the law of said state."
The ground of challenge to the jurisdiction advanced by the plea
may be thus stated: as the acts of the state officials (the city
government) complained of were alleged to be wanting in due process
of law, and therefore repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment, a
ground which, on the face of the bill, if well founded, also
presumptively caused the action complained of to be repugnant to
the due process clause of the state constitution, there being no
diversity of citizenship, there was no federal jurisdiction. In
other words, the plea asserted that, where, in a given case, taking
the facts averred to be true, the acts of state officials violated
the Constitution of the United States, and likewise, because of the
coincidence of a state constitutional prohibition, were
presumptively repugnant to the state constitution, such acts could
not be treated as acts of the state within the Fourteenth
Amendment, and hence no power existed in a federal court to
consider the subject until, by final action of an appropriate state
court, it was decided that such acts were authorized by the state,
and were therefore not repugnant to the state constitution. There
is no room for doubt that it was upon this interpretation of the
plea that the court held it had no power as a federal court. The
court said:
"It is true that the bill in the present case alleges that, if
the ordinance complained of"
"is enforced, and your complainant thereby prevented from
charging and receiving higher rates than the rates fixed by said
ordinance, the State of California will thereby deprive your
complainant of its property without due process of law,"
"etc. This charge, however, that the ordinance complained of is
state action, is but a legal conclusion, while the facts alleged
are that the ordinance, if confiscatory, as shown by the bill, is
directly prohibited by the Constitution of
Page 227 U. S. 283
the state, which, in article 1, § 13, expressly provides, among
other things, 'No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty,
or property without due process of law.'"
"Thus, the case at bar comes within the rulings of the circuit
court of appeals in the
Seattle and
San Francisco
cases, and is precisely covered by the conclusions of the court in
the latter case as follows:"
"What we hold is that the averments of the bill itself exclude
the case from the cognizance of the federal court as a case arising
under the Constitution of the United States by alleging that the
very ordinances which the appellees relied upon as constituting a
violation of its contracts have been enacted in violation of the
positive law of the state."
It is true that, in passages of the opinion subsequent to those
just quoted, there are forms of expression which, when separated
from their context, might tend to justify the inference that the
court thought city ordinances of the character of the one assailed
could not, in any event, be treated as state action. But when the
passages referred to are considered in connection with the context
of the opinion, it is certain that those expressions were but a
reiteration in a changed form of statement of the previous ground
-- that is to say, that state action could not be predicated upon
the ordinance because, if it was treated as repugnant to the due
process clause of the Constitution of the United States, it would
also have to be considered as in conflict with the state
constitution. Under this hypothesis, the decision was that it could
not be assumed that the state had authorized its officers to do
acts in violation of the state constitution until the court of last
resort of the state had determined that such acts were
authorized.
Coming to consider the real significance of this doctrine, we
think it is so clearly in conflict with the decisions of this
Page 227 U. S. 284
Court as to leave no doubt that plain error was committed in
announcing and applying it. In view, however, of the fact that the
proposition was sanctioned by the court below, and was by it deemed
to be supported by the persuasive authority of two opinions of the
Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, before coming to
consider the decided cases, we analyze some of the conceptions upon
which the proposition must rest in order to show its inherent
unsoundness, to make its destructive character manifest, and to
indicate its departure from the substantially unanimous view which
has prevailed from the beginning.
In the first place, the proposition addresses itself not to the
mere distribution of the judicial power granted by the
Constitution, but substantially denies the existence of power under
the Constitution over the subject with which the proposition is
concerned. It follows that the limitation which it imposes would be
beyond possible correction by legislation. Its restriction would,
moreover, attach to the exercise of federal judicial power under
all circumstances, whether the issue concerned original
jurisdiction or arose in the course of a controversy to which
otherwise jurisdiction would extend. Thus, being applicable equally
to all federal courts under all circumstances, in every stage of a
proceeding, the enforcement of the doctrine would hence render
impossible the performance of the duty with which the federal
courts are charged under the Constitution. Such paralysis would
inevitably ensue, since the consequence would be that, at least in
every case where there was a coincidence between a national
safeguard or prohibition and a state one, the power of the federal
court to afford protection to a claim of right under the
Constitution of the United States, as against the action of a state
or its officers, would depend on the ultimate determination of the
state courts, and would therefore require a stay of all action to
await such determination. While
Page 227 U. S. 285
this would be obviously true as to cases where there was a
coincident constitutional guaranty, in reason it is clear that the
principle, if sound, could not be confined to a case of coincident
federal and state guaranty or prohibition, since, as the
Constitution of the United States is the paramount law, as much
applicable to states or their officers as to others, it would come
to pass that in every case where action of a state officer was
complained of as violating the Constitution of the United States,
the federal courts, in any form of procedure, or in any stage of
the controversy, would have to await the determination of a state
court as to the operation of the Constitution of the United States.
It is manifest that, in necessary operation, the doctrine which was
sustained would, in substance, cause the state courts to become the
primary source for applying and enforcing the constitution of the
United States in all cases covered by the Fourteenth Amendment.
It would certainly be open to controversy if the proposition
were carried to its logical result, whether the only right under
the Fourteenth Amendment, which the proposition admits, to exert
federal judicial power growing out of wrongful acts of state
officers, would not be unavailing. This naturally suggests itself,
since, if there be no right to exert such power until, by the final
action of a state court of last resort, the act of a state officer
has been declared rightful and to be the lawful act of the state as
a governmental entity, the inquiry naturally comes whether, under
such circumstances, a suit against the officer would not be a suit
against the state within the purview of the Eleventh Amendment. The
possibility of such a result, moreover at once engenders a further
inquiry -- that is, whether the effect of the proposition would not
be to cause the Fourteenth Amendment to narrow federal judicial
power instead of enlarging it and making it more efficacious. It
must be borne in mind also that the limitations which the
proposition, if adopted, would impose upon
Page 227 U. S. 286
federal judicial power would not be in reason solely applicable
to an exertion of such power as to the persons and subjects covered
by the Fourteenth Amendment, but would equally govern controversies
concerning the contract and possibly other clauses of the
Constitution.
The vice which not only underlies but permeates the proposition
is not far to seek. It consists first in causing by an artificial
construction the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment not to
reach those to whom they are addressed when reasonably construed,
and second in wholly misconceiving the scope and operation of the
Fourteenth Amendment, thereby removing from the control of that
Amendment the great body of rights which it was intended it should
safeguard, and in taking out of reach of its prohibitions the
wrongs which it was the purpose of the Amendment to condemn.
Before demonstrating the accuracy of the statement just made as
to the essential result of the proposition relied upon by a
reference to decided cases, in order that the appreciation of the
cases may be made more salient, we contrast the meaning as above
stated, which the Fourteenth Amendment would have if the
proposition was maintained, with the undoubted significance of that
Amendment as established by many decisions of this Court.
1. By the proposition, the prohibitions and guaranties of the
Amendment are addressed to and control the states only in their
complete governmental capacity, and as a result give no authority
to exert federal judicial power until, by the decision of a court
of last resort of a state, acts complained of under the Fourteenth
Amendment have been held valid, and therefore state acts in the
fullest sense. To the contrary, the provisions of the amendment as
conclusively fixed by previous decisions are generic in their
terms, are addressed, of course, to the states, but also to every
person, whether natural or juridical, who is the repository of
state power. By this construction, the
Page 227 U. S. 287
reach of the amendment is shown to be coextensive with any
exercise by a state of power, in whatever form exerted.
2. As previously stated, the proposition relied upon presupposes
that the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment reach only acts done by
state officers which are within the scope of the power conferred by
the state. The proposition hence applies to the prohibitions of the
Amendment the law of principal and agent governing contracts
between individuals, and consequently assumes that no act done by
an officer of a state is within the reach of the amendment unless
such act can be held to be the act of the state by the application
of such law of agency. In other words, the proposition is that the
amendment deals only with the acts of state officers within the
strict scope of the public powers possessed by them, and does not
include an abuse of power by an officer as the result of a wrong
done in excess of the power delegated. Here again, the settled
construction of the amendment is that it presupposes the
possibility of an abuse by a state officer or representative of the
powers possessed, and deals with such a contingency. It provides,
therefore, for a case where one who is in possession of state power
uses that power to the doing of the wrongs which the amendment
forbids, even although the consummation of the wrong may not be
within the powers possessed, if the commission of the wrong itself
is rendered possible or is efficiently aided by the state authority
lodged in the wrongdoer. That is to say, the theory of the
amendment is that, where an officer or other representative of a
state, in the exercise of the authority with which he is clothed,
misuses the power possessed to do a wrong forbidden by the
amendment, inquiry concerning whether the state has authorized the
wrong is irrelevant, and the federal judicial power is competent to
afford redress for the wrong by dealing with the officer and the
result of his exertion of power.
To speak broadly, the difference between the proposition
Page 227 U. S. 288
insisted upon and the true meaning of the amendment is this:
that the one assumes that the amendment virtually contemplates
alone wrongs authorized by a state, and gives only power
accordingly, while in truth the amendment contemplates the
possibility of state officers' abusing the powers lawfully
conferred upon them by doing wrongs prohibited by the amendment. In
other words, the amendment, looking to the enforcement of the
rights which it guarantees and to the prevention of the wrongs
which it prohibits, proceeds not merely upon the assumption that
states, acting in their governmental capacity, in a complete sense,
may do acts which conflict with its provisions, but also
conceiving, which was more normally to be contemplated, that state
powers might be abused by those who possessed them, and as a result
might be used as the instrument for doing wrongs, provided against
all and every such possible contingency. Thus, the completeness of
the amendment in this regard is but the complement of its
comprehensive inclusiveness from the point of view of those to whom
its prohibitions are addressed. Under these circumstances, it may
not be doubted that, where a state officer, under an assertion of
power from the state, is doing an act which could only be done upon
the predicate that there was such power, the inquiry as to the
repugnancy of the act to the Fourteenth Amendment cannot be avoided
by insisting that there is a want of power. That is to say, a state
officer cannot, on the one hand, as a means of doing a wrong
forbidden by the amendment, proceed upon the assumption of the
possession of state power, and at the same time, for the purpose of
avoiding the application of the amendment, deny the power, and thus
accomplish the wrong. To repeat: for the purpose of enforcing the
rights guaranteed by the amendment when it is alleged that a state
officer, in virtue of state power, is doing an act which, if
permitted to be done,
prima facie would violate the
amendment, the subject must be
Page 227 U. S. 289
tested by assuming that the officer possessed power if the act
be one which there would not be opportunity to perform but for the
possession of some state authority.
Let us consider the decided cases in order to demonstrate how
plainly they refuse the contention here made by the court below,
and how clearly they establish the converse doctrine which we have
formulated in the two propositions previously stated. As to both
the propositions, the cases are so numerous that we do not propose
to review them all, but simply to select a few of the leading cases
as types, concluding with a brief consideration of a few cases
which are supposed to give support to a contrary view.
In
Virginia v. Rives, 100 U. S. 31,
the case briefly was this: an accused person sought to remove from
a state to a federal court the trial of an indictment pending
against him on the ground that he was a colored person, and
although by the state statute he had a right to have people of his
race serve on juries, that in practice, on account of race
prejudice, they were excluded, and thereby he was denied the equal
protection of the laws. The questions arose for decision: first,
was the alleged exclusion a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment?
and second, if it was, did it afford ground for a removal of the
case? Considering the first, the Court said (p.
100 U. S.
318):
"The provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution
we have quoted all have reference to state action exclusively, and
not to any action of private individuals."
Determining whether the enforcement by the state officer of a
nondiscriminating statute in a discriminatory manner was within the
amendment, it was said (p.
100 U. S. 318):
"It is doubtless true that a state may act through different
agencies, either by its legislative, its executive, or its judicial
authorities, and the prohibitions of the amendment extend to all
action of the state denying equal protection
Page 227 U. S. 290
of the laws, whether it be action by one of these agencies or by
another. Congress, by virtue of the fifth section of the Fourteenth
Amendment, may enforce the prohibitions whenever they are
disregarded by either the legislative, the executive, or the
judicial department of the state. The mode of enforcement is left
to its discretion. It may secure the right -- that is, enforce its
recognition -- by removing the case from a state court in which it
is denied, into a federal court, where it will be
acknowledged."
Thus, holding that the enforcement by a state official of a
statute in a discriminatory manner, although the statute might not
be inherently discriminating, was within the amendment, the
question of the right to remove was considered, and it was decided
that the removal act of Congress was narrower than the
constitutional amendment, and did not confer the right to
remove.
In
Ex Parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, the
case was this: a judge of a Virginia county court was indicted
under the civil rights act for excluding negroes from juries on
account of their race, color, etc. The accused applied to this
Court for a writ of habeas corpus and a writ of certiorari to bring
up the record, and a like petition was presented on behalf of the
State of Virginia, and both applications were disposed of at the
same time. The first issue to be determined was the meaning of the
Fourteenth Amendment. The ruling in
Virginia v. Rives was
reiterated, the Court saying:
"They have reference to actions of the political body
denominated a state, by whatever instruments or in whatever modes
that action may be taken. A state acts by its legislative, its
executive, or its judicial authorities. It can act in no other way.
The constitutional provision therefore must mean that no agency of
the state, or of the officers or agents by whom its powers are
exerted, shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws. Whoever, by virtue
Page 227 U. S. 291
of public position under a state government, deprives another of
property, life, or liberty, without due process of law, or denies
or takes away the equal protection of the laws, violates the
constitutional inhibition, and as he acts in the name and for the
state, and is clothed with the state's power, his act is that of
the state. This must be so, or the constitutional prohibition has
no meaning. Then the state has clothed one of its agents with power
to annul or to evade it."
Answering the claim that there was no power to punish a state
judge for judicial action, and therefore that the charge made was
not within the Fourteenth Amendment, it was said that the duty
concerning the summoning of jurors upon which the charge of
discrimination was predicated was not a judicial, but merely a
ministerial, one. It was, however, pointed out that, even if this
was not the case, as the state statute gave no power to make the
discrimination, it was therefore such an abuse of state power as to
cause the act complained of to be not within the state judicial
authority, but a mere abuse thereof, and that it was "idle" under
such circumstances to say that the offense was not within the
amendment (p.
100 U. S.
348).
In
Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370, a
discriminating enforcement in practice of laws which were in their
terms undiscriminating was again held to be within the amendment,
the language which we have quoted from
Ex Parte Virginia
being reiterated.
In
Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.
S. 356, the enforcement of certain city ordinances was
prohibited on the ground that they were within the reach of the
Fourteenth Amendment. The Court, reiterating the doctrine of
Virginia v. Rives and
Ex Parte Virginia, held
that this conclusion was sustained from a two-fold point of view --
first, the terms of the ordinances, and second, in any event, from
the discriminatory manner in which the ordinances were applied by
the officers.
Page 227 U. S. 292
In
Raymond v. Chicago Union Traction Co., 207 U. S.
20, the whole subject -- almost in the identical aspect
which is here involved -- came under consideration. The case
concerned the repugnancy to the Fourteenth Amendment of a
reassessment made by a state board of equalization, and the suit
was originally commenced in a federal court. It was pressed that as
the claim of the complainant was in effect that the board in the
reassessment had violated an express requirement of the state
constitution in that the board had
"disobeyed the authentic command of the state by failing to make
its valuations in such a way that every person shall pay a tax in
proportion to the value of his property,"
the act of the subordinate board could not be deemed the act of
the state. This contention was held to be unsound, and it was
decided that even although the act of the board was wrongful from
the point of view of the state constitution or law, it was
nevertheless an act of a state officer within the intendment of the
Fourteenth Amendment. It was pointed out that, as the result of the
enforcement of the reassessment would be an assertion of state
power accomplishing a wrong which the Fourteenth Amendment forbade,
the claim of right to prevent such act under the Fourteenth
Amendment "constitutes a federal question beyond all controversy."
It was then said (pp.
207 U. S.
35-37):
"The state board of equalization is one of the instrumentalities
provided by the state for the purpose of raising the public revenue
by way of taxation. . . . Acting under the constitution and laws of
the state, the board therefore represents the state, and its action
is the action of the state. The provisions of the Fourteenth
Amendment are not confined to the action of the state through its
legislature, or through the executive or judicial authority. Those
provisions relate to and cover all the instrumentalities by which
the state acts, and so it has been held that whoever, by virtue of
public position under a
Page 227 U. S. 293
state government, deprives another of any right protected by
that amendment against deprivation by the state, violates the
constitutional inhibition, and as he acts in the name of the state
and for the state, and is clothed with the state's powers, his act
is that of the state."
Referring to some reliance to the contrary placed upon a decided
case, it was said;
"
Barney v. New York, 193 U. S. 430, holds that, where
the act complained of was forbidden by the state legislature, it
could not be said to be the act of the state. Such is not case
here."
The reassessment complained of was held to be repugnant to the
Fourteenth Amendment.
Finally the subject was elaborately considered in
Ex Parte
Young, 209 U. S. 123.
Without attempting to fully state the case, it suffices to say
that, although the proceeding was one in habeas corpus, the
controversy in its ultimate aspect concerned the power of a federal
court to prevent the enforcement of railroad rates fixed under
state legislative authority which were confiscatory. In the course
of an opinion reviewing the whole field, it was said (p.
209 U. S.
155):
"The various authorities we have referred to furnish ample
justification for the assertion that individuals who, as officers
of the state, are clothed with some duty in regard to the
enforcement of the laws of the state, and who threaten and are
about to commence proceedings, either of a civil or criminal
nature, to enforce against parties affected an unconstitutional
act, violating the federal Constitution, may be enjoined by a
federal court of equity from such action."
Although every contention pressed and authority new relied upon
in favor of affirmance is disposed of by the general principles
which we have previously stated, before concluding, we specially
advert to some of the contentions
Page 227 U. S. 294
urged to the contrary. 1. Much reliance is placed upon the
decisions in
Barney v. New York, supra, and
Memphis v.
Telephone Co., 218 U. S. 624. The
latter we at once put out of view with the statement that, on its
face, the question involved was one of pleading, and in no sense of
substantive federal power. As to the other -- the
Barney
case -- it might suffice to say, as we have already pointed out,
was considered in the
Raymond case, and if it conflicted
with the doctrine in that case and the doctrine of the subsequent
and leading case of
Ex Parte Young, is now so
distinguished or qualified as not to be here authoritative or even
persuasive. But, on the face of the
Barney case, it is to
be observed that however ever much room there may be for the
contention that the facts in that case justified a different
conclusion, as the doctrine which we have stated in this case was
plainly recognized in the
Barney case, and the decision
there rendered proceeded upon the hypothesis that the facts
presented took the case out of the established rule, there is no
ground for saying that that case is authority for overruling the
settled doctrine which, abstractly, at least, it recognized. If
there were room for such conclusion, in view of what we have said,
it would be our plain duty to qualify and restrict the
Barney case insofar as it might be found to conflict with
the rule here applied. 2. In the opinion of the court below, there
is a suggestion that, even though the Fourteenth Amendment embraces
acts of state officers to the extent and scope which we have
stated, nevertheless the case here presented is not controlled by
the amendment, since the case concerns not acts of officers done
under state authority, but merely acts of city officials done under
the authority of a municipal ordinance. But, as we have already
pointed out, it was long since settled that acts done under the
authority of a municipal ordinance passed in virtue of power
conferred by a state are embraced by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Page 227 U. S. 295
Apart, however, from the controlling effect of the decisions
rendered in cases concerning the enforcement of the Fourteenth
Amendment, the unsoundness of the contention is plainly
demonstrated by applying the established principle that the
exercise of municipal legislative authority under the sanction of a
state law is the exertion of state legislative power within the
purview of the contract clause of the Constitution (Article I, §
10), declaring: "No state . . . shall pass any . . . law impairing
the obligation of contracts." That this interpretation is here
conclusive must be apparent, since it cannot be said that an act
which is the exertion of state legislative power for the purpose of
one provision of the Constitution is not the exertion of state
legislative power under the operation of another constitutional
provision, both being addressed to the same subject -- that is,
state legislative power.
And this gives rise at once to a demonstration from another and
more final point of view of the incongruity which would result from
maintaining the contention insisted upon. While the guaranties of
the Fourteenth Amendment cover subjects not included in the
contract clause, since the former embraces every manifestation of
state power and the latter is concerned only with legislative power
when exerted so as to impair contracts, yet the fundamental
assertion of federal power made by each amendment is the same when
the different subjects to which each is applicable are put out of
view. To illustrate: the command of the Fourteenth Amendment, "No
state shall make any law abridging . . . nor shall any state
deprive any person," etc., is in substance a manifestation of the
same power exerted in the contract clause, saying, "No state shall
pass," etc. This being true, as it must be, the fact that from the
foundation of the government the contract clause has been enforced
without any intimation that the power manifested by the
Page 227 U. S. 296
clause was restricted by limitations such as those which it is
here insisted limit the power to enforce the guaranties of the
Fourteenth Amendment, affords the most conclusive demonstration of
the unsoundness of the contentions here made. The immediate and
efficient federal right to enforce the contract clause of the
Constitution as against those who violate or attempt to violate its
prohibition, which has always been exerted without question, is but
typical of the power which exists to enforce the guaranties of the
Fourteenth Amendment.
See authorities as to the contract
clause referred to in the opinion in
Ross v. Oregon, ante,
p.
227 U. S. 150.
Reversed.