510 Argument for Society of Sisters. The statute in suit trespasses, not only upon the liberty of the parents individually, but upon their liberty collectively as well. It forbids them, as a body, to support private and parochial schools and thus give to their children such education and religious training as the parents may see fit, subject to the valid regulations of the State. In that respect the enactment violates the public policy of the State of Oregon and the liberty which parents have heretofore enjoyed in that State. Liggett v. Ladd, 17 Ore. 89, 94. See also Milwaukee Industrial School v. Superiors, 40 Wis. 328, 332; People v. Turner, 55 Ill. 280; State ex rel. Sheibley v. School District, 31 Neb. 552, 556; Trustees v. People, 87 Ill. 303. In whatever light the act in suit be regarded, it must be manifest that, in the end, it embodies the pernicious policy of state monopoly of education. The legislative power of a State in relation to education does not involve the power to prohibit or suppress private schools and colleges. The familiar statement that education is a public function means no more than that it is a function that the State may undertake, because it vitally interests and concerns the State that children shall be furnished the means of education and not left to grow up in ignorance. But the power of the State to provide public schools carries with it no power to prohibit and suppress private schools and colleges which are competent and qualified to afford what the State wants, namely, education. Thus, there is no question as to the power of the State to construct and operate public roads, bridges and other means of transportation; yet it would hardly be seriously contended that the State might under the police power forbid the further operation of all private highways, bridges and railroads. Whenever the State desires the use of any such existing facilities for some distinctly public purpose, it can take them only by the exercise of the power of eminent domain. Los Angeles Argument for Society of Sisters. 268 U.S. v. Los Angeles Gas & Electric Corporation, 251 U. S. 32, 38; Green v. Frazier, 253 U. S. 233; Adams v. Tanner, 244 U. S. 590, The present case is wholly outside the principle that, where a State may enter upon an undertaking which can be conducted profitably and satisfactorily only as a monopoly, it may prevent competition or the continued use of competing facilities by condemning and destroying property under the power of eminent domain and just compensation. In its essence, the Oregon law is one strangling scientific investigation in private laboratories. The social interests menaced by the suppression of private educational institutions and the denial of liberty to pursue long rooted habits and traditions among our people are peculiarly of the character that the Fourteenth Amendment was most immediately designed to protect from state political action. Laurel Hill Cemetery v. San Francisco, 216 U. S. 358, 366. The Fourteenth Amendment had for its primary object the prevention of state legislation calculated to keep one class in subjection to another in respect of opportunities for economic and social advancement, the pursuit of happiness, and the exercise of fundamental rights comprehended in an essential individual liberty, among men fit for freedom. Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390; Bartels v. Iowa, 262 U. S. 404. The statute impairs the obligation of the contract embodied in the appellee's corporate charter. Dartmouth College case, 4 Wheat. 518. The corporation laws under which the appellee exists as a corporation (Deady's Code, 1886, pp. 632-4, as amended by General Laws of Oregon for 1903, pp. 176-7) do not contain any provision empowering the State to alter, amend, or repeal the charter; and the constitutional provision which was in force in Oregon when the appellee was organized (§ 2, Art. XI), while permitting the corporation laws of the State to be 510 Argument for Pierce, Governor. altered, amended, or repealed, nevertheless, expressly limited that power by providing that it was not to be exercised so as to impair or destroy any vested corporate rights." In Liggett v. Ladd, 17 Ore. 89; Lornsten v. Union Fishermen's Co., 71 Ore. 540, it was held that a corporation had a vested right to its corporate name which subsequent legislation could not impair. If that be so, a fortiori the right granted to the plaintiff-appellee upon its incorporation to maintain and conduct schools for pay, is likewise a vested right within the meaning of the Oregon constitutional provision above referred to; and, as such, may not be impaired or destroyed by the legislature. The enactment in suit is, consequently, void, not only because of this provision of the Oregon constitution, but also because it impairs the obligation of a contract in violation of section 10 of Article I of the Constitution of the United States. Berea College v. Kentucky, 211 U. S. 45, distinguished. Mr. J. P. Kavanaugh, with whom Messrs. Jay Bowerman, Dan J. Malarkey, Hall S. Lusk, E. B. Seabrook and F. J. Lonergan were on the brief, for appellee in No. 583. Messrs. George E. Chamberlain and Albert H. Putney, with whom Mr. P. Q. Nyce was on the brief, for the Governor of Oregon. The assertion that this law impairs the obligation of contracts is clearly disposed of by Berea College v. Kentucky, 211 U. S. 45. A State cannot contract away any of its fundamental governmental powers. It is now definitely settled that the Fourteenth Amendment did not radically alter the relations between the federal and state governments, or make the provisions of the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution binding upon the state governments. The charge that the statute violates the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States is hardly Argument for Pierce, Governor. 268 U.S. worthy of serious consideration. Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36; Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78; Hodges v. United States, 203 U. S. 1; Hudson County Water Co. v. McCarter, 209 U. S. 349; Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. 371; Eadleigh v. Newhall, 136 Fed. 941. The statute does not deprive anyone of property without due process of law. Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623; Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1; Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland R. Co., 242 U. S. 311; Crane v. Campbell, 245 U. S. 304. The principle of the non-liability of government for loss to business incidentally resulting from state legislation is not confined to business similar to the liquor traffic. Madera Waterworks v. City of Madera, 228 U. S. 454; Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U. S. 394; Tanner v. Little, 240 U. S. 369; Hebe Company v. Shaw, 248 U. S. 297; Purity Extract and Tonic Co. v. Lynch, 226 U. S. 192. Cases in which this Court has protected the right to labor, are not precedents in this case. There is a great distinction between the right to work and the right to have a private business protected as against public competition or the exercise of the police powers of the State. In Terrace v. Thompson, 264 U. S. 197, it was held that "The quality and allegiance of those who own, occupy and use the farm lands within its borders are matters of highest importance and affect the safety and power of the State itself." Is "the safety and power of the State" less effected by the control of education than by the control of farm lands? This Court has never held that there was a denial of due process of law where a private business was injured or even destroyed by state competition in a field in which a State might lawfully engage. If a State may engage at all in any field, the question of the effect of state competition upon private business is immaterial. The owners of private schools have even less basis for the claim that 510 Argument for Pierce, Governor. their property is taken without due process of law through the enactment of a compulsory education law than the owners of property used for saloon purposes had when their business was interfered with by a state prohibition law. In the latter case the entire use of the property for the purpose for which it was intended was prohibited; in the former case the school is only deprived of certain prospective students. A private school might still be continued for students under or over the age limits set by the law. A properly qualified teacher in a private school might easily secure a position as one of the additional teachers who would be required by the public schools. No person in any business has such an interest in possible customers as to enable him to restrain the government from exercising any proper power because it might deprive him of such patronage. To state such a contention is to show its absurdity. The case of the Hill Military Academy is no stronger under the law, than would have been the case of a merchant who had attempted to restrain the operation of the draft act, during the recent war, on the ground that the Government, by taking away certain of his customers, was depriving him of his property without due process of law. See Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113. The Oregon law does not deprive any person of liberty without due process of law. The appellees are corporations. The liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment is that of natural, and not of artificial, persons. Northwestern Nat. L. Ins. Co. v. Riggs, 203 U. S. 243, 255; Western Turf Ass'n. v. Greenberg, 204 U. S. 359, 363. Nor can the appellees claim to have any such interests in the liberties of the school children of the State, or their parents. No person has the right to test the constitutionality of a law merely because it may affect the liberty of another person in whom he has no recognized legal interest. Gusman v. Marrero, 180 U. S. 81. Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33, distinguished. |