Workmen's Compensation doubtedly the question of the consti tutionality of the compulsory acts is a much more difficult one than that of the optional ones. T Such legislation as workmen's com pensation laws, whether operating di' rectly, or through the agency of the state by the creation of a state insurance fund, must necessarily, considering their scope and purpose and the participa tion of the state in their administration, maintain their validity, if at all, in the state's inherent police powrer. An accurate determination of the scope of the police power of a state is impossible. It extends to all the great public needs (Camfield v. United States, 167 U. S. 518), and, says Mr. Justice Holmes in a recent case: "It may be put forth in aid of what is sanctioned by usage, or held by the prevailing morality or strong and preponderant opinion to be greatly and immediately necessary to the public welfare." ( Noble Slate Bank v. Haskell, 219 U. S. 104, 31 Sup. Ct. Rep. 186, 188.) It is well settled that a state may, within the scope of its police power, order the de struction of a house falling to decay or otherwise endangering passers by; it may order the demolition of such build ings as are in the path of a conflagration; require diseased cattle to be slaughtered; decayed or unwholesome food to be destroyed; prohibit wooden buildings in cities; regulate railways and other common carriers; regulate interments in burial grounds; restrict objection able trades to certain localities; pro vide for the compulsory vaccination of children; confine the insane or those afflicted with contagious diseases; re strain vagrants, beggars and habitual drunkards; suppress obscene publica tions, and houses of ill fame; prohibit gambling houses and the sale of intoxi cating liquors; and in short do any
287
thing whenever and wherever the public interests demand it (Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133), and "a large discretion is necessarily vested in the Legislature to determine, not only what the interests of the public require, but what measures are necessary for the protection of such interests." (Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366.) The police power is not fixed, but is subject to growth and change in its application with the changing industrial and social conditions. (Hol den v. Hardy, supra; Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U. S. 207.) It is contended, however, that work men's compensation acts create an abso lute liability without fault and that such legislation is not within the scope of the police power of the state. This is the stand .that the New York Court of Appeals has taken in the Ives case. Mr. Justice Werner, in delivering the opinion of the Court, says: "The argu ment that the risk to an employee should be borne by the employer, because it is inherent in the employment, may be economically sound; but it is at war with the legal principle that no employer can be compelled to assume a risk which is inseparable from the work of the employee, and which may exist in spite of a degree of care by the employer far greater than may be exacted by the most drastic law. If it is competent to impose upon an employer, who has committed no wrong, a liability based solely upon a legislative fiat that his business is inherently dangerous, it is equally competent to visit upon him a special tax for the support of hospitals and other charitable institutions, upon the theory that they are devoted largely to the alleviation of ills primarily due to his business." (94 N. E. 431, 440.) As a matter of fact sections 4585 and 4803 of the Revised Statutes of the United States provide for that very
I
