Jasper County Farm Bureau v. Jasper County

• Citation: 286 S.W. 381
• Decision Date: 30 July 1926
• Docket Number: No. 25163.,25163.
• Parties: JASPER COUNTY FARM BUREAU v. JASPER COUNTY.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

286 S.W. 381

JASPER COUNTY FARM BUREAU v. JASPER COUNTY.

No. 25163.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

July 30, 1926.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jasper County; Grant Emerson, Judge.

Proceeding by the Jasper County Farm Bureau against Jasper County. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Roy Coyne, of Joplin, and Frank L. Forlow, of Webb City, for appellant.

McReynolds, McReynolds & Flanigan, of Carthage, for respondent.

OTTO, J.

This is a proceeding instituted in the circuit court of Jasper county by the Jasper County Farm Bureau, a voluntary association, organized pursuant to the provisions of an act of the Legislature found in the 1919 Session Laws at page 112, and now found in the 1919 revision at sections 12135 to 12142, inclusive, which creates county farm bureaus and, inter alia, provides that the county courts may appropriate funds to the use of such farm bureaus, to recover of the county the unpaid balance of an appropriation made by the county court for the use of the Jasper County Farm Bureau for the years 1922 and 1923. The appellant answered, averring that the Farm Bureau Act was in conflict with the provisions of section 46 of article 4, and of section 47 of article 4, and of section 6 of article 9 of the Constitution of Missouri, and therefore unconstitutional and void.

The trial court found the act to be constitutional, and gave judgment for plaintiff as prayed, from which judgment the defendant appealed.

The act providing for county farm bureaus defines a county farm bureau as:

"A county organization formed for the purpose of co-operating with the University of Missouri College of Agriculture in carrying out the provisions of the Smith-Lever Act of Congress approved May 8, 1914, composed of not less than 250 bona fide farm owners or residents with an annual membership fee of not less than one dollar per member fully paid up, its constitution and by-laws formally adopted and its officers elected and installed."

It is provided in the act itself that the purpose of such organization shall be that of promoting the public welfare by assisting in the general betterment of farm and home practices and conditions, and must have for its objects:

"(a) To promote the development of profitable and permanent systems of agriculture;

"(b) To assist in securing wholesome and satisfactory living conditions in the country;

"(c) To encourage the development and successful growth of all rural social and educational institutions;

"(d) To assist in safeguarding rural public health through community co-operation;

"(e) To develop better economic and business methods and practices in farm and home life;

"(f) To co-operate with all individuals, groups, institutions, and organizations whose purposes are in accord with the objects set forth in this section."

The act further provides that whenever a county farm bureau has been organized with the required number of members, with its membership dues fully paid up, its constitution and by-laws adopted, and its officers elected and installed, the county court shall be empowered and authorized to appropriate out of the general funds of the county such sums as the court may deem proper for the support of such organization.

It is here urged that the Farm Bureau Act above referred to is unconstitutional for the reason that said act is in conflict with the provisions of section 46 of article 4, section 47 of article 4, and section 6 of article 9, of the Constitution of Missouri, and therefore unconstitutional and void. The portions of the sections of the Constitution above enumerated which appellant insists are violated which are relevant here, are as follows;

"Sec. 46, art. IV. The General Assembly shall have no power to make any grant, or to authorize the making of any grant of public money or thing of value to any individual, association of individuals, municipal or other corporation whatsoever. * * *"

"Sec. 47, art. IV. The General Assembly shall have no power to authorize any county, city, town, or township, or other political corporation or subdivision of the state now existing, or that may be hereafter established, to lend its credit, or to grant public money or thing of value in aid of or to any individual, association or corporation whatsoever. * * *"

"Sec. 6, art. IX. No county, township, city or other municipality shall hereafter become a subscriber to the capital stock of any railroad or other corporation or association, or make appropriation or donation, or loan its credit to or in aid of any such corporation or association, or to or in aid of any college or institution of learning or other institution, whether created for or to be controlled by the state or others. * * *"

In support of these objections the argument is made that the farm bureau legislation above referred to was enacted solely for the benefit of the farmers and agricultural interests of the state, and, this being so, was an attempt on the part of the Legislature to set apart this class of people and this industry and appropriate for their and its benefit money raised by taxation, and therefore the purpose for which the appropriation was authorized was not a public one.

What is for the public good and what are public purposes and what does properly constitute a public burden are matters which are very often difficult to define with accuracy. In determining the nature of the object of an appropriation, as to whether public or private, a study of pre-existing conditions and a consideration of the mischief to be remedied by the enactment of the constitutional provisions lend great aid in their proper understanding.

"It is common knowledge that counties, townships and cities in this state and elsewhere were at one time induced to vote bond issues in large amounts in aid of much desired railroad construction, some of which was never built, and that such issues frequently involved such counties, townships, and cities in a hopeless burden of debt. It was to end such profligacy that the provisions of section 6, article 9, section 46, article 4, and section 47, article 4, were placed in the Constitution of 1875. The Constitution of 1865, section 14, article 11, prohibited the General Assembly from authorizing any county, city, or town to become a stockholder in or loan its credit to any corporation without the assent of two-thirds of the qualified voters at an election at which such proposition should be submitted. Bitter experience resulted in the absolute prohibition of such financial assistance in the Constitution of 1875."

The purpose of the Farm Bureau. Act and the appropriation of public funds authorized by it is in no wise similar to the loans of public credit at which the above mentioned constitutional provisions were leveled.

It may readily be conceded that the primary purpose of the act in question was to promote the agricultural interests of the state for the act itself provides:

"For the purpose of promoting the public welfare by assisting in the general betterment of farm and home practices and conditions, the county court of any county is hereby authorized and empowered to appropriate out of the general funds of the county such sums as it may deem proper for the support of a county farm bureau. * * *" Section 12135; R. S. Mo. 1919.

The fact that the act appropriates public funds to promote the agricultural interests of the state does not render it objectionable to the sections of the Constitution invoked and quoted above, as we will later endeavor to show. There is, of course, no difficulty in ruling that public funds cannot be appropriated for other than public purposes. About this there can be no dispute, and therefore, when a controversy such as comes up in this case arises, the only question to be considered is whether the purpose for which the money is to be appropriated is a public one within the meaning of the constitutional provisions.

It is also true that many objects for which money may be appropriated are so clearly public in their nature that there could not well be any difference of opinion on the subject, such, for example, as public charities, and appropriations provided for the care of the indigent, destitute, and insane, either in institutions exclusively under state control or those maintained by corporations for purely charitable purposes. In 1894 this court, in banc, in the case of State ex rel. City of St. Louis v. Seibert, 123 Mo. 424, 24 S. W. 750, 27 S. W. 624, held that an appropriation for the support of the indigent insane in the asylum of the city of St. Louis who belonged to the state outside of the...