Price v. People

• Decision Date: 24 October 1901
• Citation: 193 Ill. 114,61 N.E. 844
• Parties: PRICE v. PEOPLE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

193 Ill. 114

61 N.E. 844

PRICE

v.PEOPLE.¹

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 24, 1901.

Error to criminal court, Cook county; Theo. Brentano, Judge.

George W. Price was convicted of maintaining a private employment agency without having obtained a license, and he brings error. Affirmed.

Magruder, J., dissenting.

Morris St. P. Thomas and Altgeld, Darrow & Thompson, for plaintiff in error.

H. J. Hamlin, Atty. Gen. (E. S. Smith and B. D. Monroe, of counsel), for the People.

BOGGS, J.

Section 10 of an act of the general assembly entitled ‘An act to create free employment offices in cities of certain designated populations, and to provide for the maintenance, management and control of the same, and to prevent private imitations of the name of the same, and regulating private employment agencies,’ approved April 11, 1899, in force July 1, 1899 (Hurd's Rev. St. 1899, p. 848) is as follows: ‘No person, firm or corporations in the cities designated in section 1 of this act [cities of not less than fifty thousand population] shall open, operate or maintain a private employment agency for hire, or where a fee is charged to either applicants for employment or for help, without first having obtained a license from the secretary of state, which license shall be $200 per annum, and who shall be required to give a bond to the people of the state of Illinois, in the penal sum of $1,000 for the faithful performance of the duties of private employment agent; and no such private agent shall print publish, or paint on any sign, window, or newspaper publication, a name similar to that of the Illinois free employment offices. And any person, firm or corporation violating the provisions of this act, or any part thereof, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be fined not less than $50 nor more than $100.’ The plaintiff in error was indicted at the November term, 1899 of the criminal court of Cook county, for opening, operating, and maintaining a private employment agency in the city of Chicago without having first obtained a license from the secretary of state, and without having given a bond to the people of the state of Illinois in the penal sum of $1,000, conditioned for the faithful performance of the duties of private employment agent. The defendant moved to quash the indictment on the ground that the offense charged was unknown to the law of Illinois; that section 10 of the act was void because repugnant to the state constitution and the federal constitution, and because oppressive and unreasonable; and that the entire act was void because repugnant to the state and federal constitutions. The court denied the motion. The defendant entered a plea of not guilty. A jury was duly waived, and the case tried before the court. At the conclusion of the evidence the defendant submitted certain written propositions of law, by which the court was asked to hold (1) that the indictment did not charge the commission of any offense known to the law of Illinois; (2) that section 10 of said act was void because in contravention of the constitution of Illinois and (3) of the federal constitution; (4) that the said act was void as a whole because repugnant to the state constitution and (5) the federal constitution; (6) that said section 10 was void because unreasonable and oppressive, and (7) because prohibitive and not regulative. The court took the case under advisement, and at the May term, 1901, marked each of the propositions of law so submitted ‘Refused,’ found the defendant guilty, and assessed against him a fine of $50. To reverse the judgment entered on that finding, this writ of error has been sued out of this court.

The proof was clear that in the month of December, 1899, the defendant was engaged in the business of a private employment agent in the city of Chicago, and that he had not procured a license therefor from the secretary of state. The plaintiff in error admits that, if that section is valid in its entirety, the judgment of the criminal court was warranted by the evidence. Section 1 of article 4 of the constitution of 1870 lodges the legislative power of the state in the general assembly, consisting of the senate and house of representatives. The supreme or sovereign power of legislation, which under our form of government resides in the people, by the adoption of the said section 1 of article 4 of the constitution of 1870 was vested in the general assembly, subject only to the limitations and restrictions found in other portions of the organic instrument or in the constitution of the United States Hawthorn v. People, 109 Ill. 302, 50 Am. Rep. 610;People v. Hill, 163 Ill. 186, 46 N. E. 796,36 L. R. A. 634. It is a well-recognized attribute of sovereign power to tax any occupation for the purpose of raising revenue, and such tax may be laid and collected in the form of a license fee. Cooley, Const. Lim. 479; Cooley, Tax'n, 570, 572, 591, 592, 599; Banta v. City of Chicago, 172 Ill. 204, 50 N. E. 233,40 L. R. A. 611. Article 9 of the constitution of 1870 is expressly devoted to the exercise of the power of raising revenues. Section 1 of the said article authorized the general assembly to tax certain occupations specifically enumerated in the section. The occupation of private employment agent is not therein enumerated. The incorporation into the constitution of the section giving the legislature authority to tax certain enumerated occupations for the purpose of raising revenue does not operate to limit the power of the lawmaking department of the state, in exercising the sovereign right of taxation of occupations, to the particular occupations specified. The familiar canon of construction, that such enumeration should be held by implication to inhibit the taxation of any occupation not specified in the section, cannot be given application, for the reason such construction is expressly forbidden by section 2 of article 9 of the organic law. Expressions in Banta v. City of Chicago, supra, that such canon of construction is applicable, were made inadvertently. No inhibition,...