remain unaltered for his benefit, is a principle thoroughly settled by numerous decisions of this court, and having general application, not confined at all to the rights and liabilities existing between employers and employees, or between persons formerly occupying that relation. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 134; Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 532; Second Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1, 50; Chicago & Alton R. R. Co. v. Tranbarger, 238 U. S. 67, 76; New York Central R. R. Co. v. White, 243 U. S. 188, 198. The use of the process of injunction to prevent disturbance of a going business by such a campaign as defendants here have conducted, is in the essential sense a measure of police regulation. And just as the States have a broad discretion about establishing police regulations, so they have a discretion, equally broad, about modifying and relaxing them. They may adopt the common law, or some other system, as their own judgment of the interests of their people may determine. They have general dominion, and, saving as restricted by particular provisions of the Federal Constitution, complete dominion over all persons, property, and business transactions within their borders; and in regulating its internal affairs a State may establish by legislation a policy differing in one or more respects from those of other States, just as it might establish a like difference through the decisions of its courts.

Hence, I have no doubt that, without infringing the " due process" clause, a State might by statute establish protection against picketing or boycotting however conducted, just as many States have done by holding them to be contrary to the common law, recognizing a property [349] value in a going business, and applying equitable principles in safeguarding it from irreparable injury through interference found unwarranted. Vegelahn v. Guntner, 167 Mass. 92, 97-98; Beck v. Railway Teamsters' Protective Union, 118 Mich. 497, 520-521; Barnes & Co. v. Chicago Typographical Union, 232 Ill. 424, 435, 437; Jensen v. Cooks' & Waiters' Union, 39 Wash. 531, 536; St. Germain v. Bakery & Confectionery Workers' Union, 97 Wash. 282, 289, 295; Jonas

Pitney, and Clarke, JJ., dissenting.

Glass Co. v. Glass Bottle Blowers' Association, 77 N. J. Eq. 219, 222-224. And, just as one State might establish such protection by statute, so another State may by statute disestablish the protection, even as States have differed in their judicial determination of the general law upon the subject. In neither case can I find ground for declaring that the State's action is so arbitrary and devoid of reasonable basis that it can be called a deprivation of liberty or property without due process of law, in the constitutional sense. In truth, the States have a considerable degree of latitude in determining, each for itself, their respective conditions of law and order, and what kind of civilization they shall have as a result.

Paragraph 1464 does not modify any substantive rule of law, but only restricts the processes of the courts of equity. Ordinary legal remedies remain; and I cannot believe that the use of the injunction in such cases-however important— is so essential to the right of acquiring, possessing and enjoying property that its restriction or elimination amounts to a deprivation of liberty or property without due process of law, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Secondly, it is said that Paragraph 1464, Arizona Civil Code, denies to plaintiffs in error the "equal protection of the laws;" but it seems to me evident that it does not offend in this regard. Examination shows that it does not discriminate against the class to which plaintiffs belong [350] in favor of any other. It applies not only to cases between employers and employees, irrespective of who is plaintiff and who defendant, but to cases between employees, and between persons employed and those seeking employment. And it applies equally to all persons coming within its reach.

It is said that because, under other provisions of the Arizona statute law, plaintiffs would have been entitled to an injunction against such a campaign as that conducted by defendants, had it been in a controversy other than a dispute between employer and former employees-for instance, had competing restaurant-keepers been the offenders-refusal of relief in the particular case by force of Paragraph 1464

Pitney, and Clarke, JJ., dissenting.

is undue favoritism to the class of which defendants are members. But I submit with deference that this is not a matter of which plaintiffs are entitled to complain under the "equal protection" clause. There is no discrimination as against them; others situated like them are accorded no greater right to an injunction than is accorded to them. Whatever complaint the competing restaurant-keepers might have, if in the case supposed they were subject to be stopped by an injunction where former employees were not, it would not be a denial of equal protection to plaintiffs. Cases arising under this clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, preeminently, call for the application of the settled rule that before one may be heard to oppose state legislation upon the ground of its repugnance to the Federal Constitution he must bring himself within the class affected by the alleged unconstitutional feature. Rosenthal v. New York, 226 U. S. 260, 270-271; Jeffrey Manufacturing Co. v. Blagg, 235 U. S. 571, 576; Arkadelphia Milling Co. v. St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co., 249 U. S. 134, 149; Middleton v. Texas Power & Light Co., 249 U. S. 152, 156-157.

A disregard of the rule in the present case has resulted, as it seems to me, in treating as a discrimination what, so [351] far as plaintiffs are concerned, is no more than a failure to include in the statute a case which in consistency ought, it is said, to have been covered-an omission immaterial to plaintiffs. This is to transform the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment from a guaranty of the "protection of equal laws" into an insistence upon laws complete, perfect, symmetrical.

The guaranty of "equal protection" entitles plaintiffs to treatment not less favorable than that given to others similarly circumstanced. This the present statute gives them. The provision does not entitle them, as against their present opponents under present circumstances, to protection as adequate as they might have against opponents of another class under like circumstances. I find no authority for the proposition that the guaranty was intended to secure equality of protection "not only for all but against all similarly situated," except as between persons who properly

Pitney, and Clarke, JJ., dissenting.

belong in the same class. The familiar expression, in Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 32, "Class legislation, discriminating against some and favoring others," refers to a discrimination which at the same time favors others similarly situated. The same is true of what was said in Hayes v. Missouri, 120 U. S. 68, 71-72, to the effect that the Amendment" merely requires that all persons subjected to such legislation shall be treated alike, under like circumstances and conditions, both in the privileges conferred and in the liabilities imposed." Other decisions are to the same effect. Nothing in the Arizona statute under consideration, either as written or as construed and applied, operates to discriminate against plaintiffs in favor of others similarly circumstanced and conditioned. Neither class of supposed offenders-those exempt from or those subject to injunction-stands in like case with plaintiffs who seek an injunction.

But, assuming plaintiffs were entitled to assert, as a denial of equal protection, the alleged discrimination aris- [352] ing from a denial of equitable relief in one class of cases which would be granted in another, I am unable to see that the statute creates an arbitrary and unreasonable discrimination in this regard.

It is going far-too far, I submit-to assume that there is any discrimination in fact. Such a campaign as that conducted by defendants, the legislature foresaw, was likely to be resorted to by employees or former employees, in the case of a dispute with the employer concerning terms or conditions of employment. In such a case, for reasons deemed sufficient, the legislature declared there should be no injunction. That such picketing or boycotting ever was conducted in Arizona, or that the legislature had reason to anticipate that it would be undertaken in the future, by competitors in business or any others than participants in a labor dispute, does not appear and cannot be assumed. Without this, the supposed discrimination is but theoretical, not practical.

Pitney, and Clarke, JJ., dissenting.

But were there actual discrimination, granting immunity from injunction to laboring men who resort to unlawful conduct in the way of picketing, boycotting and the like, seriously interfering with the employer's business, while denying the like immunity to other classes who may resort to similar unlawful and harmful conduct but with what the legislature probably regarded as a slighter claim to indulgence, I cannot agree that this demonstrates the classification to be so arbitrary and unreasonable as to render the act a denial of the equal protection of the laws. Doubtless the legislature, upon a review of the subject in the light of a knowledge of conditions in their own State that we do not possess, concluded that in labor controversies there were reasons affecting the public interest for preventing resort to the process of injunction and leaving the parties to the ordinary legal remedies, which reasons did not apply generally. The simple truth is, they merely singled out, as properly they [353] might, a particular kind of controversy for what they regarded as appropriate treatment; and, as already shown, they acted upon it in a manner consistent with due process of law. There is here no denial of equal protection. Legislation almost of necessity proceeds subject by subject, with classification as an essential part of the process. In adjusting their laws to the needs of the people the States have a wide range of discretion about classification; the equal protection clause does not require that all state laws shall be perfect and complete, nor that the entire field of proper legislation shall be covered by a single act; and it is not a valid objection that a law made applicable to one subject might properly have been extended to others. Rosenthal v. New York, 226 U. S. 260, 270-271; Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co. v. Cade, 223 U. S. 642, 649–650. All employers' liability and workmen's compensation laws proceed upon the basis that the responsibility of employers for injuries sustained by employees forms a proper subject for separate treatment. See Second Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1; New York Central R. R. Co. v. White, 243 U. S.