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demonstrated by witness by saying that "it is one of the objects of good railroading to cover the greatest distance in the least time, and to keep in motion the largest number of trains on a division." The object was beset with dangers and demanded a proportionate care. It allowed little margin for inevitable delays. There was no place in it for any negligence. A train was in fault if it was behind time. It was the height of culpability to be ahead of time. A close connection at "clearance" points was expected. It was testified that trains of the first class, which No. 3 and No. 4 were, "can clear each other to a second." If the trains are of different classes the inferior must clear by at least five minutes.

Such was the system and what it demanded the train dispatcher must have known. In such a system minutes-and even seconds are important, and it is the duty of the train dispatcher to regard them. He knew, to use the testimony of the company's chief dispatcher, that it was the duty of train No. 3 "not to run less than two hours late with reference to her schedule, as prescribed in the regular time-table." She was not allowed, was his emphatic declaration, "to make up one second of that two hours as long as that order was in effect." She (to keep up the personification of the witness) was running two minutes ahead of time. This might of itself have caused a collision. The other train was to be considered, and that minutes were important should not have been out of the train dispatcher's mind an instant. He knew that No. 3 had the right of way with no obligation to No. 4 but to observe time. He knew that No. 4 was "to get into the clear and out of No. 3's way," and had no other guide but the time prescribed.

These comments do not lose their force or application by reason of the fact that under the special orders the trains had an allowance of eleven minutes at Franconia. This allowance was made upon the basis of a strict observance of time, the perfect working of machinery and exact accordance of clocks. But such perfection in the nature of things was liable to dis

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turbance, and when disturbance was observed should have been provided against, and immediately provided against. It was no time to take chances or debate probabilities. It is to be remembered that at all stations there were not night telegraph offices. Yucca was the only one between Yucca and Franconia, and between those stations the train was lost to observation and control. The train dispatcher indeed exhibited his concern. All of the fatal significance of train No. 3 running ahead of time came to his mind. His mistake was to account for it by an error in the telegraph operator's clock (giving to him this excuse against the finding of the lower courts), although he knew that the clock must have been adjusted that day under the rules with the standard time. If we were forced to find the fact we should find it against him, but it is enough to say that there was brought to him, considering his position and the responsibilities upon him, a demand for a care which he omitted to observe. If he had been as considerate as he ought to have been he would have stopped No. 3 at Franconia. And for this conclusion we need not the proof afforded by the collison. The collision, however, and the excuses offered for it, make the conclusion irresistible. Plaintiff in error excuses the train dispatcher by a defect in the clock of the telegraph operator at Yucca. The engineer of No. 3 excuses himself by virtually condemning the clocks of the company by which he had tested his watch. He is sure if No. 4 had been running on time he would have met her at Haviland, the station between Yucca and Franconia. A system which permits such confusion and the endangering or human lives is wrong or wrongly administered. We need go no farther in the present case than to say that it was wrongly administered. The train dispatcher failed to take into account and do what a prudent man would have taken into account and have done.

Judgment affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE BREWER dissents.

Argument for Plaintiffs in Error.

202 U. S.

COX v. TEXAS.

COX v. THOMPSON.

ERROR TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS FOR THE THIRD SUPREME JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF THE STATE OF TEXAS.

Nos. 266, 267. Argued April 27, 1906.-Decided May 21, 1906.

The provisions in the liquor tax law of 1895 of Texas in regard to the sale of liquor to minors, and the liability of the licensee on the bond required to be given in regard thereto, are not unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because, by the terms of the statute, they do not apply to wines produced from grapes grown in the State while in the hands of the producers or manufacturers thereof, it not appearing that there are any distinct classes of liquor dealers, one selling their own domestic wines, and another selling all intoxicants except domestic wines. Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S. 540, distinguished.

Where the constitutionality of a state statute is assailed in the state court solely on the ground of its conflict with one specified provision of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that Amendment standing alone does not touch the case, other provisions of the Constitution cannot be invoked in this court to give those set up a more extensive application.

THE facts are stated in the opinion.

Mr. J. C. McReynolds, with whom were Mr. F. E. Albright, Mr. E. C. Orrick, Mr. J. C. Terrell, Jr. and Mr. Dewey Langford, on a separate brief, for plaintiffs in error:

The exemption from its general provisions of wines produced from domestic grapes, while in the hands of producers or manufacturers, renders the law obnoxious to the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Intoxicating liquors are recognized by the constitution and laws of Texas as legitimate articles of commerce.

So long as state legislation recognizes intoxicants as articles of lawful consumption and commerce, the Federal courts must afford to such use and commerce the same measure

202 U. S.

Argument for Defendants in Error.

of protection, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, as is given to other articles. Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100; Scott v. Donald, 165 U. S. 58.

The peculiar quality of alchoholic liquors justifies discrimination which may tend to temperance and sobriety but when that object is not really present the power to so discriminate does not exist. Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623.

The State, without adequate reason therefor, has attempted to give a special privilege and exemption to producers and manufacturers of domestic grape wines, and has thereby denied the equal protection of the laws to all others engaged in like traffic. The distinction is not justified by the reason which must support the harsh restrictions imposed generally on liquor dealers-the necessity of mitigating the evils of intoxication; nor does it aid in enforcing the law in an administrative way or otherwise. Texas grape wines are not innocuous because peddled out by a manufacturer, and are no less deleterious to health and morals than similar wines from other States. To permit their unrestricted sale tends rather to defeat than to aid the purpose which must be relied on to support the general provisions of the law.

A classification is made which amounts to a discrimination and violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S. 540.

The State could not, in a pure revenue measure, require dealers in foreign wines to pay a tax and operate under stringent regulations while exempting therefrom persons engaged in selling domestic wines. Revenue laws may sometimes properly discriminate between producers and dealers, but there must always be therefor some clear and adequate reason. Gulf, Colorado &c. Ry. v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150.

Mr. Charles K. Bell, Mr. R. V. Davidson, Attorney General of Texas, and Mr. Claude Pollard, for defendants in error, submitted:

There is no inherent right in a citizen to sell intoxicating

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liquors. It is not a privilege of a citizen of a State, or of a citizen of the United States which the States are forbidden to abridge. It is a right exercisable only subject to the police powers of the State. Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S. 25; Battemeyer v. Louisiana, 18 Wall. 129; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 659; Foster v. Kansas, 112 U. S. 206; Norton v. Jamison, 154 U. S. 591; Crowley v. Christensen, 137 U. S. 86; Giozza v. Tiernan, 148 U. S. 657; Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1. The statutes in question are not repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment.

The constitutional guaranties of the Fourteenth Amendment, that no State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, were not intended to limit the subjects upon which the police power of a State may lawfully be exerted, for these guaranties have never been construed as being incompatible with the principle, equally vital, because so essential to peace and safety, that all property is held under the implied obligation that the owner's use of it shall not be injurious to the public. Jones v. Brim, 165 U. S. 180; Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U. S. 678.

The Fourteenth Amendment does not overthrow state laws, rights and remedies to the extent and purposes for which it is often cited. Anderson v. Henry, 45 W. Va. 319; License Cases, 5 How. 577; American Sugar Ref. Co. v. Louisiana, 177 U. S. 89; Reymann Brewing Co. v. Brister, 179 U. S. 445; Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27.

The plaintiffs in error not being engaged in the sale of wines exclusively, but being also engaged in the sale of other intoxicating liquors than wines, cannot challenge the validity of the Texas statutes. Tiernan v. Rinker, 102 U. S. 123; Powell v. State, 69 Alabama, 13; McCreary v. State, 73 Alabama, 482; Bogan v. State, 84 Alabama, 450.

MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the court.

These are two suits upon a statutory bond executed by the plaintiffs in error as principal and sureties. There were ver

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