Harlan F. Stone

“ Statutory discrimination between classes which are in fact different must be presumed to be relevant to a permissible legislative purpose, and will not be deemed to be a denial of equal protection if any state of facts could be conceived which would support it. ”

“ Since the state may validly require appellant to sell its farm land, the contention that the statute is wanting in due process because conditions have been such since its enactment that appellant has been and will be unable to salvage an investment made more than ten years before raises no substantial constitutional question. The due process clause does not guarantee that a foreign corporation when lawfully excluded as such from ownership of land in the state shall recapture its cost. ”

“ We cannot say that there are no differences between corporations generally and those falling into the excepted classes which may appropriately receive recognition in the legislative application of a state policy against the concentration of farming lands in corporate ownership.
The North Dakota Legislature may have thought that its policy with reference to corporate owned agricultural lands would be advanced by permitting corporations engaged in the business of dealing in farm lands to acquire and sell without restriction lands forced upon the market by the statute. ”