Joseph McKenna

“ We get no accurate idea of its limitations by opposing to it the declarations of the 14th Amendment that no person shall be deprived of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denied the equal protection of the laws. ”

“ The statute is a restraint upon the disposition of certain property, and requires dealers in securities evidencing title to or interest in such property to obtain a license,-a requirement simple enough in itself, and yet of itself asserted to be an illegal control of a private business, made especially so by the conditions which are imposed. ”

“ Whatever prohibition there is, is a means to the same purpose, made necessary, it may be supposed, by the persistence of evil and its insidious forms and the experience of the inadequacy of penalties or other repressive measures. ”

“ The commissioner may revoke a license upon ascertaining that the licensee: (a) Is of bad repute; (b) has violated any provision of the act; or (c) has engaged, or is about to engage, under favor of such license, in illegitimate business or fraudulent transactions.
It will be observed, therefore, that the law is a regulation of business, constrains conduct only to that end, the purpose being to protect the public against the imposition of unsubstantial schemes and the securities based upon them. ”

“ A state 'may direct its law against what it deems the evil as it actually exists without covering the whole field of possible abuses, and it may do so none the less that the forbidden act does not differ in kind from those that are allowed. ”

“ The next contention of appellees is that the law under review is a burden on interstate commerce, and therefore contravenes the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States. There is no doubt of the supremacy of the national power over interstate commerce. ”

“ As to material products the purpose may be accomplished by a requirement of inherent purity. The intangibility of securities, they being representatives or purporting to be representatives of something else, of property, it may be, in distant states and countries, schemes of plausible pretensions, requires a difference of provision, and the integrity of the securities can only be assured by the probity of the dealers in them and the information which may be given of them. ”

“ If a class is deemed to present a conspicuous example of what the legislature seeks to prevent, the 14th Amendment allows it to be dealt with although otherwise and merely logically not distinguishable from others not embraced in the law.' Central Lumber Co. ”

“ A stricter inquiry is necessary, and we must consider what it is of life, liberty, and property that the Constitution protects.
What life is and what may or may not affect it, we have quite accurate tests ”

“ It is a police regulation strictly, not affecting them until there is an attempt to make disposition of them within the state. To give them more immunity than this is to give them more immunity than more tangible articles are given, they having no exemption from regulations the purpose of which is to prevent fraud or deception. ”

“ Reputation and character are quite tangible attributes, but there can be no legislative definition of them that can automatically attach to or identify individuals possessing them, and necessarily the aid of some executive agency must be invoked. ”

“ Counsel enumerates them as follows:
'Prominent among such discriminations are between the cases where more or less than 50 per cent of an issue of bonds is included in the sale to one person; between securities which have and which have not been authorized by the Public Service Commission of this state; between the securities issued by a bank, trust company, a building and loan association organized under the laws of this state and those which are not; between an owner who sells his securities in a single transaction and one who disposes of them in successive transactions ”

“ It is also provided that all of the applications shall be published in a daily newspaper, and if the commissioner be satisfied that the applicant is of good repute, he shall, upon payment of certain fees, register the applicant as a licensed dealer in securities. ”