more entitling the manufacturer to public gifts than the sailor, the mechanic, the lumberman, or the farmer. Our Government is based on an equality of rights. The State can not rightfully discriminate among occupations; for a discrimination in favor of one branch of industry is a discrimination adverse to all other branches. The State is equally bound to protect all, giving no undue advantage or special or exclusive preference to any. Taxation in aid of private enterprise is to load the tables of the few with bounty that the many may partake of the crumbs that fall therefrom."
In 1875 the Legislature of Kansas authorized townships to issue bonds for the purpose of raising money to be applied for the relief of such farmers within their limits as had been deprived, by a failure of crops, of seed with which to plant for a new season. This authorization was held by the court (Justice Brewer) to be unconstitutional, on the ground that the use of public moneys for the accommodation of a certain class was not a public purpose—"not for the benefit of the indigent, but of those who have fields to till and stocks to care for"—and that if the principle involved is once recognized, it may be invoked with equal propriety in aid of other or all classes. (State vs. Osawkee, 14 Kansas, 488.)
In the State of New York its Court of Appeals has held void an act of the Legislature authorizing a village to take stock in a manufacturing corporation, and to issue bonds to raise the money to pay for such subscription, and to levy taxes for the payment of the principal and interest on said bonds. (Weismer vs. Douglas, 64 N. Y., 91.) In a similar case (Sweet vs. Hurlbert, 51 Barber) Justice James expressed himself as follows:
If this can be done, it is legal robbery; less respectable than highway robbery in this, that the perpetrator of the latter assumes the danger and infamy of the act, where this act has the shield of legislative irresponsibility.
In Cole vs. La Grange (113 U. S.), the case turned on an act of the Legislature of Missouri authorizing the city of La Grange, whenever two thirds of the resident taxpayers signified their approval at a special election, to levy a tax not exceeding two per cent per annum on the assessed value of the real and personal property in the city, to pay for a donation or subscription to the stock of a manufacturing company. The court held the act void; the opinion, written by Mr. Justice Gray, embodying the following language:
The general grant of legislative power in the Constitution of the State does not enable the Legislature, in the exercise either of the right of eminent domain or of the right of taxation, to authorize counties, cities, or towns to contract, for private objects, debts which must be paid by taxes.
