llegiance
to them is a mere sham.

And that is the way in which popular governments lose their vitality and
perish.

The Roman consuls derived their power from the people and were responsible
to the people; but Rome went on pretending that the emperors and their
servants were consuls long after the Praetorians were the only source of
power and the only power exercised was that of irresponsible despotism.

A number of countries have copied our constitution coupled with a provision
that the constitutional guarantees may be suspended in case of necessity.
We are all familiar with the result. The guarantees of liberty and justice
and order have been forgotten: the government is dictatorship and the
popular will is expressed only by revolution.

Nor, so far as our national system is concerned has there yet appeared any
reason to suppose that suitable laws to meet the new conditions cannot be
enacted without either overriding or amending the constitution. The liberty
of contract and the right of private property which are protected by the
limitations of the constitution are held subject to the police power of
government to pass and enforce laws for the protection of the public
health, public morals, and public safety. The scope and character of the
regulations required to accomplish these objects vary as the conditions
of life in the country vary. Many interferences with contract and with
property which would have been unjustifiable a century ago are demanded by
the conditions which exist now and are permissible without violating any
constitutional limitation. What will promote these objects the legislative
power decides with large discretion, and the courts have no authority to
review the exercise of that discretion. It is only when laws are passed
under color of the police power and having no real or substantial relation
to the purposes for which the power exists, that the courts can refuse to
give them effect. By a multitude of judicial decisions in recent years our
courts have sustained the exercise of this vast and progressive power
in dealing with the new conditions of life under a great variety of
circumstances. The principal difficulty in sustaining the exercise of the
power has been caused ordinarily by the fact that carelessly or ignorantly
drawn statutes either have failed to exhibit the true relation between the
regulation proposed and the object sought, or have gone farther than the
attainment of the legitimat