the District of Columbia, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment of not more than five years, or by both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the Court."

Section 3 is directed against the persuasion, inducement and enticement of any woman or girl to go from one place to another in interstate or foreign commerce, whether with or without her consent, to engage in the practices and for the purposes stated in the first section, and provides that "any one who shall thereby knowingly cause or aid or assist in causing such woman or girl to go or to be carried or transported as a passenger upon the line or route of any common carrier or carriers in interstate or foreign commerce, or any Territory or the District of Columbia," shall be punished as prescribed in the first section.

Section 4 makes criminal the persuasion, inducement and enticement of a woman or girl under the age of eighteen years from any State or Territory or the District of Columbia to any other State or Territory or the District of Columbia to engage in the immoral practices enumerated. The person guilty thereof and who shall in furtherance thereof knowingly induce or cause such woman or girl to be carried or transported as a passenger in interstate commerce shall be deemed guilty of a felony and on conviction the offender's punishment may be a fine of ten thousand dollars or imprisonment for ten years, or by both fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the Court.

The grounds of attack upon the constitutionality of the statute are expressed by counsel as follows:

"1. Because it is contrary to and contravenes article IV, § 2, of the constitution of the United States, which reads: "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.'

"2. Because it is contrary to and contravenes the following two amendments to the Constitution:

"Article IX. The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

"Article X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

"3. Because that clause of the Constitution which reserves the power (art. I, sec. 8, subdiv. 2) "To regulate commerce with for

eign nations, and among the several States,' etc., is not broad enough to include the power to regulate prostitution or any other immorality of citizens of the several States as a condition precedent (or subsequent) to their right to travel interstate or to aid or assist another to so travel.

"4. Because the right and power to regulate and control prostitution, or any other immoralities of citizens, comes within the reserved police power of the several States, and under the Constitution Congress cannot interfere therewith, either directly or indirectly, under the grant of power 'to regulate commerce between the States.'"

We shall discuss at length but one of these grounds; the others will be referred to incidentally. The power of Congress under the commerce clause of the Constitution is the ultimate determining question. If the statute be a valid exercise of that power, how it may affect persons or States is not material to be considered. It is the supreme law of the land and persons and States are subject to it.

Congress is given power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States." The power is direct; there is no word of limitation in it, and its broad and universal scope has been so often delclared as to make repetition unnecessary. And, besides, it has had so much illustration by cases that it would seem as if there could be no instance of its exercise that does not find an admitted example in some one of them. Experience, however, is the other way, and in almost every instance of the exercise of the power differences are asserted from previous exercises of it and made a ground of attack. The present case is an example.

Commerce among the States, we have said, consists of intercourse and traffic between their citizens, and includes the transportation of persons and property. There may be, therefore, a movement of persons as well as of property; that is, a person may move or be moved in interstate commerce. And the act under consideration was drawn in view of that possibility. What the act condemns is transportation obtained or aided or transportation induced in interstate commerce for the immoral purposes mentioned. But an objection is made and urged with earnestness. It is said that it is the right and privilege of a person to move between States and that such being the right, another cannot be made guilty of the crime of inducing or assisting or aiding in the exercise of it and "that the motive or intention of the passenger, either before beginning the journey, or during or after completing it, is not a matter of interstate commerce." The contentions confound things important to be

distinguished. It urges a right exercised in morality to sustain a right to be exercised in immorality. It is the same right which attacked the law of Congress which prohibits the carrying of obscene literature and articles designed for indecent and immoral use from one State to another. Act of February 8, 1897, 29 Stat. 512, c. 172. United States v. Popper, 98 Fed. Rep. 423. It is the same right which was excluded as an element as affecting the constitutionality of the act for the suppression of lottery traffic through national and interstate commerce. Lottery Case, 188 U. S. 321, 357. It is the right given for beneficial exercise which is attempted to be perverted to and justify baneful exercise as in the instances stated and which finds further illustration in Reid v. Colorado, 187 U. S. 137. This constitutes the supreme fallacy of plaintiff's error. It pervades and vitiates their contentions.

Plaintiffs in error admit that the States may control the immoralities of its citizens. Indeed, this is their chief insistence, and they especially condemn the act under review as a subterfuge and an attempt to interfere with the police power of the States to regulate the morals of their citizens and assert that it is in consequence an invasion of the reserved powers of the States. There is unquestionably a control in the States over the morals of their citizens, and, it may be admitted, it extends to making prostitution a crime. It is a control, however, which can be exercised only within the jurisdiction of the States, but there is a domain which the States cannot reach and over which Congress alone has power; and if such power be exerted to control what the States cannot it is an argument for-not against-its legality. Its exertion does not encroach upon the jurisdiction of the States. We have cited examples; others may be adduced. The Pure Food and Drugs Act (June 30, 1906, 84 Stat. 768, c. 3915) is a conspicuous instance. In all of the instances a clash of national legislation with the power of the States was urged, and in all rejected.

Our dual form of government has its perplexities, State and Nation having different spheres of jurisdiction, as we have said, but it must be kept in mind that we are one people; and the powers reserved to the States and those conferred on the Nation are adapted to be exercised, whether independently or concurrently, to promote the general welfare, material and moral. This is the effect of the decisions, and surely if the facility of interstate transportation can be taken away from the demoralization of lotteries, the debasement of obscene literature, the contagion of diseased cattle or persons, the impurity of food and drugs, the like facility can be taken away

from the systematic enticement to and the enslavement in prostitution and debauchery of women, and, more insistently, of girls.

This is the aim of the law expressed in broad generalization; and motives are made of determining consequence. Motives executed by actions may make it the concern of Government to exert its powers. Right purpose and fair trading need no restrictive regulation, but let them be transgressed and penalties and prohibitions must be applied. We may illustrate again by the Pure Food and Drugs Act. Let an article be debased by adulteration, let it be misrepresented by false branding, and Congress may exercise its prohibitive power. It may be that Congress could not prohibit the manufacture of the article in a State. It may be that Congress could not prohibit in all of its conditions its sale within a State. But Congress may prohibit its transportation between the States, and by that means defeat the motive and evils of its manufacture. How far-reaching are the power and the means which may be used to secure its complete exercise we have expressed in Hipolite Egg Co. v. United States, 220 U. S. 45.

Of course it will be said that women are not articles of merchandise, but this does not affect the analogy of the cases; the substance of the congressional power is the same, only the manner of its exercise must be accommodated to the difference in its objects. It is misleading to say that men and women have rights. Their rights cannot fortify or sanction their wrongs; and if they employ interstate transportation as a facility of their wrongs, it may be forbidden to them to the extent of the act of June 25, 1910, and we need go no farther in the present case.

The principle established by the cases is the simple one, when rid of confusing and distracting considerations, that Congress has power over transportation "among the several States"; that the power is complete in itself, and that Congress, as an incident to it, may adopt not only means necessary but convenient to its exercise, and the means may have the quality of police regulations. Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S. 196, 215; Cooley Constitutional Limitations, 7th ed. 856. We have no hesitation, therefore, in pronouncing the act of June 25, 1910, a legal exercise of the power of Congress.

Judgment affirmed.

SEVEN CASES v. UNITED STATES (1916)

239 U. S. 510, 512; 60 L. Ed. 411.

ERROR TO THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEBRASKA

Congress has power to prohibit the interstate transportation of "swindling preparations designed to cheat credulous sufferers and make such preparations, accompanied by false and fraudulent statements, illicit with respect to interstate commerce."

Part of the opinion omitted.

Mr. Justice HUGHES: Libels were filed by the United States, in December, 1912, to condemn certain articles of drugs (known as "Eckman's Alterative") as misbranded in violation of § 8 of the Food and Drugs Act. The articles had been shipped in interstate commerce, from Chicago to Omaha, and remained at the latter place unsold and in the unbroken original packages. The two cases present the same questions, the libels being identical save with respect to quantities and the persons in possession. In each case demurrers were filed by the shipper, the Eckman Manufacturing Company, which challenged both the sufficiency of the libels under the applicable provision of the statute and the constitutionality of that provision. The demurrers were overruled and, the Eckman Company having elected to stand on the demurrers, judgments of condemnation were entered.

Section 8 of the Food and Drugs Act, as amended by the act of August 23, 1912, c. 352, 37 Stat. 416, provides, with respect to the misbranding of drugs, as follows:

"Section 8. That the term 'misbranded,' as used herein, shall apply to all drugs or articles of food or articles which enter into the composition of food, the package or label of which shall bear any statement, design, or device regarding such article, or the ingredients or substances contained therein which shall be false or misleading in any particular, and to any food or drug product which is falsely branded as to the State, Territory, or country in which it is manufactured or produced.

"That for the purposes of this Act an article shall also be deemed to be misbranded. In case of drugs:

*

"Third. If its package or label shall bear or contain any statement, design, or device regarding the curative or therapeutic effect