ing of such events as confronted the American people in 1898. The world is steadily advancing in civilization and in that public morality, which is, after all, only the conglomeration of countless individual moralities: and no more clearly does this show itself than in the domain of international law. Thus each generation of publicists, of diplomats, even of warriors, demonstrates, equally in word and deed, an increasing respect for the abstract principles of humanity and justice; a greater reverence for the peaceful dictates of law. Reason steadily gains ground and violence as steadily recedes.1 Hence, with each passing age, we shall see more frequent and more disinterested instances of intervention, on this noble ground; and, hand-in-hand therewith, far fewer occasions of such inhuman barbarities and intolerable cruelties as shock the moral sensibilities of mankind. The one will not only accompany the other, but will become even more and more the strongest reason for the prevention rather than the cure of the other. Possibly not until the millenium shall we reach a condition of affairs wherein a despot fails to tyrannize over his subject people; but, at all events, we shall reach the time when such a ruler will hesitate to put into practice his inhuman inclinations, deterred by fear of the just punishment swiftly meted out to him by the peoples of the other states. And this desirable condition of affairs it will be the province of the doctrines of humanitarian intervention to bring to pass.

1North American Review, Vol. C., III., p. 466.

SAMUEL HERRICK.

PUBLIC REGULATION OF BILLBOARDS.

BY HAROLD N. ELDRIDGE.1

The right of owners and lessees of land to erect and maintain thereon billboards for the purpose of advertising, unrestrained by municipal interference, has received the attention of the courts in several recent cases. Public authorities have either on æsthetic grounds, or on the plea that the public safety was involved, sought to regulate and even to prohibit the use of land for advertising purposes by means of billboards. And this they have sought to do without providing for any compensation to those who are damaged in consequence of such regulation or prohibition. These acts of the public have been resisted by the owners and lessees on the ground that they constitute an attempt to take private property for public use without compensation, which of course is prohibited by the various state constitutions.

That every public interference with private property, where there is no provision made for compensation, is not a taking for a public use within the meaning of the Constitution is well settled. States and municipalities, in the exercise of the police power, have the right to reasonably control the uses to which individuals shall put their property, though such control results in damage and no compensation is allowed. Therefore public interference in the matter of the erection and maintenance of billboards is not unconstitutional merely because of such interference. It must further appear that the interference is an unreasonable exercise of the police power. An examination of the cases will show what is considered reasonable by the courts.

That a municipality cannot, to promote æsthetic ends, prohibit the erection of billboards on private property, at least where no provision is made for compensating persons injured thereby, is decided by the case of Com. v. Boston Advertising Co., 188 Mass. 348. In this case it appeared that a statute passed by the legis1Minor, '02. Of the editorial department of the Edward Thompson Company.

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lature of Massachusetts (see Statutes, 1903, c. 158) provided that authorities having charge of public parks and parkways might make such reasonable rules and regulations respecting the display of signs, posters and advertisements in or near to and visible from public parks and parkways" as they might deem necessary for preserving the objects for which such parks and parkways were established and maintained. Acting under this statute the Metropolitan Park Commission, a board having charge of certain parks and parkways, made a rule or regulation which forbade the erection, maintaining, or displaying upon any land, or the outside of any building, of any commercial or business sign, poster or advertisement, within such distance of any public park, or parkway, in the care of the commission, as should render the words, figures or devices of the sign, poster or advertisement, plainly visible to the naked eye within the park or parkway, without the written permission of the commission; save that the rule was not to be considered to prevent the owner or occupant of land, building, or tenement from displaying or maintaining thereon one sign or advertisement for business or commercial purposes, in size not larger than fifteen inches by twenty feet, and relating exclusively to the property on which it might be placed, or to the business thereon conducted, or to the person conducting The defendant was in the advertising business and had, prior to the making of the above rule, purchased from the owner of land near the Revere Beach parkway, which was within the jurisdiction of the commission, the right to maintain a sign, advertising a household utensil. The sign board was forty feet in width and seven and one-half feet high, with black letters on an orange ground, the capital letters being three feet and onehalf inches high and two feet ten inches wide. It was not contended that the sign was indecent or immoral, or of a nature to frighten man or beast, or in any way to cause bodily injury by falling or being blown against persons or vehicles using the highway. In the trial court, the defendant was found guilty of maintaining a business sign on land near enough to a parkway to render the words of the sign plainly visible to the naked eye of persons in the parkway. The case, however, was reported to the Supreme Court, where the verdict was set aside and judgment

the same.

was rendered for the defendant, on the ground that the rule, established by the commission, so interfered with the use of property as to amount to a taking of property for public use, and, as no compensation was provided for, that the rule was void because obnoxious to the provisions of the state constitution and because it was not "reasonable" within the meaning of the statute, by virtue of which it was made. But the court said: "We do not hold that no valid rules as to signs, posters or advertisements on land near to public parks or parkways can be made under St. 1903, c. 158. Rules intended to prohibit advertisements, of indecent or immoral tendencies, or signs dangerous to the physical safety of the public, no doubt would be reasonable, within the meaning of the statute and valid."

A case similar to the one considered above is that of People v. Green, 85 N. Y. App. Div. 400. This case held that the legislature of the state of New York had no power to authorize a municipal corporation to prohibit the posting of any advertisements whatever upon fences inclosing private property, fronting on, or adjacent to, the public parks in such municipality, without the consent of the municipalities, in charge of such parks. The reasons given for the decision were like those given in the case above. The court said: "The provision of the Constitution that private property shall not be taken for public use, without compensation, certainly prohibits the legislature from interfering with the use of private property by its owner unless such use would justify the interference by the state, under what is called the police power. But the placing of a fence upon private property, upon which is displayed an advertisement, is certainly no more subject to the police power of the state than would be the placing upon the property of a shop, house, or other structure. While the legislature might prohibit such a structure as would expose those using the parks or streets, to danger; or prevent the exhibition of immoral advertisements or pictures, or the use of property in a way that would endanger the health of the community, it has no power to prevent the owners of private property, adjacent to the public park from using their property to advertise what they or others have to sell, so long as the public health or welfare is not affected, and being without power to prohibit, they are with

out power to require the consent of any public officer before the property can be used for that purpose.

That signs, dangerous to the physical safety of the public, may be regulated by the public though private property is thereby damaged is expressly decided by the case of City of Rochester v. West, 164 N. Y. 510, wherein it was held that under a statute conferring upon the city of Rochester by its charter, power "to license and regulate billposters . . . and to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which any license shall be granted," an ordinance was authorized, prohibiting the erection of billboards, exceeding six feet in height, except with the permission of the common council, after notice in writing of the application for the permit, to the owners, occupants, or agents, of all houses or lots within a distance of two hundred feet from where such billboard was to be erected. The ground of the decision was that the regulation was necessary to the safety or welfare of the inhabitants of the city, or persons passing along its streets, and this the court held was not unreasonable, as an undue restraint of a lawful trade or business, or a restraint upon the lawful and beneficial use of private property. So also in the case of Gunning System v. City of Buffalo, 75 N. Y. App. Div. 31. It was held that the provision in the charter of the city of Buffalo, empowering it to enact such ordinances as should be deemed expedient for the good government of the city and the promotion of peace and good order, authorized it to enact an ordinance prohibiting the erection of billboards, more than seven feet in height, without the permission of the common council, and directing that any billboards, erected contrary to this provision, should be abated, as a common nuisance.

The cases which are referred to above seem to be the only cases on the subject of this article. Whether subsequent cases will go beyond these and allow a further restriction of the use of private property, for advertising purposes, remains to be seen.

HAROLD N. ELDRIDGE.

[Note: Since the above article was written, two recent New Jersey cases have come to the attention of the writer. In Bill Posting Sign Co. v. Atlantic City, 71 N. J. L. 72, it was held