The lesson of Southern Pacific is further exemplified by the more recent holding in Morgan v. Virginia,[824] in which the Court was confronted with a State statute which, in providing for the segregation of white and colored passengers, required passengers to change seats from time to time as might become necessary to increase the number of seats available to the one race or the other. First, reciting the rule of uniformity, Justice Heed, for the Court, said: "Congress, within the limits of the Fifth Amendment, has authority to burden [interstate] commerce if that seems to it a desirable means of accomplishing a permitted end. * * * As no State law can reach beyond its own border nor bar transportation of passengers across its boundaries, diverse seating requirements for the races in interstate journeys result. As there is no federal act dealing with the separation of races in interstate transportation, we must decide the validity of this Virginia statute on the challenge that it interferes with commerce, as a matter of balance between the exercise of the local police power and the need for national uniformity in the regulations for interstate travel. It seems clear to us that seating arrangements for the different races in interstate motor travel require a single, uniform rule to promote and protect national travel. Consequently, we hold the Virginia statute in controversy invalid."
STATE REGULATION OF MOTOR VEHICLES; VALID REGULATIONS
Cases arising under this caption further illustrate the competition for judicial recognition between the interstate commerce interest and local interests, especially that of public safety. A new element enters the problem, however, which lends some added weight to the claims of the police power, the fact, namely, that motor vehicles use highways furnished and maintained by the State.
A State is entitled to enact a comprehensive scheme for the licensing and regulation of motor vehicles using its highways with a view to insuring itself of reasonable compensation for the facilities afforded and to providing adequate protection of the public safety; and such scheme may embrace out-of-State vehicles using the State's highways.[825] Thus legislation limiting the net loads of trucks using the State's highways is valid;[826] as are also, in the absence of national legislation on the subject, State regulations limiting the weight and width of the vehicles themselves, provided such regulations are applied without discrimination as between vehicles moving in interstate commerce and those operating only intrastate.[827] Likewise, a State may deny a certificate of public convenience and necessity to one desiring to operate a common carrier over a particular highway to an out-of-State destination in an adjacent State, on the ground that the specified route is already congested. So it was held in Bradley v. Public Utilities Commission of Ohio,[828] in which the Court took cognizance of the full hearing accorded the appellant, and of his failure to choose another route, although he was at liberty to do so. And in Maurer v. Hamilton a Pennsylvania[829] statute prohibiting the operation over its highways of any motor vehicle carrying any other vehicle over the head of the operator was upheld in the absence of conflicting Congressional legislation. Similarly, in Welch v. New Hampshire[830] a statute of that State establishing maximum hours for drivers of motor vehicles was held not to be superseded by the Federal Motor Carrier Act prior to the effective date of regulations by the Interstate Commerce Commission dealing with the subject. Nor was pendency before the Interstate Commerce Commission of an application under the Motor Carrier Act for a license to operate a motor carrier in interstate commerce found to supersede as to the applicant the authority of a State to enforce "reasonable regulations" of traffic upon its highways. "In the absence of the exercise of federal authority," said the Court, "and in the light of local exigencies, the State is free to act in order to protect its legitimate interests even though interstate commerce is directly affected."[831] And for the same reason New York City was entitled to apply to trucks engaged in the delivery of goods from New Jersey a traffic regulation forbidding the operation on the streets of an advertising vehicle.[832] Said Justice Douglas for the Court: "Many of these trucks are engaged in delivering goods in interstate commerce from New Jersey to New York. Where traffic control and the use of highways are involved and where there is no conflicting federal regulation, great leeway is allowed local authorities, even though the local regulation materially interferes with interstate commerce."[833] Also, the Court has consistently sustained State regulations requiring motor carriers to provide adequate insurance protection for injuries caused by the negligent operation of their vehicles.[834]
INVALID STATE ACTS AFFECTING MOTOR CARRIERS
A State law which imposes upon all persons engaged in transporting for hire by motor vehicle over the public highways of the State the burdens and duties of common carriers and requires them to furnish bonds to secure the payment of claims and liabilities resulting from injury to property carried, may not be validly applied to a private carrier which is engaged exclusively in hauling from one State to another State the goods of particular factories under standing contracts with their owners, the said carrier enjoying neither a special franchise nor using the eminent domain power.[835] On the other hand, a State statute which prohibits common carriers for hire from using the highways of the State between fixed termini or over regular routes without having first obtained from a director of public works a certificate of public convenience, is primarily not a regulation to secure safety on the highways or to conserve them, but a ban on competition and, as applied to a common carrier by motor vehicle of passengers and express purely in interstate commerce, is both violation of the Commerce Clause and defeats the express purpose of Congressional legislation rendering federal aid for the construction of interstate highways.[836]
TRANSPORTATION AGENCIES
The special characteristics of motor travel have brought about a reversal of the Court's attitude toward State control of transportation agencies. Sustaining in 1941 a California statute requiring that agents engaged in negotiating for the transportation of passengers in motor vehicles over the highways of the State take out a license, Justice (later Chief Justice) Stone, speaking for the Court, said: "In Di Santo v. Pennsylvania,[837] this Court took a different view * * *, it held that a Pennsylvania statute requiring others than railroad or steamship companies, who engage in the intrastate sale of steamship tickets or of orders for transportation to and from foreign countries, to procure a license by giving proof of good moral character and filing a bond as security against fraud and misrepresentation to purchasers, was an infringement of the Commerce Clause. Since the decision in that case this Court has been repeatedly called upon to examine the constitutionality of numerous local regulations affecting interstate motor vehicle traffic. It has uniformly held that in the absence of pertinent Congressional legislation there is constitutional power in the States to regulate interstate commerce by motor vehicle wherever it affects the safety of the public or the safety and convenient use of its highways, provided only that the regulation does not in any other respect unnecessarily obstruct interstate commerce."[838]
NAVIGATION; GENERAL DOCTRINE
In Gibbons v. Ogden[839] the Court, speaking by Chief Justice Marshall, held that New York legislation which excluded from the navigable waters of that State steam vessels enrolled and licensed under an act of Congress to engage in the coasting trade was in conflict with the act of Congress and hence void. In Willson v. Blackbird Creek and Marsh Co.[840] the same Court held that in the absence of an act of Congress, "the object of which was to control State legislation over those small navigable creeks into which the tide flows," the State of Delaware was entitled to incorporate a company vested with the right to erect a dam across such a creek. From these two cases the Court in Cooley v. the Board of Wardens,[841] decided in 1851, extracted the rule that in the absence of conflicting legislation by Congress States were entitled to enact legislation adapted to the local needs of interstate and foreign commerce, that a pilotage law was of this description, and was, accordingly, constitutionally applicable until Congress acted to the contrary to vessels engaged in the coasting trade. In the main, these three holdings have controlled the decision of cases under the above and the following caption, there being generally no applicable act of Congress involved. But the power which the rule attributed to the States, they must use "reasonably," something they have not always done in the judgment of the Court.