General
According to settled principles, the police power of a State must be held to embrace the authority not only to enact directly quarantine[396] and health laws of every description but also to vest in municipal subdivisions a capacity to safeguard by appropriate means public health, safety and morals. The manner in which this objective is to be accomplished is within the discretion of the State and its localities, subject only to the condition that no regulation adopted by either shall contravene the Constitution or infringe any right granted or secured by that instrument.[397]
Protection of Water Supply.—A State may require the removal of timber refuse from the vicinity of a watershed for a municipal water supply to prevent the spread of fire and consequent damage to such watershed.[398]
Garbage.—An ordinance for cremation of garbage and refuse at a designated place as a means for the protection of the public health is not a taking of private property without just compensation even though such garbage and refuse may have some elements of value for certain purposes.[399]
Sewers.—Compelling property owners to connect with a publicly maintained system of sewers and enforcing that duty by criminal penalties does not violate the due process clause.[400]
Food and Drugs, Etc.—"The power of the State to * * * prevent the production within its borders of impure foods, unfit for use, and such articles as would spread disease and pestilence, is well established";[401] and statutes forbidding or regulating the manufacture of oleomargarine have been upheld as a valid exercise of such power.[402] For the same reasons, statutes ordering the destruction of unsafe and unwholesome food[403], prohibiting the sale and authorizing confiscation of impure milk[404] have been sustained, notwithstanding that such articles had a value for purposes other than food. There also can be no question of the authority of the State, in the interest of public health and welfare, to forbid the sale of drugs by itinerant vendors,[405] or the sale of spectacles by an establishment not in charge of a physician or optometrist.[406] Nor is it any longer possible to doubt the validity of State regulations pertaining to the administration, sale, prescription, and use of dangerous and habit-forming drugs.[407]
Milk.—Equally valid as police power regulations are laws forbidding the sale of ice cream not containing a reasonable proportion of butter fat,[408] or of condensed milk made from skimmed milk rather than whole milk,[409] or of food preservatives containing boric acid.[410] Similarly, a statute which prohibits the sale of milk to which has been added any fat or oil other than milk fat, and which has, as one of its purposes, the prevention of fraud and deception in the sale of milk products, does not, when applied to "filled milk" having the taste, consistency, and appearance of whole milk products, violate the due process clause. Filled milk is inferior to whole milk in its nutritional content; and cannot be served to children as a substitute for whole milk without producing a dietary deficiency.[411] However, a statute forbidding the use of shoddy, even when sterilized, was held to be arbitrary and therefore invalid.[412]
Protection of the Public Morals
Gambling and Lotteries.—Unless effecting a clear, unmistakable infringement of rights securely by fundamental law, legislation suppressing gambling will be upheld by the Court as concededly within the police power of a State.[413] Accordingly, a State may validly make a judgment against those winning money a lien upon the property in which gambling is conducted with the owner's knowledge and consent.[414] For the same reason, lotteries, including those operated under a legislative grant, may be forbidden, irrespective of any particular equities.[415]