We deem it superfluous to cite additional authority in support of our conclusions. We are not unaware of the fact that the right of legislative control of any kind of business is liable to abuse. But it is equally a matter of common observation, and one abundantly verified by history as well as by current events, that the untrammeled right of individuals or corporations to make their own charges for services which are indispensable to the public is likewise liable to abuse. There are many checks and safeguards which surround the property and the liberties of the citizen which will operate powerfully to prevent anything like a wholesale assumption of paternal authority over the citizen or over his business pursuits. Before any business can be severed from the mass of private occupations, and be made subject to legislative regulation, there must first be a popular demand for such control, crystalizing into law; and when a statute is enacted which assumes control the citizen has a right of appeal to the courts, and the courts have authority to annul as unconstitutional any statute which erroneously assumes to declare a business to be impressed with a public character when in fact it is only a private pursuit. The court of appeals of New York well said (People v. Budd, 22 N. E. Rep. 680) “that no serious invasion of constitutional guaranties by the legislature could withstand for a long time the searching influence of public opinion, which was sure to come sooner or later to the side of law, order, and justice, however it might have been swayed for a time by passion or prejudice, or whatever abberations might have marked its course.” Without further amplification, we unhesitatingly declare, and so hold, that the warehouse and elevator business, as conducted in this state, is a “business peculiarly affected with a public interest,” and as such is subject to legislative regulation to the extent of fixing a maximum rate of charges for storing and handling grain in the public warehouses.
One further consideration may be mentioned. If the court entertained doubt of the constitutionality of chapter 126 of the Laws of 1891 much more serious than we do in fact entertain, we should yet deem it to be our duty to give the statute the benefit of such doubts. This course is in accord with an
