means and includes every corporation, company, association, joint stock company or association, firm, partnership or individual, their lessees, trustees, or receivers appointed by any court whatsoever, (except, however, such public utilities as are or may hereafter be owned or operated by any municipality,) that now or hereafter: (a) May own, control, operate or manage, within the State, directly or indirectly for public use, any plant, equipment or property used or to be used for or in connection with the transportation of persons or property or the transmission of telegraph or telephone messages between points within this State; or for the production, storage, transmission, sale, delivery or furnishing of heat, cold, light, power, electricity or water; or for the conveyance of oil or gas by pipe line; or for the storage or warehousing of goods; or for the conduct of the business of a wharfinger; or that (b) may own or control any franchise, license, permit or right to engage in any such business." It is further provided in section 10 that "the term 'warehouse,' when used in this act, includes all elevators or storehouses where grain is stored for a compensation, whether the property stored be kept separate or not." And that "the term 'transportation of property,' when used in this act, includes any service in connection with the receipt, carriage, delivery, elevation, transfer in transit, ventilation, refrigeration, icing, storage and handling of the property transported." (Laws of 1913, PP. 465-467.)

That the legislature has the power to control and regulate businesses of the character of that conducted by appellant cannot be seriously questioned. By section 1 of article 13 of the constitution of this State it is provided that "all elevators or storehouses where grain or other property is stored for a compensation, whether the property stored be kept separate or not, are declared to be public warehouses." In Hannah v. People, 198 Ill. 77, we pointed out that the framers of the constitution deemed

the adequate protection for the producers and shippers of grain and other commodities from the wrongs, frauds and impositions that might be practiced upon them by those engaged in the business of providing storage for their products, of such importance that the same was made a matter of a special constitutional provision. In Mayer v. Springer, 192 Ill. 270, in construing this provision of the constitution, we held that while the State has made no attempt to regulate purely private business and affairs, this section of the constitution did bring under legislative control, as to rates of storage and other provision for the protection of the producers and shippers, all those public agencies, such as warehouses, where the business of receiving grain or property in store for the public for a compensation is carried on. And in Chicago Dock Co. v. Garrity, 115 Ill. 155, we held that property becomes clothed with public interest whenever it is used in such a manner as to affect the community at large, and that when one devotes his property to a use in which the public has an interest, he must submit to be controlled and regulated by the public in such use for the common good, to the extent of the interest that he has thus created for the public in the use of his property. As to what is meant by the word "public" when used in this connection, it is very difficult to define or explain it in any simpler language than by the use of the word "public" itself. The Century Dictionary thus defines the word "public:" "Of or belonging to the people at large; relating to or affecting the whole people of a State, nation or community; * * not limited or restricted to any particular class of the community." The New International Dictionary defines it: "Of or pertaining to the people; relating to or affecting a nation, State or community at large." In 32 Cyc. 748, one of its meanings is given as "open to all the people; shared in or to be shared or participated in or enjoyed by the people at large; not limited or restricted to any particular class of the community." Used

*

in this latter sense it would not include those isolated instances in which a person might select a few individuals with whom he chooses to deal, but would include all those businesses or plants which were intended for and open to the use of all members of the public who may require it, to the extent that its capacity will permit of the public use. That such is the character of the business conducted by appellant is not disputed. Its warehouse and storage plant is not conducted or operated for the purpose of storing and preserving goods or merchandise purchased and owned by it, but, on the contrary, is devoted to receiving, storing and preserving goods or merchandise generally, for the public or for all who may see fit to use its plant, to the full extent or limit of its capacity. We infer that without this public patronage appellant could not maintain or operate its plant profitably, and to the extent that it has held itself out as a public warehouseman and has impressed its business with a public use it is subject to legislative control as to rates of storage and other matters within the limitations prescribed by the constitution. 40 Cyc. 402; Hannah v. People, supra; Ruggles v. People, 91 Ill. 256; City of Chicago v. Town of Cicero, 210 id. 290; Munn v. People, 69 id. 80; affirmed in 4 Otto, 113; Budd v. State of New York, 143 U. S. 517.

The principal question involved in the two cases last cited was the right of the legislature of a State to fix and control the charges made by the owners of grain elevators or warehouses. It was decided that the State legislature had that power because such elevators or warehouses were, in effect, public warehouses engaged in serving the public. In discussing the question as to whether or not such warehouses were amenable to State regulation, in Munn v. People, supra, (the leading case on this subject,) the United States Supreme Court pointed out that when a person becomes a member of society he parts with some of the rights or privileges which as an individual, not affected by his re

lations to others, he might retain, and, in effect, covenants with every other citizen, and with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good, among which is that each citizen will so conduct himself and so use his own property as not unnecessarily to injure another, and that from this source the police power of the State is derived under which the government regulates the conduct of its citizens with one and another, and the manner in which each shall use his own property, when such regulation becomes a matter of public consequence or necessary for the public good. It was further said in the opinion: "In the exercise of this power it has been customary in England from time immemorial, and in this country from its first colonization, to regulate ferries, common carriers, hackmen, bakers, millers, wharfingers, inn-keepers, etc., and in so doing to fix a maximum charge to be made for services rendered, accommodations furnished and articles sold.

Looking, then, to the common law, from whence came the right which the constitution protects, we find that when private property is 'affected with a public interest it ceases to be juris privati only.' This was said by Lord Chief Justice Hale more than two hundred years ago in his treatise De Portibus Maris, (1 Harg. L. Tr. 78,) and has been accepted without objection as an essential element in the law of property ever since. Property does become clothed with a public interest when used in a manner to make it a public consequence and affect the community at large. When, therefore, one devotes his property to a use in which the public has an interest, he, in effect, grants to the public an interest in that use, and must submit to be controlled by the public for the common good to the extent of the interest he has thus created. He may withdraw his grant by discontinuing the use, but so long as he maintains the use he must submit to the control." It was there further pointed out that it was a matter of no importance that the business was one of recent

origin, for when once it was established that the business was one in which the whole public had a direct and positive interest, the case presented then was one "for the application of a long known and well established principle in social science, so as to meet this new development of commercial progress," and that to do so did not constitute an attempt to compel a person to grant the public an interest in his property, but only declared his obligations to the public if he use his property in that particular manner. It was further said: "It matters not in this case that these plaintiffs in error had built their business before the regulations complained of were adopted. What they did was from the beginning subject to the power of the body politic to require them to conform to such regulations as might be established by the proper authorities for the common good. They entered upon their business and provided themselves with the means to carry it on subject to this condition. If they did not wish to submit themselves to such interference they should not have clothed the public with an interest in their concerns. The same principle applies to them that does to the proprietor of a hackney carriage, and as to him it has never been supposed that he was exempt from regulating statutes or ordinances because he had purchased his horses and carriage and established his business before the statute or the ordinance was adopted."

As has been stated, the decision in this case depended upon whether or not the business sought to be regulated was, in fact, a public business, or what might now be termed a public utility. The courts decided that grain elevators and warehouses for handling grain were subject to regulation, not because they had been declared by law to be public warehouses and so subject to regulation, but because they were, in fact, public warehouses and proper subjects for statutory regulation. When the law first assumed the regulation of those lines of business which were of a public nature they were not nearly as numerous or important