18 Opinion of the Court shi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, there can be little doubt of the Government's power to restrict one's freedom to mine gold. In time of war or national emergency rent control can be imposed. Woods v. Miller Co., 333 U. S. 138; Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U. S. 503. Commodity prices can be controlled. Yakus v. United States, 321 U. S. 414. Materials may be allocated among producers and distributors; they may be taken away from a wasteful factory and routed to an efficient one; they may be withheld from retailers violating the rationing regulations. L. P. Steuart & Bro., Inc., v. Bowles, 322 U. S. 398. Prohibition may be ordered. Ruppert v. Caffey, 251 U. S. 264; Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Co., 251 U. S. 146. A purchaser's rights under a contract may be frustrated by a taking from his contractor. Omnia Commercial Co. v. United States, 261 U. S. 502. All these things the Government may do without making compensation. And yet, the Constitution is not suspended in time of war; where there is a taking, there must still be compensation. Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Co., supra; United States v. L. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S. 81, 88. Where compensation was not required, it was because it was held that there had been no taking; the damage done to property was done incidentally in the proper exercise of a legitimate governmental or sovereign power. The point was clearely made in the Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall, 457, 551: That provision [Fifth Amendment] has always been understood as referring only to a direct appropriation, and not to consequential injuries resulting from the exercise of lawful power. It has never been supposed to have any bearing upon, or to inhibit laws that indirectly work harm and loss to individuals. A new tariff, an embargo, a draft, or a war may inevitably bring upon individuals great losses; may, indeed, render valuable property almost valueless. They may destroy the worth of contracts. But whoever supposed that, because of this, a tariff could not be changed, or a non-intercourse act, or an embargo be enacted, or a war be declared? Without becoming liable to make compensation, the Government may adversely affect property values in the exercise of other powers than the war power, for example, the Opinion of the Court 118 C. Cls. power to regulate the currency, Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 294 U. S. 240; Legal Tender Cases, supra; or the interstate commerce power, Louisville and Nashville Railroad Co. v. Mottley, 219 U. S. 467; Wallace v. Hudson-Duncan & Co., 98 F. (2d) 985. Similarly, a State may in the exercise of its police power greatly restrict the use of property without becoming liable under the Fourteenth Amendment to make compensation. Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U. S. 394; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623. And the national authority may do the same in the proper exercise of its powers. "If the nature and conditions of a restriction upon the use or disposition of property is such that a State could, under the police power, impose it consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment without making compensation, then the United States may for a permitted purpose impose a like restriction consistently with the Fifth Amendment without making compensation * *99 Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Co., supra at p. 156. But there are limitations. In Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 415, the court said: "The general rule at least is, that while property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking." In that case plaintiff had reserved in a deed the right to mine under a certain house. A later State statute prohibited mining that would cause subsidence of a dwelling. The Court held the statute unconstitutional. Plaintiff's reserved right to mine under the house was property which the State could not deprive it of, through an exercise of the police power, without making compensation. Mr. Justice Brandeis dissented (p. 417): Every restriction upon the use of property imposed in the exercise of the police power deprives the owner of some right theretofore enjoyed, and is, in that sense, an abridgment by the State of rights in property without making compensation. But restrictions imposed to protect the public health, safety or morals from dangers threatened is not a taking. The restriction here in question is merely the prohibition of a noxious use. The property so restricted remains in the possession of its owner. The State does not appropriate it or make any use of it. The State merely prevents the owner from 18 Opinion of the Court making a use which interferes with paramount rights of the public. Whenever the use prohibited ceases to be noxious-as it may because of further change in local or social conditions-the restriction will have to be removed and the owner will again be free to enjoy his property as heretofore. This reasoning, that all property is subject to regulation in the interests of the public safety, was not regarded by the majority in the Pennsylvania Coal case as appropriate to the facts there presented. It is, however, an approach which the Court, in cases it did consider appropriate, has adopted. These cases appear to us as more analagous to the case at bar than the Pennsylvania Coal case. In Mugler v. Kansas, supra, State prohibition was upheld against the objection of a brewer whose breweries, which were especially adapted to the manufacture of alcoholic beverages, had been greatly diminished in value by the imposition of prohibition. The Court said, at p. 665: The principle, that no person shall be deprived of life liberty, or property, without due process of law has never been regarded as incompatible with the principle, equally vital, because essential to the peace and safety of society, that all property in this country is held under the implied obligation that the owner's use of it shall not be injurious to the community. And at pp. 668-9: As already stated, the present case must be governed by principles that do not involve the power of eminent domain, in the exercise of which property may not be taken for public use without compensation. A prohibition simply upon the use of property for purposes that are declared, by valid legislation, to be injurious to the health, morals, or safety of the community, cannot, in any just sense, be deemed a taking or an appropriation of property for the public benefit. Such legislation does not disturb the owner in the control or use of his property for lawful purposes, nor restrict his right to dispose of it, but is only a declaration by the State that its use by any one, for certain forbidden purposes, is prejudicial to the public interests. The power which the States have of prohibiting such use by individuals of their property as will be prejudicial to the health, the morals, or the safety of the public, is not-and, consist * * * Opinion of the Court 118 C. Cls. ently with the existence and safety of organized society, cannot be burdened with the condition that the State must compensate such individual owners for pecuniary losses they may sustain, by reason of their not being permitted, by a noxious use of their property, to inflict injury upon the community. The Mugler case is clearly distinguishable from the Pennsyl vania Coal case in that the prohibition there did not work to the particular advantage of any individual but was in all respects for the benefit of the whole community. Order L-208 did not confer any rights on any individual. The Mugler case is similar to the case at bar in another respect. In that case proper authority had decided that such prohibition on the use of property was necessary for the protection of the community. In this case the Government decided, and that decision is not for us to question, that continued mining of gold was injurious to the war effort; it decided, in effect, that the safety of the country demanded that gold mining cease. We cannot say that the Government must pay for the incidental effects of measures regulating the use of property adopted to protect the nation. In Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, supra, a State statute enacted in time of economic depression extending the redemption period of mortgages, was held valid over the objection of a mortgagee-purchaser that it violated the contract clause of the Constitution. The Court held, p. 444, that an emergency existed "which furnished a proper occasion for the exercise of the reserved power of the State to protect the vital interests of the community." The Court also noted that the integrity of the mortgage indebtedness was not impaired; it held that, because of the emergency, the State legislature could, in the vital interests of the community postpone the contract rights of mortgagees to foreclose on a certain date. The Court saw an analogy in an exercise of the war power by the Federal Government. We think that the principle that the use and enjoyment of property may under proper circumstances be regulated or restricted or even temporarily suspended in order to protect the whole public, is applicable to the case at bar. The war provided the proper circumstances. The United States 18 Opinion of the Court did not take plaintiff's property or impose a servitude on it, as Pennsylvania was held to have done in the Pennsylvania Coal case. What the Government did here was to impose a permissible restriction upon the use by plaintiff of its property in the interests of the general safety. We held the order in the St. Regis case, supra, to be a regulation rather than a taking. We adhere to the principles announced in that opinion. The effect of the order in that case was exactly the same as the effect of Order L-208 in this case. In the St. Regis case we said, at p. 275: It is not sufficient that damages have resulted or that hardships have occurred. War inevitably produces hardships, suffering, and losses, some of which cannot be measured in money. Legitimate war powers must be exercised, whatever the cost. Otherwise everything is lost. We see no relevance in the distinction between the cases, urged by plaintiff, that Order L-208 was a direct order to plaintiff to close down while the order in the St. Regis case merely forbade the paper company to use the materials it needed to continue to operate. We decline to hold that the Government may not do directly what we have already held it may do indirectly. Order L-208 had the tenor of a temporary restriction. It was a war measure, and was not intended to operate as a permanent restriction, as was the statute in the Pennsylvania Coal case, supra. As an emergency restriction it was similar to the restrictions imposed in the Blaisdell and St. Regis cases, supra. It is clear that a taking was not intended. The defendant did not deprive plaintiff of property by bestowing a right on another, as the statute in the Pennsylvania Coal case in effect did. The Government did not take over or use plaintiff's land; it did not take any gold; there was as much gold in the Oro Fina mine on June 30, 1945, when Order L-208 was revoked, as there was on January 18, 1943, when the mine was closed. Title and possession remained in plaintiff. The Government merely forbade, for the time being, the mining of gold on this land. If this had the effect of depriving plaintiff temporarily of the only 941207-51- -10 |