Separate Opinions

JOHNSON, J., concurring:

I concur upon the ground that the ordinance in question is fully authorized under the "general
welfare" provisions of the Municipal Code.

STREET, J., concurring:

I agree in the conclusion that the ordinance passed by the municipality of Orion prohibiting the
playing of panguingue on secular days is valid and am of the opinion that the authority to pass such
an ordinance is to be found exclusively in section 2184 of the Administrative Code (1916), which
gives a general authority for the enactment of ordinances which seem proper to improve the morals
and good order of the community. As the game of panguingue is admittedly not a game of chance or
hazard played for money, it is not within the prohibitions of Act No. 1757; an I think the case should
be determined without reference to the legislation against gambling and without reference t the
circumstance that under subsection (i) of section 2188 of the same Code the Legislature has made it
mandatory upon municipal councils to prohibit and penalize gambling.

The legislature has clearly authorized the municipal council to use its discretion as to the measures
which it esteems desirable to promote morals an good order; and I know of no rule of law which
would justify any court in overruling that discretion in such a matter as is now before us. Certainly I
would be sorry to see this court adopt a paternalistic attitude of captious criticism and correction
tending to embarrass the free exercise of the legislative discretion vested by law in the municipal
councils. Those bodies are undoubtedly destined to make mistakes in the exercise of the powers
conferred on them, but there is no better school than that of experience in which their members may
discover what is most likely to promote the welfare of the community and the interests of their
constituents.

As already suggested, I think that the Gambling Law (Act No. 1757) and the provisions of the
Municipal Code relative to the suppression of gambling, strictly speaking, have nothing to do with the
case; and the circumstance that those measures are upon the statute book cannot serve in the
slightest degree to limit the powers of a municipal council in legislating upon a matter not implicated
with gambling. From the preamble to the ordinance it may be seen that the council had in view the
promotion of the general well-being and the advancement of prosperity in the community; and the
ordinance was doubtless intended to discourage the playing of games which involve a frivolous and
idle waste of time, rather than directly to suppress gambling. But even if the council had suppose
that the games which it proposed to regulate are calculated to foment the gambling instinct and
should be suppressed for that reason, the ordinance in question could not possibly have been
rendered invalid by that fact.