Excerpt from A Treatise on the Law of Railroads, Vol. 3 of 3

A passenger who is guilty of gross misconduct, either by insulting or assaulting other pawengers or the conductor, or who uses vile or profane language in the car, or who threatens to assault other pas sengers or the conductor, may lawfully be expelled from the train.1 But a railway train is legally Open to passengers of all grades and classes who deport themselves properly, and comply with the reason able regulations of the company; and no one has a right to expect or require that all persons who are carried therein shall be above re proach in a moral or social sense, or that their attire or personal appearance shall be such as is adapted to drawing-room use, but only that their conduct, attire, and appearance shall be decent, and not such as to disgust the eyes of persons of ordinary sensibilities, or the moral sensibilities of persons whose sensibilities in that respect are of an ordinary class The reputation of a passenger, however had, so long as he conducts himself properly, affords no ground for expelling the passenger from the train. This is so, even though the statute expressly confers the power upon a railway company to ex clude or expel a certain class of passengers from its trains, as such statutes are very properly held to be unconstitutional. Thus, a stat ute which authorized railway companies to exclude or expel un chaste persons, from its trains, was held to be unconstitutional, so far as it related to railroads waning between two or more States, it being a regulation of inter-state commerce that the State has no power to make. The spirit of our institutions and form of govem ment does not uphold the exercise of such unwarrantable powers, or permit them to be conferred upon irresponsible persons, to act at their own pleasure and determine arbitrarily whether a person is or is not a proper person to be conveyed in a public vehicle. Reputa tion and character are of too much value to be sacrificed or injured by any such summary proceeding, and the wisdom of the decision last referred to cannot be successfully questioned.

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