Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1903-12-01
United States Supreme Court
Says the Kansas Statute Is
Constitutional
NOT QUESTION OF ExPEDlENcY
Legislature and People to Blame if the
Law is Misenievous in Its Applica-
ton, a Question With Which the
Court Is coneerned--other News of
Interest.

Washington. Dec. 1.-The unlteu
States supreme court has affirmed the
consttutionality of the eight hour law
OF the state of Kansas regulating labor
on public works. Justice Harlan said
i'll handing down the opinion of the
court that If the statute is mischievous
the responsibility rests with the legis-
lators and not the courts. Chief JUS
tiee Fuller and Justices Brewer and
Peckham dissented.
The Kansas law. whose validity was
called into question in the suit, was
enacted in 1891, and provided tina.
eight hours should constitute a days
work for workmen employed by or on
behalf of the state, or by any county or
city or other municipality in the state.
1t also prohibits contractors from re-
quiring laborers engaged on work for
the state to perform more than eight
hours labor in day. Both fine and
Imprisonment are provided for viola
ton of the law.
The case decided yesterday was that
sas. Atkins had contract with the
corporation of Kansas City, kas, for
paving, and he was charged with re-
curing a workman named Reese to
labor ten hours a day. He was prose-
cuted in the state courts, where the
decisions were uniformly against him.
Atkins appealed from the decision OF
the state supreme court to the federal
supreme court, alleging that the stat
the fourteenth amendment to the con-
stitution in that it denied him due pro-
lection Of the law and deprived him OF
his property without due process.
The opinion was based on the theory
that all the municipalities of state
are the creations Of the state: that
work for them is of public character
and does not infringe on the persona,
liberty OF any one, and that 1t belongs
to the state, as the guardian and trus-
tee for its people, to prescribe the con-
ditions upon which 1t will permit pub
lie work to be done.
Taking up the question OF pubic
policy, Justice Harlan said:
IF II be contended to he the right Of
every one TO dispose of his labor upon
such terms as he deems best-as un-
douhtedly 1t is-and that to make II a
crimina. offense for contractor for
public work to permit or require his
employees to perform labor upon that
work In excess of eight hours each day
is in derogation of the liberty of en-
ployes and employer, It is sufficient
answer that no one Is entitled, of ao-
solute right and as a part of his lib
erty, to perform labor for the state;
and no contractor for public work can
excuse a violation of his lawful agree
ment with the state by doing thai.
which the statute under which he pro-
ceeds distinctly forbids him to do"
Concerning the principal plea of the
plaintiff against the law the cour,
holds that Its constitutionality IS be-
yond all question.
On the point of the validity of a
similar statute affecting private
employment. Justice Harlan said:
whether sin ilar statute applied to
laborers or employees in purely private
work would be constitutional, is
question OF large import, which we
have no occasion now to determine or
even to consider"