The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-01-07
U. s. SUPREME COURT
 RENDERS IMPORTANT DECISION
Much Interest Manifested in Result
 of Case.
Justice White, Who Handed Down the Decision, Says This Is . Subject Outside of Powers of Ces-
 wress to ReRu-
 late.

CTS liability law. is not in accordancs with the constitution of the United States, and that 1t goes beyond the boundaries permitted in the reugiation of interstate commerce. was the com clusion reached by the Supreme Court fin deciding two damage cases coming to the court from the Federal courts of Kentucky and Tennessee, which were brought under the provision of the law. The deciaion was announced by Judge White, the court standing five to four against the law. Even among the five who voted not to sus- tain the statute, there were different shades of opinion.
 Much interest was manifested in the result of the courts deliberations. Fol- lowing are the principal points from Justice Whites opinion;
 The act then being addressed to all common carriers engaged in interstats commerce and imposing a liability upon them in favor of any of their eTn- ployes without qualification or restrict- ion as to the business in which the carriers or their employees may be en- gagged at the time of the injury, of ne- cesstty, includes subjects wholly out side of the power of Congress to reg-e ulate.
 without stopping to consider tns numerous instances where, although common carrier is engaged in inter state commerce. such carrier may, Tn the nature of things transact busineass not interstate commerce altnouBn sucn local business may indirectly be related to interstate commerce, a few Illus trations showing the operation Of the statute as to matters wholly tndepend- ent of interstate commerce will serve to make clear the extent of the power which is exerted by the statute. Take a railroad engaged In interstate com merce. having a purely local branch operated wholly within a State. Take again the same road having shops for repairs. and 1t may. be for construction work as we'll as large accounting and clerical force. and having, 1t may be-, storage elevators and warehouses. not to suggest beside the possibility of It's being engaged in other independent enterprises. Take a telegraph com-. pany engaged in the transaction of in- terstate and local messages. Take an express company engaged in local as well as interstate business. Take . trolley tline moving wholly within a state as to large part of it's business and yet as to the remainder crossing the State line. %
 "As the act thus includes many sub jects wholly beyond the power to reg-. ulate commerce and depends for it's sanction upon that authority, 1t re- suits that the act is repugnant to the Constitution and cannot be enforced un- less there be merit in the proposition advanced to show that the statute may be saved.
 Interpretation of Act.
 50 far as the fact of the statute Is concerned, the argument Is this: That because the statute says that car riers engaged in commerce between the States. etc. therefore the act should be interpreted as being exclusively ap~ plicable to the interstate commerce business and none other of such car- riers. and that the words any employe' as found in the statutes should be held to mean any employe when such em- ploye is engaged only in interstate commerce. But this would require ua to write Into the statute words of iinl- ttation and restriction not now in 1t.
 But if we could bring ourselves to modify the statute by writing fin the words suggested. the result would be to restrict the operation of the act so as to the District of Columbia and the territories.
 "of course. If 1t can be lawfully done, our duty is to construe the stat ute so as to render it constitutional. But this does not imply. if the text of an act is unambiguous, that it may be rewritten to accomplish that purSs. pose. Equally clear is 1t. generally speaking, that where a statute con- tains provisions which are constitu- may be given to tn elegal provisions by separating them from the illegal. But this applies only to a case where the provisions are separable and not dependent one upon the other and does not support the contention that, that which is indivisible may be divided. Moreover, when a case where the legal \. sAA Which are illegal, in order to save them the rule applies only where 1t Is plain that Congress would have enacted the Legislation with the unconstitutional provisions eliminated. All these prtn- ciples are so clearly settled as not to be open to controversy.
 Powers of Congress.
 "It remains only to consider the con- tention which we have previously quoted. that the act is constitutional although 1t embraces subjects not within the power of Congress to regu~' late commerce because one who en- gages in interstate commerce thereby admits all his business concerns to the regulating power of Congress. To state the proposition is to refute It. It assumes that because one engages iis Interstate commerce he thereby endow Congress with power not delegated 1t by the constitution: in other word with the right to legislate coneerni: matters of purely State concern. II rests upon the conception that the con stituJion destroyed that freedom of commerce which 1t was its purpose to preserve since 1t treats the right tp engage in interstate commerce as priv ileges which cannot be availed of ex-i cept upon such conditions as Congress may prescribe. even although the cons ditions would be otherwise beyond the power of Congress
 'It is apparent that If the contention were we'll founded. 1t would extend the power of Congress to every conceivable subject. however inherently local would obliterate all the limitations of power imposed by the Constitution and would destroy the authority of the