The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1912-07-19
SUPREME COURT
CONDEMNED
SPOKANE LABOR LEADER
DELIVERS CAUSTIC CRITI-
CISM OF DECISION REVERS-
ING EXTRAORDINARILY
MINIMUM WAGE LAW.

| H. L. Hughes, editor of the Spokane
Labor World, spoke to large audience
in the Labor Temple on the recent de-
cision of the state supreme court re-
versing the. decision of the lower court
upholding the $500 minimum wage law
enacted by the city of Spokane.
Five judges of the supreme court sat
upon the Spokane case, four concurring
in the judgment of reversal and one dis
senting 1t is significant that of the
five judges only the dissenting judge,
j. Dunbar, will come up for reelection
this fall. The city of Spokane will at
tempt to secure rehearing before the
entire court and organized labor of
Spokane has taken upon its shoulders
the work of arousing public sentiment to
the Importance of this court decision.
The decision declares in effect that $500
day for city laborers on an eight hour
basis is an unreasonable wage and di-
rects the city to make such adjustment
as is necessary to pay back the differ
ence paid between $500 and 1926, the
going wage at the time the $500 law
went into effect.
The supreme court does not attempt
to prove that a laborer can live COM
fortably or decently and support fam
lily on 1925 a day or $500 a day, as it
knows very well it would appear ridicu-
lous to attempt to prove any such con-
| tention.
of any municipality to fix minimum
wage law for men on public work so
that Spokane is by no means the only
city affected by the decision.
The decision classes labor as a COM
modify to be bought and sold, thereby
in reality classifying human flesh and
blood with inanimate bricks and mortar
The decision if allowed to stand puts
unskilled laborers wholly at the mercy
of labor -skinning contractors as, with
out organization they are powerless to
exact single cent over that the con-
tractor or the city itself has mind to
pay. Not in a decade has more re-
dictionary decision been handed down by
a Washington court.
Contractors and labor skinners in gen
eral will look with glee upon this de-
cision. 1t is but a short time until the
Panama canal will be completed and
Southern Europe begins dumping its
hordes upon our coast. They will come
here ignorant of our language or our
customs, with a standard of living far
below ours. Greedy capital is already
hungeriI.g for this horde of cheap labor.
II our cities can by court mandate be
prohibited from establishing minimum
wage laws there can be no living stand
ard of wages established and in opera
tion for this class of labor prior to the
commencement of this influx of immi
grafton and the contractors and labor
skinners in general win reap the harvest.
| That such condition of affairs must
eventually bring its own punishment
upon Pacific coast people, matter not
to them. They will have "gotten theirs
and retired to live off the spoils. "After
us the deluge."
Spokane unionists are alive to the sit
uation and are fighting mad and pro-
pose to arouse the people of the state.
They realize that public opinion is the
greatest of all forces and that public
opinion can compel the supreme court
to admit the fact that flesh and blood
IS worth more than bricks and mortar
Editor Hughes has prepared an an
alysis of the court decision which goes
to the root of the question and it is be-
ing issued in pamphlet form. The
! pamphlet contains the full text of the
decision as well as Mr.. Hughes com