New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-11-26


.,rcb more silent campaign was being
raced bv the general counsel of the 225
..groa6s affected by the eight-hour law
- the attorneys Of the national gov
lament. This campaign is to be set
,lod not by sixteen million voters, but
~ the nine men constituting the ma
.;,r,s HIGHEST tribunal, and the battle is
being waged with other than the usual
campaign weapons.
The leaders of both sides have for
Months been eQuipping themselves with
data Of traffic conditions, mileage wage
scales and microscopic examinations of
the Adamson law with special reference
- the United States Constitution. The
thousands of pages of testimony that
are being prepared and the combined
local efforts of all the railroads in the
countpT are focused upon one question:
Is the Adamson act constitutional
Neither the railroads nor the brother
hoods are asking the question out OF
nolitical curiosity. To the railroads 1t
means an annual difference, it is estl-
mated. of S5O000,000, to the 100000
t,ainuen an increase of % per cent IN
wages. But to the country at large this
single question of the constitutionallty
Of the measure is Of pivotal Importance.
The Supreme Court cannot officially be
in politics, but in deciding the issue be-
TWEEN the railroads and 100000 of their
EMPLOYEES it is deciding the character OF
labor legislation and of labor tactics for
MANY wears. The dramatic quality OF
The conflict consists in the fact that the
railroad lawyers if they succeed in
proving the law unconstitutional are
not only saving the roads S50,0O0,OOO.
but are effectively blocking what looked
in the hot, hasty legislation OF early
September like a sure method of labor
triumph.
Attorney General Gregory, if he is
able to have the law sustained, is not
only confirming the brotherhoods' VIC
tory but paving the way for legislation
that constitutional experts OF a gener-
alton ago would have declared impos-
sible. Organized labor, as represented
in the American Federation OF Labor,
and organized capital, typified in the re-
Gently formed National Industrial Con-
ference, are watching these legal pro-
eeedings in the closest detail, because
they realize that the eight-hour decision
will create a precedent of great moment
TO Congressional action in the next
decade. And the bill itself will be test
ed almost entirely in terms of prece-
dents established since 1898, when the
Supreme Court first approved the regu-
lation of hours by law.
The President had scarcely signed the
act in his private car, on September 3,
when the railroad attorneys began the
search for vulnerable spots. They were
at first little uncertain as to whether
or not to obey, and let the courts take
the offensive. At conference held in
this city over month ago, however, by
seventy railroad heads and their gen
eral counsel, it was unanimously decided
TO attack the constitutionality of the
measure before it went into effect. This
legally unusual procedure was deter
mined uponafor several urgent reasons.
In the first place, the railroads action is
precipitated by the conviction on the
part OF certain eminent constitutional
lawyers that the law is shot through
with illegalities. Some have gone so far
as to declare that a mere casual reading
Of the document reveals its shortcom
Ings. Secondly, the railroads had no de-
sire to incur the heavy penalties that
might be inflicted if they merely waited
until the attorneys of the various dis
tricts indicted them for violations. AS
none of them intended to comply, there
was technical possibility of 100000
violations, one in the case Of each of the
100000 employees affected. Wherefore
the presidents and their legal stats de-
cided TO take time by the forelock and
test the constitutionality of the measure