New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-11-26
EIGHT HOURS AND NINE JUDGES

search Of the records reveals, as even
most Of it's advocates admit, that the
Adamson act is an extraordinarily un-
precedented measure. Minimum wage
laws, when they have been upheld, have
been sanctioned on the ground that they
protected public health and morals, thai
living wage was necessary to the gen.
eral public welfare. Seven hundred ard
sixty-odd dollars was the minimum set
by the Massachusetts investigating
commission of 1910, and the railroads
advance the facts that freight brakemen
earn more than that now. The rail-
roads will follow this up by reviving
that time-honored slogan Of constitu-
tional combats - class legislation. On
this point, however, they are liable to
be little timid, as the courts have not,
Of late years, baked at reasonable clas-
sifcation.
To the layman who wants the law set
tied on its present merits there may be
some surprise in the amount Of atten-
ton that will be paid in the forthcoming
trial to the precedents involved. The
last fifteen years have crowded the state
courts with mooted labor laws, and both
sides have set their array Of assistants
going through the records for prece-
dents. The government will quote the
Oregon case, and all the state court cases
where limitation Of hours has been ap-
proved. The railroads will be sure TO
quote the Supreme Court itself, which
condemned the New York bakers ten
hour law after it had passed the New
York Court Of Appeals, on the ground
that 1t wasn't in any sense health law.
The Supreme Court may reverse itself
as It did after score of years in the
case Of the income tax. But prece-
dent that is only eleven years old-the
bakers case was settled in 1905-is still
in the living and effective past. The
court once overruled itself, to be sure,
but it is well to remember that the insti-
tuition, while the same in name, had ma
terially changed between the two in
come tax decisions.
There have likewise been important
changes since the decision against the
Ten-Hour Law in 1905. Justices Of the
Supreme Court are officially dehuman-
lied creatures, with a purely eagle-eyed
technical interest in the proceedings.
But Supreme Court Justices are ruled,
no doubt, by the precedents Of their own
lives, as well as by the precedents of the
courts of which they are part. There
are Clarke and Brandeis, the recent
radical appointees. Justice Brandeis's
constitutional views are doubtless built,
among other things, out of the Ten
Hour case, in which he played so con-
spicuous figure. And there is Holmes,
who recently has been fairly consist
ent dissenter. The Constitution is to a
degree permanent and infexible docu-
ment, but the people who interpret it
are bound to read it in the changing
light of the changing times. Every
radical law requires the court to read
more into the sacrosanct paragraphs.
The railroad lawyers will stick to the
letter and the Attorney General will
read between the lines.
But, while the nine justices, general
counsel and the Attorney General and
his staff hold the centre of the stage,
they are by no means the only people in
the cast. There is the whole retinue OF
legal small fry, the patient worms of the
law, the diggers of ancient legal history
that will to an amazing extent deter
mine the fate of this crucial piece OF
legislation. The first legal skirmishing
in Kansas City has been setback for
the government and the brotherhoods.
But not until the Supreme Court hands
down a decision will there be any def
mite result of the crowded days of last
August.
And that result, told in thousands of
words of somber legal sound, may be
calculated TO stir the Brotherhoods and
the National Industrial Conference as