Arizona republican., 1917-03-20
Eight Hours Is Basic Day br
 Fiximg Wages

Tpepublioan A. p. Leased Wire1
 WASHINGTON, March 19.-in an epochaI decision holding con cress to be clothed with any and all power necessary to keep open the channels of interstate com merce, the supreme court today, dividing five to four, sustained the Adamson law as constitutional ana enforceable in every feature.
 The immediate effect of She de- cison will be to fix a permanent eieht-hour basic day in computing wage scales on interstate rail roads, for which a nationwide strike twice, has been threatened and to give, effective from January of this year, increases in wages to trainmen of about 25 per cent at a cost to the railroads estimated at from S4C,o0o,000 to S50,00o,C00 year.
 The court through Chief Justice White declared both carriers and their employees are engaged in business charged with a public ln- terest, subject to the right ot con- gress to arotrate compulsory a dispute affecting the operating Of thai business.
 Whatever would be the right of an employe engaged in private business to demand such wages as he desires, to leave the employment if he does not get them, and by concert of action to agree with others to leave on the same conditions" said the opinion, such rights are necessarily subject to limi- tation when employment is accepted in a business charged with public ln- terest and as to which the power tC regulate commerce by congress is ap- piled and the resulting right to fix ir case of disagreement any dispute 2 standard of wages as we have seer necessarily obtained"
 In delivering the opinion, the chie1 justice departed at this point from his written text to emphasize the position of men operating trains in q time O national emergency by comparing them to soldiers facing an enemy.
 Coming on the heels of the conCes sion Of the eight hour basic day by tn, railroads at New York to avert th' threatened strike, today's decision i regarded as largely supplanting tha agreement and also removing for al times. through the brOadest intefpre tation of congressional authority out lined by the court, the probability o future transportation paralysis.
 Joining in with the chief justice i sustaining the law, were Justices Nc Kenna and Holmes-his immediate SC niOrs in point of service-and Justice Brandeis and Clarke. junior member! Dissenting for various reasons wer Justices Day. Van DeVarter, Pitne and McReynolds.
 The majority upheld the public rigf to have interstate commerce uninteT rupted as 8 basic principle paramour to interests of the railroads or the operatives, both declared in publ service and subject to the supreme UT restricted power Of congress to 1tat any action necessary to maintain free dom and uninterruption of intersta commerce. Either as a law fiXiT wages or hours of labor, the court d. cided, congress has authority to ena the the AdamsOn statute.
 The public interest begets a publ right of regulation to the, full eXte necessary to secure and protect il said the opinion, adding that in u emergency of threatened destructi' suspension of national transportati' congress acted within it's powers providing a wage standard and oth means necessary to protect the pub interests.
 It also declared that the Adams act is neither unavoidable, confisc tory, experimental, nor in excess congressional railroad regulatory a thority, but in effect was comDulso arbitration, a power which it (co gress) undoubtedly possessed a