The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-03-20

of dollars, must be paid not by the public, but by legislative edict is made to fall entirely upon one of the par ties. Inherently, such legislation re- quires that such. investigation and de- liberation shall precede action. New ertheless, Congress in this act itself declared the lack of sufficient infor- nation and knowledge to warrant the action taken, and has directed an eX- pertinent to deternskne what it should do. Such legislation, it seems to me. amounts to the taking of the property of one and giving it to, another in violation of the spirit of fair play and 1 due process clause. No emergency, whatever the character, could justify 1 the violation of constitutional rights" :" Justice McReynolds Views l. Justice McReynolds's dissenting opinion said:
 | Whatever else the act may do, it certainly commands that during a minimum period of seven months in ] terstate carriers by railroad shall pay their employees engaged in operating trains for eight hous' work a wage not less than the one then established for standard day-generally of ten hours.
 'I have not heretofore supposed that such action was a regulation of commerce within the fair intendment of those words as used in the Con- stitution; and the argument advanc- ed in support of the contrary view is unsatisfactory to my mind"
 Following is the synopsis of the dis senting opinion of Justice Pitney, join ed by Justice Vandevanter:
 | "Mr. Justice Pitney, for himself and MT. Justice Vandevanter, delivered a l dissenting opinion expressing concur renee in the view of MT. Justice Day that the Adamson law was unconsti- tutional, because Congress, although confessedly not in possession of the information necessary for intelligent and just treatment of the controversy between carriers and the trainmen, arbitrarily imposed upon the, carriers the entire and enormous cost of an experimental increase in wages, with
 out providing for any compensation to be paid in case the investigation should demonstrate the impropriety of the increase.
 l MT Justice Pitney's opinion ex- pressed the view of himself and MT. Justice vandevanter that the act is unconstitutiona1 on the further and more fundamental ground that it is not a proper and legitimate regulation of commerce within the meaning of the Constitution: that it Goes not es- tablish eight hours as the limit of a days work, there being no prohibition of service in excess of eight hours per day, nor any penalty for overtime | hot sI0, that eight hours shall be treated as the measure or standard of a days work for the purpose of reckoning compensation for services. l 'tMr. Justice Pitney said that the act cannot be sustained as regulation of commerce because it has no such operation or effect; prescribes no ser vice to the public; does not regulate the mode in which service is to be performed. or the safeguard to be placed about it. or the qualifications or conduct of those who are to per from it.. and has no closer relation to or connection with commerce than has the price which the carrier pays for it's engines and cars or for the coal used in prope1ling them.
 "The trainmen having accepted em- ployment under the carriers in inter- state commerce, so that employers and employees all engaged together in a quasi-public service, the act simply ests in and prescribes how the money earned in the public service shall be divided between the, employers and the employees. this being a regulation not of commerce. but of the internal con- cerns of the commerce carriers, pre- cisely as if the act were to provide that the rate of interest payable to the ] bondF olders must be decreased and the dividend payments to the stock holders corresponsdin increased. l That the act cannot be sustained as analogous to the power to fix rates of 1 freight and fare or as a branch of that power. The interests of the pub- 1 lie in the regulation of rates lies in limiting the carrier to reasonable compensation, and is in the direction of lowering, not increasing, expenses, while the present act has for its pur- pose and necessary effect the increas- l ing of expenses
 That the act cannot be sustained as an emergency measure, for an emergency cannot create a power nor | excuse a defiance of tre constitutional Limitations upon the powers of the government
 ] "If the pub-'- exigency required 1t, Congress perhaps might appropriate public moneys. to satisfy the demands of the trainmen: but there is no argu- meth for requiring the carriers to pay the cost chat would not apply. equally to renewed demands as often as made, | If made by. men who had the power to tie up traffic.
 'Ar'f that the act usurps the right of the owners of the railroads to man age their own property in matters not directing the character of the service, and Is an attempt to control and man age them rather than to regulate com merce. In particular it deprives the railroad companies of their constitu- tional right to agree with their en1- ployes as to the terms of employ ment."
 CHAUFFEURS PLAN DANCE