The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-03-20
MAJORITY AND MINORITY OPINIONS
 OF SUPREME COURT ON ADAMSON EIGHT-HOUR BILL

That the business of common carriers oy ralI Is in sense 8 public business is settled by so many de- cisions. state and federal. and is il- Illustrated by such a continuance ex- ertion of state and federal legislative power as to leave no room for ques- tion on the subject
 "If the situation which we have described and with which the act of congress dealt be taken into view T"
 1t would seem inevitable to result that the power to regulate nec- essar1ly obtained and was subject to be applied to the extent necessary to provide remedy for the situation
 This must be, unless 1t can be said that the right to regulate as to save and protect the public in- terest did not apply to case where the destruction of the public right was Imminent as to the result of a dispute between the parties and their conse- quent failure to establish by private agreement the standard of wages which was essential in other words, that the existence of the public right and the public power to preserve it
 
 private right to establish a standard by agreement. Nor is it an answer to this view to suggest that the situa- tion was one of emergency and that emergency cannot be made the source of power. The proposition bees the question, since although an emergen- may not call into life a power which has never lived, nevertheless emer- gency may afford a reason for the exertion of a living power already en- loved. If acts which if done would interrupt. if not destroy, interstate commerce, may be by anticipation ieg1slatively prevented, by the same token the power to regulate may be exercised to guard against the cessa- tlon or interstate commerce threaten ca by failure of employers and em- ployes to agree as to the standard of wages, such standard being an essen tlai prerequisite to the uninterrupted flow of interstate commerce.
 Powers of Congress.
 Here the Chief Justice recounted at length the previously acknowledged powers of Congress to regulate com merce:
 In the presence of this vast body of acknowledged powers, there would seem to be no ground for disputing the power which was exercised in the act which. is before MS so as to pre- scribe by law for the absence of a standard of wages caused by the fail- ure to exercise the private right x to- the end that no individual dispute or difference might bring ruin to the vast interests concerned. ! What would be the value of the right to a reasonable rate if all movement in in terstate commerce could be stopped as result of mere dispute between the parties or their failure to exert primary, private right concerning a matter of interstate commerce? Again what purpose would be subserved by all the regulations established to se- cure the enjoyment by the pu bile of an efficient and reasonable service if there was no power in government to prevent all service from being de- stroyed? N Further yet, what benefits would flow to society by recognizing the right. because of the public interest, to regulate the relation Of employer and employe and tf the employees among themselves, and to give to the latter peculiar and special rights safeguarding their persons, protect ing them in case of accident, and giv- ] ing efficient remedies for that pur- pose, if there was no power to remedy a situation created by dispute be- tween employers and employees as to rate of wages, which if not remedied would leave the public helpless, the whole people ruined, and all the homes of the land submitted to, a danger of the most serious charac- ter? <
 And, finally, to what decision would it not reduce the proposition that the government had power to en . force the duty of operation, if that power did not extend to doing that which was essential to prevent opera ton from being completely stopped by filling the interregnum created by an absence of a conventional standard of wages because of a dispute on that ubject between the employers and employees by a legislative standard binding on employers and employees for such time as might be deemed by the legislature reasonably adequate to enable normal conditions to come about as the result of agreements as to wages between the parties? Clearly Within Rights of Congress. We are of opinion that the reasona stated conclusively establish that from the point of view of inherent power the ac (which iss before us was clearly within the legislative power of Con- gress to adopt, and that in substance and effect it amounted to an exertion of it's authority under the circum- stances disclosed to compulsorily ar- bitrate the dispute between the par ties by esta blishing, as to the subject matter of that dispute, legislative standard of wages operative and bind- ing as matter of law upon the par