The Knoxville independent. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1918-07-13
United States Supreme Court Re-
strains Government From
Enforcing 1t.
FOUR OF JUSTICES DISSENT
Declaring the 1916 Measure Uneonsti-
tutional, the Court Also Removes
Restriction on Employees Of
Carolina Cotton Mill.

preme court.
Injunctions restraining the govern
ment from putting the statute into eff
feet and from restraining Charlotte
IN. CO. cotton mill from discharging
children employed by it, were sustain
ed by the court.
Justices Holmes, McKenna, Brandeis
and Clarke dissented.
The attack on the constitutionality
Of the federal child labor law orig
mated in North Carolina, where Judge
Boyd Of the federal court at Green's
boro held the statute invalid. The
government appealed to the Supreme
court.
The law prohibited the interstate
shipment of articles produced in fac
tories employing children under four
teen years old. The measure aimed
to strike at the evil through interstate
commerce. Judge Boyd in ruling the
law invalid said:
Congress can regulate trade among
the states, but not the internal condi-
lions Of labor"
The chief objection to the measure
conferred in the South, among the cot
ton mill owners who exploited that
class of labor. A group of Southern
Democrats fought the bill bitterly all
through congress.
The bill provided that the products
of children under specified age shall
not be transported in interstate COM
merce. The age is sixteen in mines
and quarries and fourteen in mills,
canneries, workshops, factories, and
manufacturing establishments. Chill
dren under sixteen may not work in
any event more than eight hours day
and six days week, nor between the
hours of seven o'clock at night and
seven in the morning.
Many Japanese girls are making
their living by work formerly done ex-
;las ssss ~ meH4
WfdT dliu WALL WIN nus uCPAANSu
New York state firms Of $4,000 labor
ersfin the last year.
The government has established
womens division of the United States
employment service.
Plumbers at Limerick, Ireland,
struck when refused an increase of 81
a week in their wages.
A wave of organization has struck
shop employees of the Atchison, To
peka and Santa Fe railroad.
An all-Ireland conference is to be
held to consider the question of food
| supplies for that country.
Washington reports a surplus OF
labor all over the states with the ex-
ception Of the Gulf coast.
The Kentucky illiteracy commission
1 is teaching thousands of men of draft
age how to read and write.
The Sailors Union of the Pacific re-
ports that over one-half of the bene.
] fits paid out by this organization in
1916 was for reading and educational
purposes.
4 An Englishman has invented peri
scope to be mounted in q locomotive
cab to enable an engineer to see the
1 track ahead of him or the whole Of
his train.
| Nine-tenths of the 24O,000 accidents
that occurred in Pennsylvania last
i year were preventable, according t.
Harry A. Mackey. chairman Of thu
. workmen's compensation board.
The secretary of the Kentucky STATE
Federation of Labor has been dis
missed from the Louisville fire depart
ment by the board of public safet,
because he organized union of fire
men.
The executive board of the Wash
fngton state federation of labor ha
recorded it's protest against any AM
all proposed amendments to existing
immigration laws that will admit 0
any greater freedom for entry OF Chi
nese labor"
A state supreme court decision
handed down at Boston denies q labo
union the right to say how many mel
shall be utilized on any job.
In Germany working hours of a
plants have been increased from eigt
hours a day to ten and even twelv
at the same. rate of wages.
For workers about electric raj
roads shove; has been invented wit
an insulated handle to protect theE
should the blade touch charged VIII