Denver labor bulletin., 1918-08-10

OF the ruling of the United States
supreme court on the child labor law
it may well be said that the minority
opinion is the better law. Justice
Holmes riddles the reasoning of the
majority-of one. He shows that the
act did not meddle with anything be-
longing to the states. They have no
right to force their goods upon their
neiyhbors. But for the constitution
the rights of states to ship goods to
their neighbors would depend upon
the will Of those neighbors. The con-
stitution therefore regulates such
commerce. Congress has the right to
regulate it. The answer that in this
case the regulation applies indirectly
to manufacture is much like quib-
BILE. 1t is made absurd by the fact
that all regulation of interstate COM
merce is Indirectly a regulation of
manufacture. Prohibition of liquor
shipments cut down the manufacture
of LIQUOR. Pure food laws cut down
the manufacture of some kinds of food.
If such laws are construed as being for
the protection of consumers, why not
the child labor laws? They are for
the protection of the children OF the
country. And if Congress cannot pass
I
ducers it would seem to follow that it
cannot pass a law to prevent men
ace to consumers. But the child labor
law was designed, among other things,
to prevent injury to consumers from
goods made in unhealthy factories.
That the law invaded states rights
is a fine-drawn and far-fetched argu-
ment. The state never had right to
prescribe what shall be carried be-
yond its dominions. The law did not
touch local authority but dealt with
interstate transportation exclusively:
These considerations are lucidly and
temperately set forth in an article on
the decision by Mr.. Thomas Reed
Powell in the New York Nation One
cannot but feel that the minority
opinion in this case must finally be
come the law. The vote of one jus
tice overturns = law passed by the
representatives of all the people Sim
liar five to four decisions have been
reversed. -,
There is no question that public
opinion favors the principle embodied
in the child labor law How shall that
principle be given effect constitution
ally in an act of Congress! Mr.. Pow
ell SAYS in the Nation: THE sugges-
ton has been made that Congress
should close the channels of inter.
state commerce to the products OF
child labor as the Webb-kenyon law
closed them to intoxicants, making
the prohibition dependent upon the
concurring action of the state of des-
tination. But with such statute
before them, the present majority of
the supreme court may easily persist
in their distinction that prohibition
of TRANSFORMATION is not an exercise
of commerce power unless the trans
portation can be an instrument of
danger at the end of the journey"
Congress is not impotent to deal
with the question of child labor. The
supreme court does not say that, but
only that the Congress has gone the
wrong way in legislating on the sub
| ject. The answer to the supreme
courts decision is not to agitate for
the abolition of the courts authority
to construe acts of Congress, even
tho there be something almost far
cical, when not tragic, in such sit
uation as is presented in the revers-
ing of the Judgment of the elected
representatives and the chief excu-
tive by casting vote of single judge.
"Often the court tells u.s." says Mr.
Powell, "that it must uphold a statute
unless its unconstitutionality is free
from doubt These professions would
have gained in dignity if the certitude
of four of the judges that the child
labor law is constitutional had been
allowed to suggest to their five col
leagues that its unconstitutionality is
not free from doubt" The defect Of
all the five-to-four decisions by the
court was never more neatly ex-
pressed. But the decision stands as
against popular. conviction on the sub
ject Of child labor. The question is,
how shall that popular conviction be
given effect in law that the su-
preme court will not invalidate? Mr..
Powell supplies the answer briefly
thus: "If Congress should impose a
special excise on making goods with
the labor of children, the supreme
court could not defeat its purpose
without directly abandoning the case
which sustained the excise on oleo-
margarine. In that case the present
chief justice declared that the mo-
tives or purposes of Congress were
not open to judicial inquiry, and that
the law was not invalid because its
effect might be to suppress manufac-
ture."
This suggestion is so important that
| il is worth celebrating upon and such
elaboration find in an interview CIV
en- to the New York Times by Mr..
George w. Alger, one Of the founders
Of the New York child labor COM
mittee. who has studied the subject
for fifteen years. As the expression