Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1923-04-10

Striction as to one is not any greater
in essence than the other. and is
of the same kind. One is the multi
plicr and the other the multiplicand.
IF It be said that long hours
of labor have more direct effect
upon the health of the employee than
the low wage, there is very respect
able authority from close observers,
, disclosed in the record and in the
! literature on the subject quoted at
! length in the briefs. that they are
equally harmful in this regard.
Congress took this view and we
SO doing.
"ExaEgerated Importance
with Difference to the very able
opinion of the court and my brethren
who concur in it, it appears to me
to eXaEgerate the Importance of the
! wage term of the contract of en-
! ployment as more inviolate than its
! other terms. Its conclusion seems
! influenced by the fear that the con-
| ceSsion of the power to impose Il
minimum wage must carry with il
a concession of the power to fix
maximum wage. This is non Sc
; Mr.. Justice Holmes dissenting opin-
/ ion fOllOWSin part:
! The question in this case is the
I broad one whether Congress can es-
i tablish minimum rates of wages for
women in the District of Columbia
with due provision for special cir
! cumStanceS, or whether we must say
. that Congress has no power to med
F.! die with the matter at all. To me,
( Notwithstanding the Difference due to
the prevailing judgment of the court,
(, the power of Congress seems abso-
lutely free from doubt. The end-to
! remove conditions leading to i'll
health, immortality and the deterio-
to be within the scope of constitu-
tional legislation. The means are
means that have the approval of
Congress. of many states and of those
! governments from which we have
! learned our greatest lessons. When
so many Intelligent persons, who
have studied the matter more than
any of US can. have thought that the
means are effective and are worth
the price. it seems to me impossible
to deny that the belief reasonably
may be held by reasonable men. If
the law encountered no other objec-
ton than that the means pore no
relation to the end or that they cost
too much | do not suppose that any
one would venture to say that 1t was
bad. ! agree, of course, that a law
! answering the foregoing require
ments might be invaldated by spe-
cific provisions of the Constitution.
For instance. it might take private
! property without just compensation.
But in the present instance the only
objection that can be urged is found
! within the vague contours of the
. fifth amendment, prohibiting the de-
| priving of any PERSON of liberty or
! property without due process of law.
! To that l turn.
Liberty TO Follow Callings.
THE earlier decisions upon the
, same words in the fourteenth amend
ment began within our memory and
went no farther than an unpreten-
; tiouS assertion of the liberty to fol-
low the ordinary callings. Later that
| innocuous generality was expanded
| into the dogma. liberty of contract.
! Contract is not specially mentioned in
| the text that we have to construe. 1t
is merely an example of doing what
YOU want to do, embodied in the word
/ liberty. But pretty much all law con-
sists in forbidding men TO do some
| things that they want to do, and con-
| tract is no more exempt from law
! than other acts.
Without enumerating all the re-
| strictive laws that have been upheld
| | will mention a few that seem to me
| to have interfered with liberty of
! contract quite as seriously and
| directly as the one before us. Csury
! laws prohibit contracts by which a
man receives more than so much in
terest for the money that he lends.
-, Statutes of frauds restrict many con-