The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-04-13
QUESTION RIGHT
OF u. S. TO FIX
WORKING HOURS
Principle of States Right
May Be hnperiIed,
Opponents Hold.
BY RODNEY BUTCHER
NEA Service Writer

WASHINGTON, April 13-The
30-hour- week bill for industry
passed by the Senate, if it becomes
a law, will raise one of the most
vital constitutional questions in the
history Of the nation,
The supreme court must some day
decide whether congress has power
to fix the hours Of labor If it dc
cides that congress has that power,
in the opinion Of many con-
stitutional lawyers, it will imply a
similar power to regulate both
wages and the prices of COM
modities.
Congress would then have
virtually unlimited power over in
dustry. The revolutionary possibil-
tiles of Senator Blacks bill thus
become obvious. The senate s
passage of it represents the first
major step toward a large federal
control over huge industrial
system which has been unable to
control itself and is now in a very
bad way-to the distress of millions
of citizens.
Involve Millions of JObleSs
Would the supreme court dare
stand in the way of measure
which its friends say would put
100000 persons back at work?
In time of stress, how great would
be the reaction against the SUI
preme court? There is heated ar
gument as to whether the SUI
preme court would hold against the
thirty-hour week, and less argu-
ment, in congress at least, as to
whether it should.
The approach to the thirty-hour
week is made through the right
which the Constitution gives con-
gress to regulate interstate COM
merce.
If congress has the power to say
what commodities shall enter in
terstate trade it may, as the Black
bill provides, prohibit interstate
commerce in articles manufactured
by labor employed more than five
70 a WCCA vi OLA 1lOuIS d OdN.
The claim is made that congress,
in the public interest may do that.
Protection for People
The power to regulate commerce,
it is contended, carries with it the
right to protect the people from the
kind of commerce that produces
widespread restitution and want
and to prescribe rules that will save
commerce from destruction. In
creasing unemployment, causing a
decreasing purchasing power, is
strangling commerce.
The great voice of former Justice
Oliver Wendell Holmes in the mi
nority opinion on the child labor
act-an act which barred child la
Dor products from interstate COM
merce-is re-echoed by those who
claim constitutionality for the
thirty-hour week, and believe that
the supreme court, in view of it's
more liberal tendencies and changed
conditions, will uphold them.
Justice Holmes said: THE statute
confines itself to the prohibiting the
carriage of certain goods in inter-
state or foreign commerce. Congress
is given power to regulate such
commerce in unqualified terms. It
would not be argued today that the
power to regulate does not include
the power to prohibit.
Regulation means the prohibition
of something. and when interstate
commerce is the matter to be regu-
lated, I can not doubt that the
regulation may prohibit any part of
such commerce that Congress sees
fit to forbid"
A majority of the court held
against Holmes view in the most
famous 5-to-4 decision
Structure Is Threatened
The enemies of the thirty-hour
week use that decision to demon
strate the Black bills unconstitu-
tionality.
The courts majority then held
that congress had transcribed "the
N>NNN~AAAU J ACACSdOCQ ONS1
and that if it could so regulate
commerce all freedom of COM
merce will be at an end, and the
power of the states over local mat
tiers may be eliminated, and thus
our system of government be prac-
tically destroyed"
But the high court has been
known to change its opinions
notably on the income tax law
as to what is in the public inter-
est.
There has been an increasingly
Judicial tendency to emphasize hu-
man relationships and social neces-
sites in the application of human
principles. And it is recognized