The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-04-13
NEA Service Writer

NEA Service Writer
 Washington.-The 30-hour week bill tor industry passed by the sen ate, if it becomes law, will raise one of the most vital constitutional questions in the history of the na- ton.
 The supreme court must some day decide whether congress has power to fix the hours ot labor. If 1t decides that congress has that power, in the opinion of many constitutional lawyers, it will i'm ply a similar power to regulate both wages and the prices of com modities.
 What Will Court Do? Congress would then have vir- tually unlimited power over in dustry. The revolutionary possi-
 bilities of Senator Blacks bill thus becomes obvious. The sen ate's passage of it represents the first major step toward large l federal control over a huge indus trial system which has been un- able to control itself and is now in a very bad way-to the distress of millions of citizens.
 Would the supreme court dare stand in the way of a measure l which its friends say would put 6,500,00O persons back at work ? In time of stress, how great would be the reaction against the su- prcmc court. There is heated ar guments as to whether the su- preme court would hold against the 30-hour week and less argu- ment, in congress at least, as to whether it should.
 The approach to the 30-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 interstate trade 1t may, as the Black bill provides, prohibit interstate commerce in articles manufactured by labor employed more than five days a week or l six hours a day. ,3
 The claim is made that con gress, in the public interest, may do that.
 The power to regulate con- merce, it is contended, carries with 1t the right to protect the people from the kind of commerce that products widespread Restitution and want and to prescribe rules that will save commerce from de- struction. Increasing unemploy- ment, causing q decreasing pur- chasing power, is strangling com
 merce.
 Justice Holiness View
 l The great voice of former Jus tice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in the minority opinion on the child labor act--an act which barred child la- bor products from interstate com- merce--is re-echoed by those who
 claim constitutoinality for the &C., hour week and believe that the su-
 preme court, in view of it's. more liberal tendencies and changed con- ditions, will uphold them.
 l Justice Holmes said: "The statute
 confines itself to the prohibiting the carriage of certain goods in interstate or foreign goods in interstate or foreign commerce. Congress is given power to regulate such commerce in unqualified terms. It would not be argued to- day that the power to regulate does not include the power to pro- hibit. Regulation means the pro- hibition of something, and when l AhtCiStAtO lS tnc IIldltcE | to be regulated l cannot doubt that the regulation may prohibit any part of such commerce that con- gress sees fit to forbid"
 A majority of the court held against Holmes view in the most famous 5-to-4 decision.
 Cite Old Decision The enemies of the 30-hour week | use that decision to demonstrate | the Black bills unconstitutionality. The courts majority then held that | congress had transcended "the authority delegated over com merce" and that if it could so regulate commerce "all freedom of commerce will be at an end, and the power of the states over local matters may be eliminated, and | thus our system of government be