The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-06-23


 Washington, June g = The Re- publican party has formally de- clared its belief that states can con- additionally pass minimum wage laws, despite the supreme courts to 4 adverse decision in New York's Tipaldo case.
 The Democratic party is shyine of the constitutional issue, al though the courts opinion in thV New York csse it's most unpopular decision of the last three years.
 Governor Landon isn't sure wte. ther the states can have such lawl constitutionally, and favorS ar amendment if they can't.
 New York and II other states have decided to continue enforce ment of their minimum wage laws for women and children despite the TipaldO decision.
 The attorney general of New York Is petitiOning for rehear- ing of the case and his petition will come before the court for de- C1S10n next faIl.
 The supreme court goes on the spot again, its ultimate decision tied in closely with the campaign, in Q case which threatens its prestige and in which it will be hard put to reconcile an adverse decision with a previous favorable decision in a similar case.
 Here's a Revelation
 All this needs some explaining and any lawyer can do 1t for you if he is smart enough.
 Astonishing as 1t may seen1- when you consider the fact that no one seemed to notice 1t at the time the court didn't definitely adjudi- cate the validity of the New York law, as all or nearly all of us sup- posed.
 The majority opinion was ex- preSsly based on a SuppOsitiOn that the state of New York had not asked the court to reconsider the constitutional questions decid- ed In the Adkins case and that the validity of the principles up- on which that decision rested were not challenged.
 The Adkins case involved . feds eral minimum wage law for the District of Columbia, which the court killed in 1923 by . vote of 5 to 3.
 The majority concluded that the New York law could not be dis tinguished from the invalidated District of Columbia law. But it didn't decide that by looking at the New York law and comparing 1t with the D. 0. statute. It merely said that the New York Court of Appeals had so construed it as to make it indistinguishable from the previous law.
 Slide Around Issue
 Authors of the New York law had tried to frame 1t to meet the objections raised in the Adkins case. New York state asked whether the objections had been met successfully and whether the court, notably in the Nebbia New York milk control law case, hadn't since 1923 modified its position on the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
 These issues the majority ducked, except as 1t said 1t couldn't go be- yond the appeals courts opinion as to indistinguishability of the two laws.
 Thus Justice Roberts, who had delivered the opinion in the Neb- bia case, was able to go along with Justices Sutherland, Butler, Van Devanter, and McReynOlds, without seeming definitely to rec verse his own position.
 In the Nebbia case he had flatly denied that "there is something peculiarly sacrosanct about the price one may charge for what he makes or sells" and had asserted that "so far as the requirement. of due process is concerned :. a state is free to adopt whatever economic policy may reasonably be deemed to promote public well fare and to enforce that policy by legislation adapted to its purpose .'' Thus the petition for reconsid- eration, backed by the 12 states, is in effect an attempt to smoke out Roberts and find out what he really means.