The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-04-13

Ju0BG6 SCOIupOo~ ". ~. :. e.5 .f ing 1t. In 1895 7. W.RitEPatrseE MT. Justice Shiras voted that the income tax law WAS constitution al. A month later MT. Justice ShiraS voted that the income tax : law was unconstitutional. And gave no reason whatever for his change of view. The speedaof that personal reversiol was, I think, g record. It has taken the, Supreme Court fourteen years to change its opinion about the rights of states to set up minimum wage legisla- ton and by vote of five, to four. About which division more later. Adkins Case
 Along about 1923 the Court was called upon to decide the sconsti-: tutionality of a law relating to the payment of minimum wage for women in the District of Columbia which is much nearer home than the state of washington. "A, fe- male named Adkins was employed, if my memory serves me correct ly,~ in the Children,s Hospital of the District whether as nurse, diaper-chapger, or Scrublady I do not recAl.r In any event she wanted the money which the law said she should receive for her services and not being paid it, she brought suit to get 1t. The Su- preme Court, flguratively of course, tossed Miss Adkins out on her shell-like ear and chucked the law under which she brought her action right out with her. The reason given by a majority of The Nine Old Men was that the Dis trict act was defective because no inclusion was made i'm it for the service to be rendered In return for the wages paid. "
 New York at Bat
 The sovereign State of New York undeterred by what had happened to the Adkins ear went ahead and passed a. law to insure that women and minors working in that comm aonwealth would re- ceive for their labor something more than the amount given by hard-hearted Chinese employers to; their cooAes. It took care in drawing the measure to, see that the defect the Supreme Court found in the Adkins case was re- moved. A laundry operator in Manhattan thought the New York minimum wage enactment was al- together cuckoo and the supreme court of that state agreed with him. Whereupon the Empire State galloped to the Supreme Court in Washington for sde- cision and got it--in the popularly known neck. By 8 vote of five to four the tribunal of last resort in this country found the New York state law unc onstItutional because 1t violated the due lpro6e re- quirement of the Fourteenth Amendment to the, Constitution by way of no harm, also the free dom of contractD which is sip- posed to exist in the relation Of worker and boss. There was 8 fu- rious row over the finding which was, to my mind, more responsible for the present agitation over the Supreme Court than allsthe New Deal measures that body ever Ad- kinsed. Because it, obviously set up what has been called, a No Mans Land" in America where neither state nor the national gov ernment. could legislate to abolish industrial abuses. Up to this point the Nine Old Men remained os- tensibly unchanged in its legal viewpoint, s
 Washington Law
 Like the State of New York the sovereign State. of Washington passed a minimum wage law for women and in process of time it was brought to- the Supreme Court of the United, States which declared 1t constitutional by 2 vote of i've to four. The position taken by the majority justices that the issue raised by the Washington act and that of the New York and Adkins acts was altogether ditfer- ent. In the Washington legisla- ton the point was not the prin- ciplee of the minimum wage, free dom of contract, due process of law, etc.. etc., but the constitution ality of a state; statute which